Original scientific paper
Territorial Dimension of D. H. Lawrence's The Rainbow: From Blood and Soil to Deterritorialization
Katarina Hraste
Abstract
D. H. Lawrence's novel The Rainbow is a family saga about the progress of the Brangwen family from a closely-knit family of farmers to fully fledged individuals, with a visionary, almost postmodern conclusion. It is also probably the most territorial of all Lawrence’s novels. The strong presence of the blood and soil bond that can be found at its opening, and the sanitary cordon that has been thrown around such texts after the Second World War, are the most likely reasons why Lawrence’s interesting dynamic treatment of territory and territoriality in this novel has not been recognized so far. Yet, in The Rainbow the idea of territoriality implies much more than the blood and soil from its beginning, including a revolutionary new attitude to strangers and the territories on the ‘periphery’ that challenged the ruling imperialism of the day, the transformation of the territory from soil to ‘home space’, the migration of the concept of colonization from its original geopolitical context to the domestic and body contexts in the family’s second generation, and the presentation of the third generation’s refusal of identification with a territory in the way that calls to mind Deleuze’s concept of deterritorialization.
Keywords
D. H. Lawrence; The Rainbow; territoriality; imperialism; deterritorialization
Hrčak ID:
333983
URI
Publication date:
24.7.2025.
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