D. H. Lawrence’s theatre: identity and naturalism in a Collier's Friday night

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to describe the relation between identity and naturalism in D. H. Lawrence’s play A Collier’s Friday Night. Lawrence’s drama usually becomes a fusion of the autobiographical and the fictive, making a strenuous effort to become realistic and of social denounce. The paper also deals with the ideological connotations of the play, which has traditionally been seen as a highly naturalistic private drama, lacking of interest compared to Lawrence’s novels. The creative opportunities of generational, psychological or linguistic conflicts are described by Becket as ‘the inevitable opposition between male and female principles that co-exist within the individual’ (100); they make of the play a microcosm of the wider hegemonic normativity. The play’s educational component and its depiction of the economic relationships make of it an odd play. Its constrains reflect the fact that ‘nothing happens, yet the continual play of love and hate, the living process of young lives being moulded by the domestic and social and economic environment and asserting themselves against the pressures, controls the movement’ (Sagar 3). These pressures are often expressed physically, creating a sense of claustrophobia. The lack of dramatic climax make the audience perceive the ideological connotations when characters are forced also to return to their daily routines in an environment where women become perpetuators of the hegemonic values and also victims of them, as they have not succeeded in their emancipation.