Metaphor and Metonymy of Colors in Lawrence’s Fictional Works

Abstract

D. H. Lawrence is one of the most unique and controversial novelists in the twentieth-century English literature. With his abundant legacies of fiction, poetry, and other works, D. H. Lawrence has attracted the critics’ attention from all over the world. However, it is the theme of his novels that the critics mainly focus on, and his strategies in arranging the narration, especially his use of color words, do not receive enough attention. Very few of the critical essays or books have analyzed in detail the color usage in Lawrence’s fictions, though these chromatic terms prevail nearly every piece of his writings. Even fewer answered the questions as to why Lawrence strenuously depicted the colors, and what are the reasons behind this kind of narration. Accordingly this essay takes into account the importance of color usage in Lawrence’s selected fictional works in light of Jakobson’s theory on metaphor and metonymy, seeking to give further insight into Lawrence’s techniques, concerns and objectives.