Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Dil ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi Dergisi, cilt.59, sa.2, ss.772-792, 2019 (Hakemli Dergi)
D. H. Lawrence conceives of tragedy as affirmative and criticizes the destructive ornegative perception of it. To Lawrence, tragedy can be defeated through the resistant,creative will, which struggles for the regeneration of the spirit in a materialistic existence.Lawrence dramatizes the tragedy of modernism by looking at numerous types of conflictwhich are interwoven such as the conflict between labour and capital, generationalconflict, gender conflict, the tragic condition of love, industrialism, and the tragedy of war.However, his affirmative vision of the tragic condition of modernity can be observed ineach conflict. It can be argued that Lawrence offers the expressionist zeal for utopianreformation in society as a cure for modernist tragedy. The play Touch and Go illuminatesLawrence's reaction/resistance to tragedy in a creative, expressionist aspect. This paperargues that the play Touch and Go demonstrates Lawrence's idea of defance of the “touchand go” condition of modernism and of industrialism, through expressionist resistance.The play contains the discussion and conflict between the opposite perceptions of thetragic, which Lawrence names “a mess” and “an art”, the negative and the affirmativeconceptions of tragedy. The conflict between the colliers and the owners is the main sourceof tragedy depicted in the play, which the text suggests, can be overcome throughexpressionist resistance. The expressionist search for a new self or order in an inhumanand confining society is central to the play. The concept of dehumanisation is treated inexpressionist aspects such as the use of grotesque elements, allegorical characters andstereotypical language which reinforce the idea of the condition of industrial conflict as amuddle. Furthermore, artistic acts and elements function as an antidote to tragedy, withexpressionist aspects.