Ecological Precarity and Health Deterioration in D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers

This study examines ecological precarity and health deterioration in D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers with the objective of demonstrating how industrialisation and environmental degradation shape the physical, psychological, and social realities of the mining community. The study adopts Glotfelty’s ecocriticism as its theoretical framework and employs close reading and qualitative textual analysis to interrogate the relationship between the environment and human well-being in the novel. Although previous studies have predominantly focused on the psychoanalytic, psychological, sociological, and developmental dimensions of Sons and Lovers, they have paid limited attention to the nexus between ecological degradation and health deterioration. The findings reveal that Lawrence portrays the mining environment as a site of ecological destruction where industrial exploitation results in occupational hazards, disease, poverty, emotional instability, and the progressive deterioration of human health. The study contributes to existing scholarship by providing an ecocritical interpretation of Sons and Lovers that foregrounds the inseparability of environmental exploitation and human vulnerability. Ultimately, the study concludes that Lawrence advocates a harmonious relationship between humanity and nature as the foundation for environmental sustainability and human well-being.