Le isole infelici di D.H. Lawrence

L E ISOLE INFELICI DI D.H. L AWRENCE Stefania Michelucci The aim of this paper is to illustrate the development and failure of Lawrence’s ideal of founding a perfect, alternative society (Rananim) after the collapse of post-war Europe, and its ironic projection in the story “The Man Who Loved Islands”. From the escapist dream of an “Isle of the Blest” far away from England, Rananim had developed – largely as a con - sequence of Lawrence’s friendship with Bertrand Russell – into the ideal of a revolutionary movement aiming to change the world (“the island shall be England, we shall start our new community in the midst of this old one”, Letters ii, 277). When his homeland proved unwilling to change, Lawrence went into utter isolation and complete withdrawal from society in Corn - wall; from this moment onward “Rananim” reflects Lawrence’s never-end - ing hope of breaking clear of the old world and setting off in search of the ultimate place, “our Rananim”, now increasingly perceived as a kind of “little monastery” inhabited by very few people. Lawrence’s Utopian dream (which is reflected in the prophetic tone of all his works) reveals its inherent paradox in the story “The Man Who Loved Islands”, where he not only creates a parody of his own failure, but clearly emphasizes the “sin” of presumption involved in the idea of creating a perfect society, expecting to reach perfection and uniformity in Life and Nature, which are intrinsically linked with imperfection and multiplicity. The particular interest of this story lies in the fact that by means of the protagonist’s movement to three different islands, Lawrence points out the failure of three different Utopias (the happy self-sufficient community, the Garden of Eden with a few subservient people, and total isolation from the human world), thus revealing the inevitable degeneration of any “perfect” tiny little world – when the ideal discloses its taint of imperfection – into dystopia, reaching the point where the two extremes coincide on the last island at the end of the story.