The Sound of Silence

As one of the most notorious writers of English literature, D. H. Lawrence continues to engender interest and debate. The Sound of Silence breaks new ground through its dual focus on Lawrence's shorter fiction and, especially, his representations of unmarried women in their narrative and cultural context. Thus, it shows the significance of being an unmarried woman. By exploring the sociocultural significance of roles such as speech, silence, and images of women as virgins and prostitutes, sisterhood among women, and the possibility of androgyny, this study demonstrates that though Lawrence frequently exhibits the supremacy of Nature in short fiction that is sometimes essentialist and patriarchal toward women, he also exhibits his struggle to reexamine and interrogate that position.