Women in Love

How has language been used to shape meaning in 'Women in Love'

How has language been used to shape meaning in 'Women in Love' in chapter 1

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Women in Love is narrated in literary language, with sophisticated vocabulary, and a good number of high concepts. The book is not explicitly philosophical. It does not use specialized language of the philosopher, but it does center on a few philosophical concepts of the self's renewal through marriage, of the death of the organic world in the mechanized world of modern times. Birkin is the main spokesman for these ideas, but Hermione takes them up as well. The book is not completely at home in this vocabulary, though, for when The Pussum and Halliday make fun of one of Birkin's letters, the reader has to agree that there is substance to their criticisms. In this sense, the terms keep the characters themselves and the book and the reader in constant motion, for there is no ultimate resting place, where terms are settled and defined.