어슐라 대 어슐라

Ursula vs. Ursula: Breaking the Glass Ceiling

This essay explores Ursula’s trial to break the ‘glass ceiling’ in D. H. Lawrence’s The Rainbow and Women in Love. ‘Glass Ceiling is an economic term, used in The Wall Street Journal at first, which refers to invisible and unbreakable wall for the attitudes and traditions in a society that prevent women from rising to the top jobs. Discrimination and prejudice against gender exist in our society, so women still have a hard time getting promotions or any achievements. This essay examines the women’s trials to break the ceiling in men-centered system. Ursula was characterized in both The Rainbow and Women in Love, so the two novels are usually regarded as a series. But the works should be considered separately because the backgrounds and situations in each work are different. In Women in Love, after the World War Ⅰ, characterizations of women take complicated and ambiguous attitudes. Even though the situations and system in the society are different from now, we can find the similar competitions and irrationalities also. So how each Ursula in The Rainbow and Women in Love resists and accepts them in each work will be examined.