Female Desire: Defiant Text and Intercultural Context in Works by D.H. Lawrence and Eileen Chang

D. H. Lawrence’s The Virgin and the Gipsy and Eileen Chang’s “Lust, Caution” feature a female character who withdraws from society to find her authentic self elsewhere. Yvette, Lawrence’s heroine, betrays her social class in falling for a gipsy. Similarly, Chang tells a story of a Chinese woman, a nationalist spy who unexpectedly falls in love with a traitor who she is to assassinate. Both authors achieve similar ends while showing subtle cultural differences. Although they focus on women’s desires and openly rebel against their own societies, they confront different dominant conventions and cultural ideologies in their personal settings.