RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

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Siegmund is again hurt. Like in his first sea bath (he receives
an injury), he hurts his elbow on a rock.
is capable of inflicting severe wounds.
The sea, like Helena,
She is warm and tender
in appearance — like the sand on the surface — but she is cold
and harsh inside: "He could not believe that the lovely, smooth
side of the rock, fair as his own side with its ripple of
muscle, could have hurt him thus" (p.112). But soon he forgets
the wound when he returns to his narcissistic self-admiration.
This idea comes mixed with his feeling that, seen from inside,
he is worthless: "'And I,' he said, lying down in the warm sand,
'I am nothing. I do not count; I am inconsiderable1... 'Well,'
he said, 'if I am nothing dead I am nothing alive'" (p.113).
Siegmund is already thinking about death.
However, it is a long
distance there, and he must pass through a strong conflict
between thought and action.
Helena also takes her last bath.
Again she compares the
sea with her lover and in the same way that she rejects the man
as a lover, she rejects the sea.
Her immaturity in relation to
sex leads her to see it just as a box of treasure into which she
will only peep now and then to discover its content. But before
she achieves her goal she recoils from the danger sexuality may
cause her.
That is why she refuses both man and the sea: "She
wandered back to her rock-pools; they were bright and docile;they
did not fling her about in a game of terror" (p.114).
When the lovers meet again, their mood changes. Helena is
happy because of her childish explorations and Siegmund is
tormented by guilt.
He (as Helena did before) disguises his
feelings so as not to spoil her happiness.
There is an attempt
to evaluate the holiday and Helena again feels that she is
responsible for everything that happened to them. She claims the