RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

CHAPTER IV
1
WOMEN IN LOVE: THE PROCESS OF DESTRUCTION AND CREATION
Lawrence used to say that Women in Love is a 'sequel' to
The Rainbow although it is quite unlike it."*" One may say that
The Rainbow 'distills' life into a process of pure creation
whereas Women in Love, a definitive product of the first
world war, encompasses a process of 'de-creation' and of the
decadence of modern society.
However, the novel is not only
representative of destruction and decadence.
It is more than
that.
It shows that it is possible to fight against destruction
and build through it a new life.
The novel implies too that it
is useless to create a new life by simply rejecting the values
of the old life.
These values cannot be forgotten because
inevitably they will influence the new values.
After all, the
new life will be created out of the old.
And the characters,
despite their intentions, carry within their inner selves both
the seeds of creation plus the seeds of destruction.
They cannot
simply say 'I represent the new world because I have destroyed
the old one.' They must add that in fact they represent something
^see Daleski, 1965 , p. 126.