RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

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in the expectancy to find a 'formal love' to marry in order to
run away from it.
However, at the same time, this idea may
contradict her belief that marriage is "the end of experience"
because in marriage she may meet the same commonplace atmosphere
of her home.
Viewed by other characters, the sisters display different
'modern virtues': Gudrun is "always on the defensive", Birkin
says of her to Gerald.
Hermione evaluates the sisters: "Gudrun
was the more beautiful and attractive... Ursula was more physical,
more womanly" (p.75).
In fact Gudrun seems a disconnected
spirit who has trouble adjusting herself to a world which is too
mean for her taste.
Ursula is more ordinary but with a more
integrated being than Gudrun.
If one can make a parallel,
Gudrun is somehow like Hermione.
The difference is that Gudrun's
motive for 'worship' is not the mind but the body.
with Gerald the power to submit and to dominate.
She exchanges
Her sister, on
the other hand, fights with Birkin to find an equilibrium in
love, a communion between mind and body.
It seems, therefore,
that both sisters represent creation and destruction.
Both
belong to the old and new world.
Another idea that Lawrence seems to be introducing in his
novel is that it may be possible to find alternatives apart from
marriage.
The author tries to introduce options for both male
and female relations. The first one, Blutbrtiderschaft,is the
alternative proposed by Birkin to Gerald.
The other one relates
to a possible relationship between women, a kind of 'female
bonding' as an alternative to marriage.
Both alternatives, which
will be discussed later on, are implied in Gerald's wrestling
with Birkin and in the dance performance by Gudrun, Ursula and
the Contessa in Hermione's home.
The idea is that either men or