RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

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women have bisexual potentialities.
1.2. Life Roots Itself in the Past
GéraId and his family
People's lives always have connections with their past.
Thus the main characters of Women in Love have indeed
characteristics of their past which they intend either to erase
from their present lives or to reform
in.order to have a
better future.
Most of the characters attempt to change
something in themselves because in the past they have acted
wrongly or have been the inheritors of an interior anarchy
belonging to their parents or to whoever brought them up.
There is, however, one character whose past seems to be
deliberately obscure. This character is Rupert Birkin. The
reason for this obscurity is not clear.
We are told nothing of
Birkin's family or upbringing.
The only definite thing we have
from his past is his relationship with Hermione Roddice and his
friendship with the London bohemian group.
We also know that
although Birkin wants to break definitely with his decadent and
sick past, he cannot.
The reason may be that his strong relation
of dependence on Hermione is more than the simple fact of their
being lovers.
Hermione can be seen as Birkin's past, a sort of
mother-lover whom he will have in his mind as a kind of severe
punishment throughout his life and in whom he will base all his
future relationships (see chapter "Carpetting").
Even in his
attempt to build a new life with Ursula, denying Hermione's world,
one may sense that Hermione's influence will always be in Birkin.
Apart from this woman Birkin has no past.