RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

passage is nothing more than an extension of the "Mino" chapter.
Again we see that Birkin does not practice what he preaches.
Birkin needs to repeat and repeat his philosophy to himself as
a perverse way to force acceptance of something he actually does
not believe.
In denying sex, Birkin is denying his fierce
desire to dominate.
Birkin hammers at this notion of 'pure'
beings in a relation as if to say: 'believe this, believe this'.
But it does not reassure the reader.
All these feelings of hatred for sex, the 'merging and
mingling of love', is a direct consequence of Birkin's sick
relation with Hermione.
She destroyed (with his permission) his
freedom in love because she clutched him like glue sticks to
paper, preventing him from living apart from her.
Birkin,
because of this, is always associating women in general with
Hermione:
it seemed to him, woman was always so horrible
and clutching, she had such a lust for possession,
a greed of self-importance in love. She wanted
to have, to own, to control, to be dominant.
Everything must be referred back to her, to
Woman, the Great Mother of everything, out of
whom proceeded everything and to whom everything
must finally be rendered up (p.192).
Thus, Ursula is the same to Birkin as Hermione.
Ursula, too, is
the 'Great Mother’, the Magna Mater, the Mater Dolorosa.
She
is everything that is connected with possessiveness and selfsufficiency.
Ursula is also "the queen bee on whom all the rest
depended'! (ibid) .
Therefore Eirkin proceeds to reject Ursula
and turn to Gerald.
In order to clarify Birkin's proposal of Blutbrtiderschaft
to Gerald (which first occurs in the chapter "Man to Man") some
events relating to the two men must be recalled.
Every time
Gerald and Birkin are seen together there is always an