RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

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thing seems to be the contradictoriness of this wish: the
couple wants to destroy all their links with a decadent society
and at the same time they wish to buy a used fragment of this
society.
They decide for an old and beautiful chair and buy it.
But soon, moved by the instinct of not having any link with the
past, they decide to give the chair away.
Ursula and Birkin
happen to find a couple, a pregnant woman, still unmarried, and
her fiancee, and decide to give them the chair.
Between the
pregnant woman and her man there is an air of hostility because
the man seems not very willing to marry the woman.
One can say
that the woman represents everything Birkin fears: she is
domineering and, although her fiancee seems to rebel against
her, he cannot do anything but accept her dominance over him. It
can also be said that both represent exactly everything Birkin
and Ursula want to escape: a conventional life, an established
home; in other words, they reproduce the ordinary world.
As
the chair is also an element of the old world, Birkin and Ursula
give it away and, after some hesitation, the couple accepts the
gift.
Though Birkin and Ursula have given the chair and their
jobs away, there are still other links which they do not, or
cannot, give away.
Perhaps this idea is more related to Birkin
than to Ursula, but anyway they keep some attachment to the
decadent world.
They decide to travel to the Alps, but not
alone. Gerald and Gudrun will join them. The other couple is,
consequently, a strong tie linking Birkin and Ursula with the
world of dissolution.
Ursula resists the idea of having her
sister and Gerald with them:
'You've got me,' she said. 'Why should you
need others? Why must you force people to agree
with you? Why can't you be single by yourself,