RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

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exploits Loerke and vice versa.
Birkin has a deep attachment
to.
Gerald who, coincidentally or not, is tall and blond too.
Birkin seeing such a distorted mirror of himself wants perhaps
to deny Loerke's very presence.
Birkin tells Gerald (who
dislikes the artist too):
'[Loerke] lives like a rat in the river of
corruption, just where it falls over the bottomless
pit. He's farther on than we are. He hates the
ideal more acutely. He hates the ideal utterly,
yet it dominates him ... He is a gnawing little
negation, gnawing at the roots of life ... he's
the wizard rat that swims ahead' (pp.418-9).
There is a very important scene which puts Loerke, Gerald
and Gudrun together against Ursula.
It is the trinity of
destruction against the one who fights for creation.
Gudrun,
Ursula and Loerke are discussing his art.
He brings them a
photo of a statuette of a naked adolescent sitting on a naked
great stallion.
Her face seems distorted by shame and grief.
The prototype is of the dominant male (symbolized by the horse)
subjugating and hurting the female.
The work implies a sadomasochistic
relation and, according to Ursula, is a picture of
Loerke himself.
Gudrun of course disagrees because she
identifies herself with the young girl and the animal reminds
her of Gerald's power over his Arab mare.
together express exactly the same thing.
These two scenes put
Gerald is the stallion
in Loerke's statuette, and the Arab mare is the adolescent girl
(or Gudrun).
of Loerke.
Gudrun feels immediately excited by this feature
It is one more reason for her attraction to him to
grow. That is why her attitude is slave-like: "Gudrun went
pale, and a darkness came over her eyes, like shame, she looked
up with a certain supplication, almost slave-like..." (p.420).
Ursula, on the other hand, has a completely different reaction.
She criticizes Loerke: "'The horse is a picture of your own