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RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

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274<br />

next morning he simply goes to shoot rabbits as if he had nothing<br />

to do to help the girls.<br />

There is also a suggestion that<br />

intentionally he does not find a place to stay in the town.<br />

is not worried as he should be: "He left the matter to them.<br />

He<br />

He<br />

was rather calm about it" (p.101).<br />

Moreover, when Banford tells<br />

him that he can stop at the farm, his behaviour is typical of<br />

people with hidden purposes who do not want to be discovered:<br />

A smilelike a cunning flame came over his face,<br />

suddenly and involuntarily. He dropped his head<br />

quickly to hide it, and remained with his head<br />

dropped, his face hidden (p.102 - My underlining).<br />

The impression is that Henry schemes and plots, but, yet (like a<br />

child), he several times reveals his feelings, as the passage<br />

implies.<br />

And here he is exultant as if he had won his first<br />

round. The second one would be to hunt March. Henry is a false,<br />

perverse character.<br />

He has two ways of treating the girls. With<br />

March he is furtive and with Banford he is kind, gentle, but he<br />

sounds false.<br />

When he is sure of his staying "His face beamed,<br />

and he almost rubbed his hands with pleasure" (p.103).<br />

work,<br />

Henry keeps around the farm, trying to help with the<br />

- but not too much. He loved to be out alone with<br />

the gun in his hands, to watch, to see. For his<br />

sharp-eyed, impersonal curiosity was insatiable,<br />

and he was most free when he was quite alone,<br />

half-hidden, watching (ibid).<br />

Now Lawrence points out what Henry is - a sharp impersonal young<br />

man who is not a farm worker, but a hunter, or a mercenary ready<br />

to catch an enemy for the sake of a prize or something similar.<br />

That is why he is almost always observing his surroundings,<br />

looking for his prey:<br />

Particularly he watched March. She was a<br />

strange character to him. Her figure, like a

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