RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

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because she is not conscious of her coming change.
When Henry approaches March to start the hunting, there
is another hint that he does not match entirely with the
description of the ideal hunter.
He acts exactly in the way
described as being the wrong way to approach 'the animal':
'Well,1 he said, and his voice was so soft it
seemed a subtle touch, like the merest touch of a
cat's paw,.a feeling rather than a sound. 'Well -
I wanted to ask you to marry me.'
March felt rather than heard him ... It seemed
to her that fine sparks came out of him.
Then very suddenly she said:
'Don't try any of your tomfoolery on me '
(pp. 105-6 - My underlining) .
Henry loses the first round of the hunt.
March up to now is
still mistress of herself.
An interesting point here is the
choice of the image for his voice: a cat's paw. A cat's paw
is at the same time caressive and also aggressive because of
the hidden sharp claws.
Anyway, the hunter misses his first
leap proving once more that he is not so clever as the hunter of
the description.
However, he is persistent for he does not give
up.
Perhaps the second round is exactly what Lawrence meant when
he said that this hunt should be like a battle of wills.
Thus
Henry's persistence makes him get some success out of his second
attempt:
'Yes, I do know what I'm talking about. Yes, I
do,' he persisted softly, as if he were producing
his voice in her blood... A swoon went over her as
he concluded. He spoke rapidly in the rapid
Cornish fashion - and his voice seemed to sound in
her somewhere where she was helpless against it.
'Age is nothing'. The soft, heavy insistence of it
made her sway dimly out there in the darkness. She
could not answer (p.106 - My underlining).
Despite the fact that March tells him 'I'm old enough to be your
mother' which implies the Oedipal dimension of the relation,
Henry does not seem to care about this.
In fact he has become