RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

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was dying because she was discovering in herself the duplicity
of her being and also because of the necessity of having to
make a choice.
Her mind could never accept to being male and
female at the same time.
Her affair with Banford was
collapsing: "there was nothing to keep them up - and no hope"
(p.88) since that time.
The dead tree "had died in the summer,
and stood with all its needles brown and sere in the air" (p.
146). Banford, who stands for the feeding of March's male side,
can be seen as the needles of the dead tree which, though dead,
may still hurt.
Banford, being alive, means the persistence of
this side of March's personality.
The tree (and Banford in
extension) must be cut: "So March determined to have it, although
they were not allowed to cut any of the timber" (ibid).
March,
having decided to cut the tree (a phallic symbol or a
representation of the clitoris that represented March's
masculinity), is unconsciously trying to get rid of her male side.
A second idea is that March alone will never be able to destroy
this part in herself.
There must be someone else to help her.
This 'someone else' is no other than the man who awakened the
female in her: Henry.
when Henry arrives.
March is having trouble cutting the tree
No one who is there (Banford and her
parents) except for March recognizes the man in the distance.
All her previous reasons in the letter disappear: "The moment
she saw his glowing, red face it was all over with her.
She was
as helpless as if she had been bound" (p.148) .
She is no longer
feeling safe with Banford.
Henry has again aroused in her the
same sense of helplessness as when he first appeared in the
farm.
He is something she cannot fight against.
When he asks what they are doing, "March seemed not to
hear, as if in a trance" (p.149).
Banford answers in her place