RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

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She looked up at him with tears running from
her eyes, a senseless look of helplessness and -
submission. So she gazed on him as if sightless,
yet looking up at him. She would never leave
him again. He had won her. And he knew it and
was glad, because he wanted her for his life.
His life must have her. And now he had won her.
It was what his life must have (ibid).
This would be a satisfactory end because March is seen in
submissive terms in relation to Henry.
She, who started looking
down at Henry, is now looking up at him which shows her
inferiority towards the man.
But Lawrence's story goes on and
the end of the novella does not show clearly who is the master
of whom.
In fact Lawrence's narrative shows an internal
conflict between March's.will-to-independence and Henry's
chauvinistic desire to put her down at his feet.
There is no
conclusion in the battle as we will see in more detail in the
conclusion of this work.
"The Fox" closes Lawrence's second phase.
This novella
plus Women in Love marks the struggle for balance in perhaps the
most serious way.
And although neither of them clearly presents
a successful love-match,
Women in Love can be said to present
through Ursula and Birkin a feeling of a more or less balanced
couple exactly because they preserve their differences.
This
does not occur in "The Fox" because the characters do not in fact
verbalize their opposite opinions.
Birkin and Henry are indeed
chauvinists, but it can be said that because of Birkin's
intellectuality, he seems to hide this 'virtue' of his character
in a better way than Henry.
Birkin, no matter that his practice
is miles away from his theory, will never admit that he wants
to dominate Ursula.
Henry, on the other hand, is no more than
an adolescent who has no such intellectuality as Birkin's.
He
is in fact rude and perhaps due to this his practice is 'more