RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

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Byrne's last speech implies that he will acquiesce to the
woman's need and will serve her.
In this ending, although written apparently as a closed
ending, Lawrence lets the characters explore their own
expectations.
This implies, I believe, that the author is not
imposing a fixed solution to the book.
In letting his characters
speak for themselves, the author is not controlling the narrative
as he does in Sons and Lovers and The Rainbow. And although this
is a dialogue, we perceive that the main implication is that the
'femme fatale', tired as she may be, will command the next ste*p
of her love affair.
Because of Byrne's mockery, however, no one
can guarantee that this man will only acquiesce and submit, like
Siegmund did.
The only hints which lead us to think of the
domineering female as the central figure in the relation, are the
ones which show the connection of Helena's past experience with
the new one.
If history is repeating itself in this affair, we
may assume that if'in the past the woman dominated her partner,
leading him to death, in the present she will dominate Byrne.
The consequences are unseen, but we can take for granted that the
man is Helena's next victim..
The assumption is, therefore, that
love is a struggle in "which one 'masters' the other.
Helena may
be seen as a figure of death in fact. The winner in this early
novel is the fatal woman, but this pattern tends to shift in
later works.
The ending of The Trespasser is the only one which seems
to be closed and its connection with the other endings, except
for women in Love, "The Fox" and The Plumed Serpent, is that the
woman is the strongest, she does not surrender to the man.
She
is the highest being, the spiritual bride.
Here there is no
balance. The 'fatal male' in The Plumed Serpent is not yet