RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

33
indifferent to human life.
Yet h unvan i1~y is. snmehow responsible
for what is happening to it" (p.78).
He claims that in the
novel there is integration with nature only among animals and
plants, but not man. "Man", the critic claims, "should then be
swept away until some revolutionary cycle is ready to begin"
(ibid).
He adds to his analysis that man may have within himself
"the integrity of Bismarck(a rabbit) Which can be asserted
against hystorical processes", and that "Integrity, or 'truth in
being', manifests itself in personal, especially sexual
relationships, its presence guarantees creativeness, its absence
reduction, disintegration" (ibid).
Ursula and Birkin represent
a movement "towards distinctiveness and selving through their
coming together" and Gerald and Gudrun represent the contrary.
They "resolve back towards inanimate matter, symbolised in the
novel by ice and ..snow".
Therefore, both couples represent
respectively the cycle of creation and decay.
Ford claims that Women in Love still contains "the double
rhythms of destruction and creation" (p.164) which were present
in The Ra; inbow. He adds that "the rhythm of destruction is here
more insistent and compelling than the creative is" (ibid).
However,. "In Lawrence's novel, against a background of fetid
corruption, a man and woman do discover each other, and their
union establishes the possibility of hope and salvation" (p.168).
Of course he is talking about Ursula and Birkin.
Hough seems to me to have a moralistic view of the novel.
He says that the two couples in the story "are there to illustrate
a right and wrong way of love" (p.76).
I think that this
depends very much on what one takes as a 'right' or 'wrong' way
to love. His view is not very clear.
The Plumed Serpent is discussed by these critics (except