RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

40
1. The Morels' Marriage - The Strength of the Soulful Woman
There began a battle between the husband and wife
-— a fearful, bloody battle that ended only with
the death of one. She fought to make him undertake
his own responsibilities, to make him fulfil his
obligations. But he was too different from her.
His nature was purely sensuous, and she strove
to make him moral, religious. She tried to force
him to face things He could not endure it — it
drove him out of his mind. (p.23 - M y underlining)
Early in Sons and Lovers Lawrence provides the key to the
story of the Morel family.
This is to say that there must be a
death in order to restore, or to initiate a path towards freedom
in the family.
Since the very beginning of this novel the
author makes the readers
aware that this is not a story with a
'happy-ending'.
On the contrary, he is warning them of the
difficult struggle between people who are weak and people who are
strong.. There is. no _.real balance in this
novel,
at least in the sense that strength is not always shared
among the characters.
Some are too strong, others are too weak.
In the novel there is always a feeling of people dominating
people and, therefore, there is also the reverse: people
submitting to people.
They rarely share anything (except perhaps
in the case of Paul Morel and his mother, who must be considered
separately).
What they do not have they look for in those who
have and as soon as they get what they want, they feel tired and
go to search for others to fulfil their necessities.
seems to be that of possessiveness and selfishness.
The idea
Most of the
time they only want to take, but they hardly give anything,
especially when the subject is love.
One full example of this is
Gertrude Morel who
is one of the main protagonists of Lawrence's Sons and Lovers.
She is the personification of 'power', 'authority', 'integrity'