RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

45
the control the whole family without being
contradicted.
The poor husband has then to creep back to his
shell and the only refuge that is allowed to him is the bars.
Even the children he is not allowed to love, for his wife, in a
certain way, forbids him to love them.
Apart from this
'prohibition' the children cannot feel the father as part of the
house.
They take the side of the mother in the fights in which
they are always present.
The mother forces the children to side
with her because she lets them see the flaws of the father.
Mrs
Morel thus lives for her children and Walter for his work and
drinking. Home means rage, fear and unhappiness. Walter resents
the fact that he has no love from the children.
He knows that
they do not belong to him, as he sneers to his wife:
'Look at the children, you nasty little bitchl'he
sneered 'why, what have I done to the children,
I should like to know? But they are like yourself;
you've put' em up to your own tricks and nasty
ways— you've learned' em in it, you'ave.' (p.77
- My underlining)
Few peaceful moments between the couple are presented in
the book.
One of them happens when Morel gets sick and his wife
is 'forced' to take care of him.
As he recovers, life seems a
little better for husband and wife stop fighting for some time
(it may be because Mrs Morel does not have any reason to go into
a fight — her husband is at home and for a while is not
drinking).
It is in this sort of 'ceasefire' that the last son
Arthur is born.
What is most interesting to notice here is that,
for the first time, the couple together chooses the name of the
boy (William and Annie's are not mentioned, and Paul's name is
only chosen by the mother).
This seems to be the only moment in
the novel that the couple agrees to do a common thing (besides,
of course, going to bed).
Moreover, Arthur is the only son who