RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

implies the difference between ordinary girls and special ones.
The special ones are soulful women.
Hence, Mrs Morel and Miriam
are of the 'deep sort', made of the same tissue.
They are
special creatures.
Mrs Morel asserts once more through this
declared rivalry that Miriam is her twin sister.
The
competition between them starts right here.
The sense of competition is clearly stated when Paul and
Miriam agree in not going together every Thursday to the library
in Bestwood.
Mrs Morel's feelings are those of someone who has
won a battle, for "The Thursday evenings which had been so
precious to [Miriam], and to [Paul] were dropped.
He worked
instead.
Mrs Morel sniffed in satisfaction at this arrangement."
(p.213 - My underlining).
The Morels' home turns again into a battlefield.
Instead
of Walter being the enemy, Miriam replaces him.
She is not
welcome there and Mrs Morel does not hide her disgust in seeing
her rival there:
deferential way.
"'Good evening Mrs Morel,' she said, in a
She sounded as if she had no right to be there.
'Oh, is it you Miriam?' replied Mrs Morel cooly" (p.215).
However, Mrs Morel knows her son well enough to sense that being
hard to Miriam, she will lose grounds in her love for Paul.
Thus as a shrewd person she will not give her son the
opportunity of reproaching her.
Miriam is blamed for every little change the mother notices
in her son: "Mrs Morel hated her for making her son like this.
She watched Paul growing irritable, priggish,
and melancholic.
For this she put the blame on Miriam" (p.221).
The problem is that Mrs Morel cannot bear the sense of