RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

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connection with the land.
This is perhaps what makes his
personality something not yet hardened by the burden of the
competitive society which his grand-daughter Ursula is forced
to get along with.
Tom is a hearty fellow, a man dominated by feelings.
His
mental intelligence is not really developed.
In fact, when he
has to use his mind he is always at a disadvantage: "He was a
fool" (p.16).
Feelings for him are much more important than
reason.
Learning for him is like punishment: "He was glad to
leave school" (p.17).
One of the main troubles Tom has in his adolescence refers
to sex: "For him there was until that time only one kind of
woman — his mother and sister" (p.19). His conflict is due to
his initiation in sex with a prostitute.
This fact leads Tom to
feel guilty, ashamed and afraid.
Perhaps the reason for this is
that he has always been his mother's favorite and his
attachment to her leads him to fear the contact with women. They
are like his mother and, thus, any carnal contact
is a sin.
Tom somehow overcomes this sense of fear when he meets a
strange, forward woman to whom he makes love, but who, in fact,
has little importance to him.
This woman has a foreign middleaged
lover and Tom comes to know the man: "Of the two experiences,
perhaps the meeting with the foreigner was the more significant.
But the girl — he had not settled about the girl" (p.25).
The
strange connection of Tom and the man may be accounted for by the
fact that the foreign man is bringing to him something external,
that does not belong to the limits of the Marsh farm.
foreign; it is unknown (and also somehow decadent).
The
It is
encounter leads Tom to dream