RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

everything: life and death.
He is consummated in his intercourse
with the church.
Anna, on the other hand, is no dreamer like her
husband. The church is not absolute. It is only part of the
universe.
There exists the outside world which she considers as
being much more important: "the open sky was no blue vault, no
dark dome hung with many twinkling lamps, but a space where stars
were wheeling in freedom, with freedom, above them always higher"
(p.203).
It can be said that the couple's reaction to the church
in fact defines their styles of love-making.
He gives up
himself to merge with some mystical absolute; she, on the other
hand, keeps control over herself and uses sex for her own ends.
She remains within the ego.
Later on, he will learn to pursue
this cold sensuality too, after his disillusionment. Anna (and
her 'style') is of course more 'modern' than Will, who was
medieval and agrarian.
For the moment, Anna's anger towards her
husband's ecstasy makes her fight him off.
The way she finds
to express her discord against Will is to turn to the scattered
things, objects, paintings and gargoyles in the place so as not
to feel imprisoned by the church.
Because of Anna's different
behavior Will feels her as if she were a 'serpent in Eden'.
Both leave the cathedral and the feeling is that Anna has
destroyed Will's illusions and faith.
In a way we can say that
Anna has shown her husband that it is useless to believe in what
things represent.
They are what they are, not what they seem to
be.
Yet "He wanted his cathedral; he wanted to satisfy his
blind passion" (p.205). It is too late. Anna has made him lose
his 'absolute' and he comes to think that the cathedral is no
more than a symbol which he loves but which is not the most
important thing in life.
As Will cannot find fulfilment with Anna because of her