RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

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peace, satisfaction... She had thought there was
no source deeper than the phallic source. And now,
behold, from the smitten rock of the man's body,
from the strange marvellous flanks and thighs,
deeper, further in mystery than the phallic source,
came the floods of ineffable darkness and
ineffable riches (p.306).
and
In the short summer night [Connie] learnt so
much. She would have thought a woman have died of
shame. Instead of which, the shame died. Shame,
which is fear: the deep organic shame, the old
physical fear which crouches in the bodily roots
of us, and can only be chased away by the sensual
fire, at last it was roused up and routed by the
phallic hunt of the man, and she came to the very
heart of the jungle of her self. She felt, now,...
essentially shameless. She was her sensual self,
naked and unashamed... There was nothing left to
disguise or be ashamed of. She shared her ultimate
nakedness with a man, another being (p.268).
The theme of anal intercourse seems to be recurrent in Lawrence.
Pritchard (1971) says that the anus can be seen as "almost a new
womb" and that in Will and Anna's case this intercourse occurs
"in a perverse spirit, relishing their degradation and self-
reduction" (p.7 3).
Will and Anna's marriage thus arrives at its dubious
'balance'.
It is, though, a different balance from the one
achieved by Tom and Lydia.
In Anna and Will's case the 'balance'
only occurs when the lights are off and they are able to fulfil
each other in their lust.
When the daylight comes they return
to their old selves in which Anna is the powerful matriach and
Will is her servant, the submissive husband of whom she barely
takes any notice.
The story again shifts its focus to the generation of
Ursula Brangwen.
Before she is ready to throw herself into the
world of man, the Marsh farm loses its main and last figure: Tom
Brangwen, the last patriarch of the first generation dies in a
flood.
When his body is found we can see in the mourning of the