29.12.2013 Views

RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

Create successful ePaper yourself

Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.

167<br />

the end of the novel that not every man is a 1son of God1.<br />

The<br />

idea of the 'son of God' is mixed with her adolescent dreams<br />

based on popular love stories she enjoys reading.<br />

She dreams of<br />

'a coming prince' but she is never able to continue dreaming for<br />

her brothers and sisters come to disturb her.<br />

She also tries to follow the religious teaching according<br />

to which people must turn the other cheek.<br />

Ursula does it and<br />

instead of a kiss of repentance, she gets another slap.<br />

Thus,<br />

she revolts against the teaching and strikes her sister who hit<br />

her in the face, with much more violence: "And she went away,<br />

unchristian but clean" (p.285).<br />

This fact implies that Ursula<br />

cannot cope with the things she does not understand and as<br />

religion is a difficult task she prefers to deny it and feel good<br />

about herself.<br />

Also it implies that there is something sick or<br />

masochistic about the ethic of humility preached by religion.<br />

Another important aspect of Ursula's world is seen through<br />

the disconnection between the Sunday gospel which talks about<br />

Jerusalem and her weekday world:<br />

Vaguely she knew that Christ meant something<br />

else: that in the vision—world He spoke of<br />

Jerusalem, something that did not exist in the<br />

everyday world. It was not houses and factories<br />

He would hold in His bosom: nor householders nor<br />

factory-workers nor poor people: but something<br />

that had no part in the weekday world, nor seen<br />

nor touched with weekday hands and eyes (p.286).<br />

Christ's world is in the ideal and Ursula's world includes all<br />

sorts of secular invasions — progress, mechanization,<br />

exploitation — which are not present in the ideal world.<br />

Thus,<br />

Ursula denies religion because "she must have it in weekday<br />

terms — she must" (ibid).<br />

Jesus Christ then instead of being a<br />

spiritual man becomes in Ursula's adolescent cravings a sort of<br />

sexual<br />

figure whom she wants to kiss, touch and feel: "All the

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!