RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

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carnal love to fulfil his physical needs.
But even so, he has
no strength in his being to exert his own body to attain
what
he wants.
Perhaps this is true in relation to Ursula because
she is stronger than him and her strength makes him null so that
he can do nothing to stand up and be erect on his own feet.
To
exemplify this idea let us look at the last wedding at the Marsh
farm when the couple is dancing and the moon rises, leading
Ursula and Skrebensky to fight for power.
At Fred Brangwen's wedding, while couples dance in the
open field, Ursula takes Skrebensky's hand and starts dancing
with him.
The suggestion of the dance implies a sort of meeting
of opposite wills: "It was his will and her will locked in a
trance of motion, two wills in one motion, yet never fusing,
never yielding one to the other.
It was a glaucous, intertwining,
delicious flux and contest in flux" (p.318).
When the moon rises
Ursula senses something different observing her, wanting her. It
may be important to mention that she only senses the moon and she
comes to know its presence when Skrebensky points it out.
Then
she unconsciously proceeds
herself to the bright moon.
to forget the man with her to offer
The moment implies the virginal or
narcissistic female offering herself to the powerful enchantment
of the moon.
This scene can be compared with two other moon
scenes which occur in The Trespasser and in Sons and Lovers.
In
the first novel, Helena has a kind of intercourse with the moon
and falls unconscious leaving Siegmund, who is under her,
completely apart from her conscious self.
It is as if she had
been slowly destroying her lover's life in her intercourse with
the moon.
In the second novel, the moon scene refers to a night
in which Morel has had a fight with Mrs Morel and he pushes her
roughly to the ‘outer door.
Mrs Morel, who is pregnant with