RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

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Paul at this time, encounters the moon and she, like Helena and
Ursula, falls unconscious. It seems that the moon has such a
strong influence over her that in her unconsciousness it appears
that she denies the participation of her husband in the conceiving
of the child she is bearing.
Her intercourse with the moon is
seen through her intimate touch probing inside the white lillies:
her hands become covered with pollen.
After this it is as if
she had melted her own consciousness with that of the child. Thus
in the three moon scenes men have no importance.
The unconscious
heroines reject them.
In Ursula's case, the moon scene
represents the fusing of two females.
Ursula lets the moon enter
into herself filling her.
She allows the moon to give her power.
Skrebensky, not aware of this strange communion, puts his arms
around her so as to protect her.
Ursula, however, is not there.
The moon has possessed her and the man does not exist anymore.
The fight starts: the man puts a dark cloak over her to avoid
the bright rays of the moon taking place in Ursula and she allows
him to do it but in fact what she does is to fight against him.
He is the embodiment of darkness and she becomes possessed by
the bright symbol of destruction.
Ursula becomes a 'pillar of
salt', a 'steel blade'
strength of darkness.
ready to annihilate the opposite
But Skrebensky has not yet given in: "Yet,
obstinately, all his flesh burning and corroding, as if he were
invaded by some consuming, scathing poison, still he persisted,
thinking he might overcome her" (p.321).
But he does not.
Instead, Ursula, demonically possessed by a 'sudden lust' of
destruction, takes him in a fierce kiss and 'destroys' him: "And
her soul crystallized in triumph, and his soul was dissolved
with agony and annihilation.
So she held him there, the victim,
consumed, annihilated.
She had triumphed: he was not any more"
(p.322).