RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

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mistress and her uncle because "Their marshy, bitter-sweet
corruption came sick and unwholesome in her nostrils..." (p.351).
Thus she frees herself from their pernicious influence and closes
one more door of disillusionment.
Now she shifts her path to
enter another door which will lead her to more disappointments.
She enters into the man's world.
When Ursula decides that she wants to teach, the first
obstacle comes from her father.
He does, not let her teach at
Kingston-on-Thames school Where her application has been approved.
Will denies her the right to choose.
However, in the face of
her continued insistence on becoming a teacher, Will 'punishes'
his daughter by finding a place for her in the horrible Brinsley
Street school.
Soon after she finds herself in the school, her dreams of
being a teacher with a heart are destroyed:
The [school] seemed to have a threatening
expression, imitating the church's architecture,
for the purpose of domineering, like a gesture
of vulgar authority... The place was silent,
deserted, like an empty prison waiting the
return of tramping feet (p.369).
Instead of finding freedom Ursula is struck by the sense of being
in a prison-
Ursula, however, is not on the whole frightened.
The idea
of becoming a good teacher of good children still persists in
her dreaming mind. Gradually she loses her individuality. She
stops being Ursula Brangwen and becomes 'Standard Five teacher'.
Her dreams of teaching with love are reduced to a bitter sense
of failure.
Yet Ursula persists in remaining a human being. The
structure of the school, a microcosm of the civilized society,
presses upon Ursula through the schoolmaster and 'torturer' Mr
Harby.
He criticizes her way of teaching, her lack of authority