RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

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When she leaves the school her family has moved away from
Cossethay and, by extension, away from the Marsh farm.
The
Brangwen family has moved to Beldover, a town surrounded by the
dirty collieries.
It is a farewell to the world of Tom Brangwen
and an entry into urban middle class life.
The university at first strikes Ursula as if it were a
sanctuary: the professors are priests of knowledge.
They are
beyond any criticism.
It seems that Ursula is entering again
in bo a world of religion where no one is allowed to criticize
the gods:
At first, she preserved herself from criticism.
She would not consider the professors as men,
ordinary men who ate bacon, and pulled on their
boots before coming to college. They were the
black-gowned priests of knowledge, serving for
ever in a remote, hushed temple. They were the
initiated, and the beginning and the end of the
mystery was in their keeping (p.431).
The problem is that Ursula is too much of a dreamer.
She has
just come through a hard experience that has begun in the same
way as that of the university.
She thought she could teach with
love and the school extinguished love with authority.
Now she
seems to be again putting too high expectations on her new
experience.
And again her expectations fail because as soon as
the excitement passes, she realizes how wrong she was: "The
professors were not priests initiated into the deep mysteries
of life and knowledge.
After all, they were only middle-men
handling wares they had become so accustomed that they were
oblivious of them" (p.434). Once more she has failed. The new
disappointment makes her lose her belief in life as something
which would help her to become an independent woman.
She starts
to have a very pessimistic view of her experiences:
The last year of her college was wheeling showly
round. She could see ahead her examination and her