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RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

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182<br />

dead.<br />

The only part of him which is still alive is his body.<br />

He is still "nothing" and as soon as the lovers meet again, the<br />

persistent idea is that Ursula is still the strongest, the<br />

domineering female:<br />

In [Skrebensky's] dark, subterranean, male soul,<br />

he was kneeling before her, darkly exposing<br />

himself. She quivered, the dark flame ran over her.<br />

He was waiting at her feet. He was helpless, at<br />

her mercy... (p.443).<br />

And this is also the pattern Of The Trespasser and the early<br />

fiction in general.<br />

Lawrence does not seem to blame the woman's<br />

strength, but the man's weakness at this point.<br />

Ursula and Skrebensky's re-encounter is again the encounter<br />

of their sensual beings.<br />

The difference now is seen in terms of<br />

Ursula's "cansuntnation with darkness".<br />

She seems not to want to<br />

destroy her lover. She would rather be 'destroyed' by him. It<br />

is the consuxnmation of the flesh.<br />

One may say that Ursula looks<br />

like her mother.in her thirst for sensual fulfilment with Will:<br />

[Skrebensky] seemed like the living darkness<br />

upon her, she was in the embrace of the strong<br />

darkness... He kissed her, and she quivered as<br />

if she were being destroyed, shattered. The<br />

lighted vessel vibrated, and broke in her soul,<br />

the light fell, struggled, and went dark. She was<br />

all dark, will-less, having only the receptive<br />

will (p.446).<br />

This can be seen as the opposite of her moon-hard mood: the<br />

second affair begins with the sense that there might be a balance<br />

after all (at least in the sense that the couples always have<br />

polarized feelings, they are never the same).<br />

Apart from the "consuiri&tion with darkness" there is nothing<br />

to keep Skrebensky with Ursula.<br />

Their minds are completely<br />

separate.<br />

Ursula still criticizes him and his moral emptiness<br />

and snobbery because he wants to go to India and live among the

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