RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

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compete with her.
In fact Skrebensky can hardly be defined as
an individual, he is part of a structure — part of a machine —
and without it he is nothing.
A person who is 'nothing' cannot
compete with a person who has a self and is, consequently, an
individual.
The male characters cannot be taken as a repetition of
Walter Morel.
Neither Siegmund, nor Will nor Skrebensky can be
viewed as representing the dark lover.
The only characteristic
that they share with Walter is their weak personality which causes
them to be defeated by their women.
The most important characteristic of this first phase is
therefore the active presence of the 'femme fatale', the
spiritual woman, destroyer of her love partners. Helena, Mrs
Morel, Anna and Ursula are indeed fatal females since all of them
defeat their males.
Helena is perhaps the strongest of these
women since she is the only one who leads her lover to suicide.
The other two (except for Ursula) replace their husbands.
Their
houses become thus „ matriarchal societies.Ursula may be seen as
a female who fights for a place in society, that is her main
quest.
The negative aspect of this phase lies in the fact that
Lawrence basically shows sympathy for the independent woman: he
does not overtly criticize her even when she strays (like Helena
who dreamed too much but refused to accept reality in her sexual
life with Siegmund.
Or Ursula when she exerted her 'maximum'
self over Skrebensky in the moon scene which has led to his
destruction).
This "feminist" sympathy it should be noted, will
be withdrawn later in the leadership phase, in a novel like The
Plumed Serpent.
My last point refers to 'balance' in the relations.
This