RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

up to this.
One of them refers to Hermione's inviting her
guests to go for a walk. Birkin declines the invitation. The
others, Lawrence says, agree "feeling somehow like prisoners
marshalled for exercise" (p.79).
It seems clear that Hermione
exerts her domineering temperament over her friends who feel
unable to refuse her.
As Birkin dared to refuse Hermione's
invitation, she tries to force him to go because "She intended
them all to walk with her in the park" (p.80).
Birkin is harsh
with her, calling her friends (and Hermione) 'a gang'.
Hermione
feels as if offended and her attitude looks like that of an
angry mother punishing her little son.
She says: "'Then we'll
leave a little boy behind, if he is sulky'" (ibid).
The 'little
boy' then feels much more offended than 'the mother' and, between
his teeth, he insults her: "‘Good bye, impudent hag'" (ibid).
This stifled insult really does seem to be coming from a little
boy angry with his mother's punishment.
Another of Birkin's refusals of Hermione's world occurs
within himself as he observes Hermione's friends and their
connection with the woman.
He thinks of them as pieces in a
game waiting for the manipulative owner of the game to start
playing.
Hermione is the 'Queen' who can dispose of these
little figures the way she wants:
- how known it all was, like a game with the
figures set out, the same figures, the Queen of
chess, the knights, the pawns, the same now as
they were hundreds of years ago, the same figures
moving round in one of the innumerable
permutations that make up the game. But the game
is known, its going on is like a madness, it is
so exhausted (p.92).
All the participants of the game belong to a vicious circle.
They seem to be unable to move away from the table because they
are stuck to it with the glue of self-annihilation.
Birkin's