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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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214<br />

life and he even apologizes to Gertrude for all the horrible<br />

things she did to him in life.<br />

That is what he tells her<br />

relatives:<br />

He had striven all his life to do what he could<br />

for her, and he'd nothing to reproach himself with.<br />

She was gone, but he'd done his best for her...<br />

All his life he'd done his best for her (p.488).<br />

The Crich family, except for Winifred, mourns falsely the<br />

death of the father.<br />

Gerald how turns to Gudrun as a way to<br />

escape from the dark void he is in after his father died. Before<br />

analysing this part which is the outcome of their relation, it<br />

is necessary however to look back at the start of their<br />

mutually exploitative affair.<br />

1.3. Reversal of polarity: Gerald and Gudrun<br />

Gudrun once told Ursula in a sarcastic way that she has<br />

come back home perhaps to look for a'highly attractive individual<br />

with sufficient means'.<br />

However sarcastic she may have been,<br />

the fact is that at the moment she sees Gerald at his sister's<br />

wedding, she is immediately drawn to him: "There was something<br />

northern about him that magnetised her" (p.9).<br />

And so she feels<br />

a fierce necessity, almost like pain, to know more about him.<br />

The attraction she feels towards the man does not come in 'hot<br />

waves' but in 'cold waves' of light as if the man had in<br />

himself "a glisten like sunshine refracted through crystals of<br />

ice" (ibid) which impelled Gudrun to him: "'Am I really' singled<br />

out for him in some way, is there really some pale gold arctic<br />

light that envelopes only us two?'" (ibid).<br />

This cold attraction<br />

Gerald exerts over Gudrun implies he is a man who contains death<br />

within himself, pulling to him a woman who is also like him.

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