RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

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with horror.
Ursula's acceptance of the crabs in her lantern
implies the acceptance of her unconscious tendency to
dissolution.
Crabs usually live in contact with mud and the
fact that Ursula accepts this lantern may lead to the idea that
she has within herself elements of decadence.
Gudrun's cuttlefish
is a creature which is always seen as nasty and gluey because of
its dark substance ("ink") which is liberated from its body in
any situation of danger.
Also cuttlefish is beaked, i.e., it
implies perhaps clitoridal self-assertion, an exchange of sex
roles in Gudrun.
She rejects this lantern because she in fact
denies her own cuttlefish-like quality. The second pair of
lanterns belong to the "black river of dissolution".
The two
sisters exchange them.
It may be inferred from this exchange
that Ursula, in accepting her own lantern and also accepting
Gudrun's, shows that she has the same aggressive characteristics
of her sister.
The difference is that Gudrun denies her
aggression exchanging her lantern with Ursula.
Gudrun throws
her unconscious away whereas Ursula accepts hers.
Anyway, both
sisters represent the two rivers.
The other scene which
supports Birkin's theory is seen in the Alps when the sisters
exchange stockings.
Gudrun gives Ursula a pair of her stockings
before Ursula leaves with Birkin for Italy.
The fact that
Ursula accepts her corrupt sister's gift before leaving her and
Gerald, implies that once more Ursula has shown her capacity
for coping with her inner tendency for corruption.
Once more
Gudrun denies her corruption and gives it away.
Ursula will
carry with her to the new world some elements of the old.
The
stockings are a kind of passport to the new world and they also
imply that elements of the old world belong to the new one.
It
is impossible to deny this connection.
Gudrun tells this to