RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

egathers itself in the water as if making fun of Birkin.
This
insistent stoning at the moon implies his deep desire to destroy
women as a whole.
The more Birkin tries, the more dissatisfied
he is because the broken light of the moon rearranges itself in
the water in "triumphant reassumption".
This abstract attempt
to destroy women through stoning the moon is only Birkin's
obsessive fear of being dominated by women like Hermione, and
in extension he feels fear of Ursula as a possible heir of
Hermione's domineering temperament.
As Birkin cannot overcome
his fear, he projects his aggression to the outside.
And it
seems that Ursula, who is observing him, feels really as if the
man were stoning her: she "was dazed, her mind was all gone.
She felt she had fallen to the ground and was spilled out, like
water on the earth" (p.240).
Before Birkin starts stoning the
moon again, Ursula appears and pleads with him to stop.
They
talk with a certain tone of pain.
They begin again arguing their
opposite points of view and Ursula criticizes him because of his
desire to dominate her: "'You don't want to serve me and yet you
want me to serve you. It is so one-sided!'" (p.242). Here she
reinforces the point that it is she who wants a balanced
relation, not him.
Birkin wants a sort of slave to serve his
will.
Here there seems to be a connection with "The Fox": Henry
wants the same as Birkin: an odalisk to serve him blindly.
(Hermione tells this to Ursula later on implying that she would
be glad to be this odalisk.)
Ursula and March are the ones who
want an equilibrium in their relations.
Their men only want to
be worshipped and never criticized.
Ursula perceives this and
calls Birkin a preacher of unpracticed theory.
Birkin accepts
her criticism, but with anger.
Soon after this atmosphere of
battle ends, there is a moment of peace in which both forget