RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

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their differences and are seen in a very close and tender
contact, although Birkin seems still afraid to make love to
Ursula who is kissing him in a clear invitation to sex. He tells
her that they can be together but they must be still.
Birkin, who is now at peace with himself and Ursula,
starts to reject Gerald.
Gerald is seen in a close connection
with Halliday's African carving.
Birkin thinks of it as having
all the sensual knowledge he did not have.
The sensual knowledge
is then associated with destruction and corruption.
The
association with Gerald comes with the idea that he is a
representative of the white races which are as destructive as
the black races.
The former being
the vast abstraction of ice and snow, would fulfil
a mystery of ice-destructive knowledge, snow
abstract. Whereas [the latter], controlled by the
burning death-abstraction of the Sahara, had been
fulfilled in the sun-destruction, the putrescent
mystery of sunrays (p.246).
Thus, Birkin starts to reject both the African
'sun-knowledge'
and Gerald's 'ice-knowledge':
"There was another way, the way
of freedom... And he must run to follow it" (p. 247).
This way
is Ursula, of course.
Hurriedly, before the enchantment
vanishes, he goes to Ursula's home to propose to her.
The funny and interesting thing in Birkin*s proposal to
Ursula is that neither Birkin nor Ursula take it seriously as
it should normally be taken.
When he tells Ursula's father of
his intentions, our attention is drawn to Birkin's use of
past tense: "'I wanted to ask her to marry m e " 1 (p.248 - My
underlining).
This shows that it is not an actual proposal
otherwise he would have said 'I want1 instead of 'I wanted'.
When Ursula comes in, the game continues: "'Did you really come
to propose to me?' she asked of Birkin, as if it were a joke"