RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

one in which she feels in relation to the thought of the
animal.
Explicitly Lawrence says nothing, but one can infer
that March is beginning to awaken from the drowsiness in which
her femininity has been submerged throughout her almost thirty
years.
The appearance of the fox makes her feel as if she were
in the period of female heat, looking for a male to mate with.
Before this man comes into her life she will only be able to feel
that
It was as if she could smell [the fox] at these
times. And it always recurred, at unexpected
moments, just as she was going to sleep at
night, or just as she was pouring the water into
the tea-pot to make tea - it was the fox, it
came over her like a spell (ibid).
If Banford stands for March's 'wife'^ this means that she feeds
March's masculine side.
And if March is by now being haunted by
these strange sensations provoked by a male animal, this also
means that she is unconsciously trying to free her repressed
female sensuality.
She needs to be fed in her drowsy femaleness
too. She needs a man. Banford is no longer fulfilling her. She
needs more than a lesbian relationship.
Yet, all these ideas are
hidden from March's conscience.
They will only rise to her
conscious when a man, not an animal, comes to her life.
This man
appears in the figure of a soldier named Henry.
The two girls are too much used to her solitude mainly
because they have, in a certain way, retired from contact with
civilization.
As they are used to their loneliness, without
visitors, it seems clear that any strange sound from the outside
at night makes them worried.
In winter they become much more
cautious for the dark falls early and Banford especially becomes
afraid of tramps or any other threats.
March, in her turn, is
not physically afraid, she feels uncomfortable, disturbed