RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

327
relations with Kate.
Does it imply that the bloodbrotherhood
is also a relation of domination?
Ramon has been complaining
throughout the novel that women are ravishers of men and that
they destroy men.
Cipriano has proved to be a savage in his
sexuality.
Lawrence tells us that only men can achieve a
perfect balance.
What balance is this if Ramon does not want
to be ravished and the man he chooses to be his partner is a
sadist? Does it imply that Ramon does not want to be ravished
by a woman but by a man?
All these questions find no answer in the book.
The
principal factor which has led me to ask them is that Lawrence
puts homosexual overtones into every single meeting between
these two men.
Let us take a look at some scenes in which both
men are seen in a very close contact.
First of all there is a relation of pure dependence
uniting Ramon and Cipriano.
Dependence mainly in the sense that
Cipriano seems to know nothing about himself.
He tells Kate
that Ramon " 1... knows better what I am'" (p.88).
This implies
a blind faith in the man of soul who may be seen as deciding
what the other man must be. Ramon is his master. It may be
said that Cipriano wants to discover himself in Ramon.
After
they embrace each other in front of Carlota and Kate, Lawrence
describes the sensation of the embrace:
Ramon abstractly laid his hand on Cipriano's
shoulder, looking down at him with a little smile.
'Que tal?' he said, from the edge of his lips.
'How goes it?'
'Bien! Mui bien!' said Cipriano, still gazing
into the other man's face with black, wondering,
childlike, searching eyes, as if he, Cipriano,
were searching for himself, in Ramon's face.
Ramon looked back into Cipriano's black,Indian
eyes with a faint, kind smile of recognition, and
Cipriano hung his head as if to hide his face, the