RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

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to that fatal place.
Another fact which puts Byrne very close to Siegmund
happens When Helena gets Siegmund's violin, a symbol of his
vital essence, there is a sense of reverence in both Helena and
Byrne towards the 'sacred fiddle': "This was Siegmund's violin,
which Helena had managed to purchase, and Byrne was always ready
to yield its predecence" (p.215).
This implies that Byrne wants
to become the new lover even.though he senses the consequences:
that he will be Helena's newest victim.
The language of the last pages of the book is marked by
opposed images of life and death, coldness and warmth, sadness
and joy.
Again Lawrence uses images of past events in Helena's
life to imply the potential repetition of the past in the
present.
cold ones.
Byrne, like Siegmund, has warm hands opposed to Helena's
The last pages mingle laughter and tears, the sound
of rain and a bird singing.
And they also reflect Byrne's
unconscious awareness of doom hanging over his head:
'The rain continues,' he said.
'And will do,' she added, laughing.
'Quite content,' he said.
The bird overhead chirruped loudly again.
'"Strew on us roses, roses,"' quoted Byrne,
adding after a while, in wistful mockery: '"And
never a sprig of yew" - eh?' (p.216).
The interesting thing is that the sense of doom is put in terms
of 'mockery' which implies that Byrne knows that something 'bad'
will happen to him (or to them) but he does not care.
He cannot,
or he will not, do anything to prevent the doom.
More repetitions are seen — past juxtaposed with
present — to show that Helena cannot escape from her past:
[Byrne] put his left hand, with which he had
been breaking larch-twigs, on her chilled wrist.
Noticing that his fingers were dirty, he held them