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RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

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"358-<br />

following novels.<br />

Women in Love, "The Fox" and The Plumed Serpent I group<br />

together because of the common pattern between them, i.e., the<br />

dialogue form and the openness of their endings. However, their<br />

common pattern differs in the quality of the different expectations<br />

which link and/or separate characters.<br />

One can say that<br />

Lawrence goes from one extreme to the other; he oscillates<br />

between opposed solutions rather than finding a balance in some<br />

synthesis or mean.<br />

Women in Love is one of Lawrence's best and most profound<br />

novels.<br />

It deals with the complexity of modern values as<br />

associated to human beings and their relationships.<br />

This novel<br />

goes beyond Lawrence's previous and later works because it<br />

presents a battle between old and new forms of love, and it<br />

*<br />

somehow shows a development in the author's mind since he is<br />

capable of criticizing in his own characters aspects of his<br />

personality which he could not do before.<br />

As for instance, the<br />

hyper-conscious mind of his mother in Mrs Morel which he had not<br />

criticized either in Helena or in Gertrude Morel.<br />

In Women in<br />

Love he does criticize this feature of his mother's personality<br />

in Hermione Roddice.<br />

Also he is able to develop two characters<br />

who are essentially mental antagonists but who, up to a certain<br />

point, respect their individual differences: Birkin and Ursula.<br />

However, Lawrence still divides soul and body as two different<br />

entities, and we witness this in Birkin's hesitation between<br />

Hermione and Ursula.<br />

Besides this, there is the whole struggle<br />

between and old and decadent society and a desired new one where<br />

people are not corrupt.<br />

Full rebirth is impossible because one<br />

society contains the other and sequels of the old one may be<br />

found within the characters who intend to find a new world. There

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