RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

360
The very end of the novel shows Birkin and Ursula back at
the Mill, after Gerald's death in the Alps.
What is most
important in this part of the novel is that it brings back a
discussion suspended when Ursula and Birkin got married: the
man-to-man relationship.
Birkin has struggled throughout the
novel to have a bloodbrotherhood ritual with Gerald.
This
bloodbrotherhood between the two friends failed because Gerald,
unable to cope with his latent homosexuality, rejects Birkin.
Now, after his death, Birkin somehow blames Ursula as if she
were responsible for the frustrated friendship with Gerald:
Then suddenly he lifted his head and looked
straight to Ursula with dark, almost vengeful eyes.
'He should have loved me,' he said. 'I offered
him. 1
She, afraid, white, with mute lips, answered:
'What difference would it have made!'
'It would!' he said. 'It would'(p.471).
This discussion is expanded in the Mill Where the couple has a
fierce argument. Birkin still cannot cope with the fact that his
friend is dead and that his death has destroyed something within
him.
Ursula, because she has become Birkin's wife, is somehow
blamed, for if they were not married Gerald would have perhaps
(in Birkin's eyes) accepted his bloodbrotherhood; then physical
death would have no importance:
Birkin remembered how once Gerald had clutched
his hand with a warm, momentaneous grip of final
love. For one second — then let go again, let go
for ever. If he had kept true to that clasp, death
would have not mattered. Those who die, and dying
still can love, still believe, do not die. They
live still in the beloved. Gerald might still have
been living in the spirit with Birkin, even after
death. He might have lived with his friend, a
further life (ibid).
The incoherence of Birkin's thoughts may be accounted for by his
deep mourning, but he seems simply to have forgotten that Gerald
was too much conventional and conservative to accept what he