RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

380
the one which shows the most successful element of balance in
the relations between the sexes.
My idea, however, is different.
I could not find this period of 'successful' balance in any of
the stories I have been analysing.
On the contrary, strictly
speaking, in Lawrence's novels there is no balance (in the sense
of permanently achieved harmony) ,but'in all periods there is the
struggle of conflicting impulses, especially related to the split
between soul and body.
In Lawrence's stories there is polarized
flux, but not balance as something rational and serene. It is a
kind of'modern' balance achieved only in the full awareness of
conflict.
Whatever the degrees of artistic success in the
various novels and stories as "The Fox", the author never solves
the existential problems, the split of mind and body that he grew
up with.
While the treatment of conflict goes through various
phases, it always returns to the same problems raised by Sons and
Lovers.
Lawrence in his works is consciously describing a "modern
love" syndrome, and showing its genesis, especially in Sons and
Lovers, The Rainbow and Women in Love. Love for him means struggle,
conflict, it is something entirely problematic.
In fact the idea
of modern psyche for him means bisexuality.
The psyche of the
characters are marked by polarized flux.
We have seen this in
the way the characters go from one extreme to the other: as for
example, Paul Morel's love life with Miriam (the soul) and Clara
(the body).
vice versa.
Also in Birkin who goes from Ursula to Gerald and
It is as if the mind (or the body) were always
changing its course: from negative to positive poles.
March is
'masculine' before Henry comes to her life and then becomes
'feminine'.
This is seen in the novels and stories through the
pattern of X-shaped plots in which characters exchange roles in