RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

eally wants. He goes from one decision to another. And this
tricky and unbalanced personality is a direct result of his
mother's influence and also of her frustration in her marriage.
The repudiation of Paul's birth makes Mrs Morel feel
terribly guilty and this guilt she transfers to her son.
Such a
state of mind makes the mother's attachment to Paul a kind of
serious commitment she must endure all her life without giving
up.
It begins when she consciously assumes that she does not
love the child so much as she loves William or the other children.
One important scene which supports this point occurs after a
fight between husband and wife, in which the father hurts the
mother in her brow.
It bleeds and drops of blood are spilt on
the baby.
This 'baptism' of blood is something dreadful since
it may reinforce the sense of catastrophe related to the child's
upbringing.-
It is the mother's blood spilt on the child,
therefore Lawrence implies that Paul's descent comes only from
the mother's side.
The father is not allowed to interfere in the
child's life.
It is true that this interference is not allowed
to Walter earlier in the novel when Mrs Morel alone chooses the
name of the baby.
At that moment she did not know why she had
decided to call him Paul.
However, her reasons are not difficult
to understand: she feels guilty towards the infant, therefore she
must find a way to compensate for the fact that she did not want
his birth.
Since Paul is the name of the apostle her father was
devoted to, she is praising the father unconsciously.
And also,
by choosing the name herself, she may be implying that she will
direct his life whether Paul wants it or not:
In her arms lay the delicate baby. Its deep blue
eyes, always looking up at her unblinking, seemed to
draw her innermost thoughts out of her. She no
longer loved her husband; she had not wanted this
child to come, and there it lay in her arms and