RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

pulled at her heart. She felt as if the navel
string that had connected its frail little body
with hers had not been broken. A wave of hot
love went over her to the infant. She held it
close to her face and breast. With all her
force, with all her soul she would make up to it
for having brought it into the world unloved.
She would love it all the more now it was here;
carry it in her love. Its clear knowing eyes
gave her pain and fear. Did it know all about
her? When it lay under her heart, had it been
listening then? Was there a reproach in the
look? She felt the marrow melt in her bones,
with fear and pain (pp.50-1 - My underlining).
Her guilt is so strong that she senses a kind of reproach through
the eyes of Paul when the baby painfully looks at her.
That is
why she must do something to compensate for all these'feelings.
As Paul is growing up his life is like the shadow of his
mother's life. He is a guilt haunting the mother. His weak
physique represents in its essence the failure of the parents'
marriage.
One may say that power and domination is linked with
guilt: Mrs Morel made Walter feel guilty and now the unwanted
child makes her feel guilty.
His mother seems not to understand
Paul's almost always sad mood, it is definitely the symbol of his
'unconscious' awareness of his parents' problematic relation and
that he is one of its main result.
Paul and his mother are alike in constitution and in mind.
His hypersensitiveness makes him appear older than he actually
is: "He was so conscious of what other people felt, particularly
his mother.
When she fretted he understood, and could have no
peace. His soul seemed always attentive to her" (p.75). Besides
this close association with the mother, Paul is also the child
who
most shares with Mrs Morel the hatred for the
father: "All the children, but particularly Paul, were peculiarly
against their father, along with their mother" (p.76 - My
underlining).
Paul's hatred for his father is so strong that he