RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

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the 'Lady of the Lake'.
As a romantic girl, she does not feel
she is common. Miriam, like Paul, is very sensitive,
soulful and beyond ordinary people with their ordinary thoughts.
This seems to be the first link between the girl, Paul and his
mother.
They look alike in feeling the world in a different
way, with a certain superiority which distinguishes them from
ordinary people.
But as Miriam does not know the strangers, she
is not able to present, for Paul especially, this similar feature.
When mother and son leave the farm to go home, an
interesting scene occurs.
In it Mrs Morel, although thinking
aloud to Paul, thinks about what she could do if she were.Mrs Leivers.The
impression is that Mrs Leivers is not fit for farm working
whereas Mrs Morel would do better than she does.
is a very passive woman without determination.
Miriam's mother
Mrs Morel feels
she could play a different role if she were not tied up to a
'useless' poor miner.
In a way, Mrs Morel is comparing her own
frustrated marriage with the Leivers':
'Now wouldn't I help that man!' she said.
Wouldn 't I see to the fowls and the young stock!
And I 'd learn to milk, and I'd talk with him,
and I 'd plan with him. My word, if I were his
wife, the farm would be run, I know! But there,
she hasn't the strength — she simply hasn't the
strength. She ought never to have been burdened
like it, you know. I'm sorry for her, and I'm
sorry for him too. My word, if I ’d had him, I
shouldn't have thought him a bad husband! Not that
she does either; and she is very lovable.' (p.160 -
My underlining).
Through this long speech is asserted once more the wrong step she
has taken marrying a poor man who has nothing in common with her
ambitious mind.
From the time of this visit to the Leivers, Mrs Morel's
life becomes much more problematic than ever.
When this new
family appears in the novel, one character disappears, i.e.,