RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

he can have pleasure.
Miriam is forgotten as a human being. Sex
becomes the aim.
Miriam, in her turn, is only a sacrifice. If it
will return Paul to her, she will accept the dirty business of
sex (as her mother taught her). She is not there. She offers
her body for the sake of Paul's initiation.
Paul is not even
able to perceive this in Miriam.
He simply obeys his instincts.
His male instinct is superimposed over his mind.
His mother at this point, feels she cannot do anything to
prevent her son from going to Miriam: "He went to Willey Farm as a man now,
not as a youth. She had no right over him" (p.342). However,
the fact that she is aware of having 'no right' over Paul may be
ambiguous: first, Paul is a man, Miriam is a woman.
He can go
and sleep with her.
Second, the mother may be becoming aware
that Paul in fact does not belong to her like a property.
He must
have his way without her interfering.
But the doubt still
persists.
Paul and Miriam fail again.
This time it seems definitive
(though Miriam, like his mother, is always sure he will come back
to her).
As soon as they discover the impossibility of facing a
relationship where there is no connection between soul and body,
they decide to break. But they both blame each other. The
circumstances of the failure are evident.
Miriam cannot give
Paul body and soul together and neither can Paul give Miriam all
of himself.
the girl.
He is only the male in the second attempt he has with
Therefore, the consequence is this terrible sense of
frustration and failure.
As they cannot blame anybody they turn
to blame themselves.
Paul's egocentric personality cannot be
fulfilled without worship.
It is too late when he realizes this:
seven years have elapsed and only now he seems to know Miriam (but
does he?). Miriam seems to be more rational than Paul in the sense