T H E S I S

as in The Rainbow) falls in love with Birkin (a self-portrait of
Lawrence) and Gudrun has a demonic affair with Gerald. These
four and other minor characters such as Hermione and Loerke make
dramatic appeals for an increasing sexuality between man and woman.
Lawrence tests and questions the institution of marriage.
The author raises too many questions and is practically
defeated by the difficulty of the problems that he analyses, but
cannot solve. The necessity for fulfilment in sexual relations
is again profoundly examined, probably more deeply than before.
Lawrence is in quest not only for fulfilment in the man-woman
relationship but also for fulfilment in the man-man relationship,
a blutbrUSLers chaf t. which he finally sees as impossible to attain.
Birkin says that he feels the problem of love between two men as
necessary, but Gerald, his partner, does not clearly understand
it and does not accept Birkinfs offer of brotherhood. Birkin
claims that M.V. it had been a necessity inside himself all his
life «• to love a man purely and fully.n (WIL 231)
Lawrence’s idea of a blutbrUderschaft began in The White
Peacock with Cyril and George*s relationship and continued
through Women in Lovef Aaron's Hod, and Kangaroo? although always
inconclusively.1 In Viomen in Love Birkin and Gerald's friendship
raises the same question of homosexuality which was raised
in The White Peacock. Certainly the basis of this question of
blutbrttde rschaft is Lawrence's continuous need to bring the theme
of touching rites through the novels. For one who advocates the
search for complete fulfilment in sex, touching has to play a
major role. But this ritual brotherhood appears as a quasi-homosexual
trait in Lawrence's characters. Like the bathing and