T H E S I S

7 h
selves mutually; he of her getting only her own satisfaction; she
of "his incomprehensible brutality”. (LGL 57) Michaelis is definitely
lost in his sexual stupidity like Bertha in her relationships
with Mellors.' But C.onnie is going to enter the "phallic
consciousness“ with Mellors, although I xould rather say that she
only reaches "sex consciousness”, which means conscious of her
sexual needs, and this can be classified as a sort of Msex in the
head”.
Sir Clifford is also a symbolic character. He stands for
everything Lawrence hates: al!ba.lless" ''brainy1, "mental-lifer"„
Lawrence himself talks about Clifford's paralysis, both physical
and symbolical:
111 have been asked many times if I intentionally made Clifford
paralysed, if it is symbolic. And literary friends
say, it would have been better to have left him whole and .
potent, and to have made the woman leave him nevertheless«
As to whether the symbolism is intentional - I donet
know. Certainly not in the beginning, when Clifford was
created. When I created Clifford and Connie, I had no idea
what they were and why they were. They just came, pretty
much as they are. But the novel was written, from start to
finishj three times. And when I read the first version, I
recognized that the lameness of Clifford was symbolic of
the paralysiss the deeper emotional or passional paralysis,
of most men of his sort and class today*" (APL 123)
In'.Clifford Lawrence presents the complete absence of any
connection between mental life and sexual life. Not only because
he is physically crippled but also because he is the chief representative
of the "greedy mechanical world". His sexual failure
can be seen as the failure of Puritanism, because Puritanism rejects
the body's life, as something repulsive and mechanical, so