D. H. Lawrence's Women in Love

DH Lawrence - Women in Love

Of all of DH Lawrences's complex analyses of the human mind, of the relationships that are formed between different people and the psychologies associated with these relationships, "Women in Love" is the most renowned and, without doubt, one of his deepest works. Centered on the relationships between Birkin and Ursula, on one hand, and Gudrun and Gerald, on the other, the novel gives out a myriad of implications of the relationships between these four main characters, as well as the relationships between these characters and the others in the book (for example the relationship between Gudrun and Loerke, perhaps as a better understanding of a relationship between two people based on common interests). Symmetrical at times, with parallels between Gerald's and Diana's deaths, the novel launches itself in an exploration of the human mind, but also of the male/female relationship.

The first pages in the book start to give an idea of what to expect in the later pages, with Gudrun and Ursula discussing the nature and role of marriage. Entirely different from the perspective of marriage in the 19th century, with marriage seen as the final and eventual phase in the development of a woman, Gudrun and Ursula judge marriage in terms of a life experience. Almost in a phenomenological perspective, they look at how marriage can impact the development of their lives in terms of accumulating new experiences.

As Wendy Perkins pointed out, "the interchanges between men and women in Love are complicated by the historical moment of the novel, an age where individuals no longer turn to society for advice on forming relationships." What this means is that the answer is no longer as simple in the evolution of women: marriage is no longer the solution and the existentialist individual often needs to look even within himself or herself for the appropriate balances in the relationship with the others and at an individual level.

The two ladies, and this fact is important because it affects the later development of their relationships not only with themselves or among themselves, but with Gerald and Birkin, are dominated by some of the clear symptoms of existentialist anguish at the beginning of the 20th century. As Nigel Kelsey pointed out, "the questioning nature of Gudrun's and Ursula's opening dialogue accumulates in intensity as the questions themselves accumulate; definite feelings of emptiness, fear and loss." There are two interesting facts about this citation. First of all, it is interesting to note the fact that the individual characters are sharing the same feelings mentioned at the end and due not only to their own existentialist anguish, but also to their presence in a dull, provincial society. Second, marriage seems a way to add to the experiences, but also to fight against boredom, in no way different than any other experience that might be accounted for in life.

This perception is important to be emphasized because it affects the relationships with Gerald and Birkin. Rather than the romantic sort of love from the 19th century and earlier, the two women here have a distinct definition of 'marriage' and 'in love'. From the romantic perspective, the perception here is rather of a realistic, cool approach, more towards experimental than anything else. The focus shifts from the couple to the individual and this is a valid assertion for the women as well as for the men. The love thus is only bound to be selfish in the end, because the monitoring and feedback mechanism is in fact concerned only with the self rather than the couple.

On the other hand, the modern individual is also characterized by uncertainty and perhaps the best example in this sense is Ursula and her relationship with Birkin. Ursula is a true modern spirit and her belief in independence and liberty cannot really be affected. However, modernism and freedom also implies that there are truly no fixed elements to which one can hang on to and this is not something that Ursula is ready to accept.

The most clear expression of this is the way she constantly demands that Birkin tells her he loves her. This can only be interpreted in one way. It has nothing to do with the expression of love itself or its reassertion, but the need that Ursula feel to have something stable, a point around which she can gravitate her life. She is ready to give up the individual as a solo entity if love can be accepted as the highest common denominator in which she can translate her aspirations and which can become the solid element around which to gravitate her modern freedom.

The tension that occasionally occurs in her relationship with Birkin comes exactly from the acceptance of this fact, as well as from the way that Birkin perceives the relationship between male and female. In my opinion, Birkin is ready to go the entire way towards accepting that the relationship between male and female can, ultimately, become a free expression in itself, a free relationship between two equal individuals, without any of the constraints that can arise from the inclusion of love into the framework of a regulated relationship, such as marriage.

Between the two, Ursula probably has the most difficult time in finding the appropriate balance. The two elements that she finds difficult to mediate between are the individual, on one hand, and the couple (or the relationship between individuals), on the other hand. When marriage is proposed to her by Birkin, she has a nervous reaction and feels bullied.

For Birkin, this is much simpler to deal with, because he seems to have reached a balance in accepting that the couple or the relationship is really nothing but putting together two individuals. The couple is not an entity within itself, it is simply a joining of two individuals, who retain the same characteristics, rights and obligations as single individuals. His focus is on the individual as the center of his recognized universe, which solves his perspective of the problem.

The balance is exercised or looked for on two levels. One has been previously mentioned as the individual level, but there is also the couple or collective level. As Leo Dorbad pointed out, "balance -- sexual or otherwise -- is a key factor in any critical discussion of the novel. Some form of balance is indeed the primary goal of every character." That form of balance that Dorbad refers to and the continuous search of it can be either within each individual or in his or her relationship with the others, notably the partner in the couple. In Ursula's case, her balance is on both levels, as she needs to discover how she can perceive the relationship within a couple as not affecting her own personal liberties.

In Gudrun's case and in her relationship with Gerald, this is much more complicated. One of the differences between the two relationships comes from the nature of the male character. The two males play very well on the Apollonian vs. Dionysian ambivalence. Birkin can afford to propose marriage as an equally consenting act in which both the individuals retain the same freedoms as before the marriage because he is a philosopher who understands the role of freedom in the individual's life. He can base his life decisions from a philosophical perspective, which helps him better relate to how others might react in a similar situation and what to do in those particular cases. This is also why he is much more flexible in his relationship with Ursula.

Gerald, on the other hand, as a Dionysian spirit, has none of these qualities. He is an industrial tycoon, waiting the moment when he will take over the business from his father. He relates to things in terms of results rather than in terms of the individuals leading to those results, which means that he is also not focusing on the individuals and awards little attention for them. This will affect his relationship with Gudrun, for a number of distinct reasons.

First of all, his focus is too much on his own individual, which means that he will ignore the perceptions of the other individual involved in the relationship, but also that he will not be able to properly relate to that respective individual. Going back again to the argument of the needed balance in a relationship, as well as within the individual himself, Gerald will not be able to achieve any of these. The reason is circular and one affects the other: the inner balance is missing for him to find balance within the couple, which in turn, affects his inner balance.

Because of this, he will also not be able to achieve freedom for himself or for the couple he is part of. He is tormented by his own problems as an individual, not a free one, to be able to pass on to the next level and understand how the individual can be joined with another individual in a couple. At the same time, Gudrun is not the character that could potentially match these lacks that Gerald has.

Indeed, first of all, Gudrun is an artist. There are several things that go with this brief characterization. First of all, she understands to seek a wide array of things from both life and a relationship, but all these are founded and based on the freedom of an artist.

Freedom is however only something she sees for herself not for the other individual of a couple. Her belief is that retaining her freedom in a relationship is equivalent to subduing the other individual involved in the couple, to the degree to which he will not be able to affect her personal freedom anymore. We can compare this to Birkin's perception of the couple as a joining together of two individuals in order to form a mutually beneficial and equilibrated relationship.

As Charles Rossman pointed out, "Gerald and Gudrun are locked in a struggle for mastery over one another." The fight in their case is over the supremacy in the relationship, the individual who will retain the power, as an ultimate sign of individual freedom, rather than in finding the common denominators to make the relationship work. Birkin proposes solutions in his relationship with Ursula: a couple and a relationship can be a joining together of two individuals without the underlying freedoms being affected.

In Gudrun's and Gerald's case, the question is more about how one of the two individuals in the couple can lose their freedom in order for the other to retain it. There is no middle ground and no open door that there may actually be a solution between these two extremes. There are several instances where the characters are actually joined by their common perceptions in terms of couple and individuals, but perhaps few gives an impression as these following lines: "In her tone, she made the understanding clear -- they were of the same kind, he and she, a sort of diabolic freemasonry subsisted between them."

The relationship between Birkin and Gerald is more difficult to define and evaluate. This is first due to the fact that the potential homosexual attraction between the two men is much more difficult to appreciate than the heterosexual. Second, it is also difficult because the relationship seems to define itself based, again, on the individual, or rather starting with the individual.

There is, first of all, a matter of balance. Previously in this paper, we have emphasized Birkin's superiority over Ursula as he was able to find balance in his relationship and as a couple. As an individual, however, he is still striving to attain that balance and the homoerotic attraction to Gerald is a clear sign that this is aimed at completing his own personality.

Some have argued that Birking wishes to construct himself somewhere in-between the "autonomy and icy impenetrability of the white-skinned northmen" and the "warm-fluidity of the dark-skinned men." This is probably the best argument for the continuous search of individual balance and equilibrium within Birkin. He does not have a well-defined identity, he is searching for one in-between these two extremes, although he is able to reflect an inner balance which we are not sure exists in his relationship with Ursula.

For Birkin, it is easier to find and accept balance in a relationship than inner balance. For him, the answer in a couple is as simple as allowing each individual to have the same freedoms the individual had before. It does not solve, however, his identity problem, because, virtually, it brings about no change from being a single individual.

This search of balance is one explanation of the openness towards bonding with Gerald. Others have explained the homoerotic attraction through a narcissistic perspective. In his relationship with Gerald, Birkin is trying to project his own individuality. At the same time, Gerald feels that in his relationship with Birkin, he is much more at large to manifest his individuality than he is in his relationship with Gudrun.

This does not necessarily make a comparison between Gudrun and Birkin in terms of who is stronger, but suggests that Gerald and Gudrun are too much of the same type of character to be able to find any kind of balance in their relationship. Gerald and Birkin actually complete each other in the ideal that Birkin speaks about: a combination of the northmen and dark-skinned men, for the creation of a common individuality with qualities from both types of people mentioned.