Women in Love -- DH

Women in Love -- DH Lawrence

The chaotic relationships between the main characters in DH Lawrence's novel Women in Love makes the reader have emotional confusion. Lawrence is known for his brilliant writing and the characters he writes about have many troubles because they lie to each other and there are big gaps in information that leaves them confused. In the book, things are said by the couples that either aren't understood or are just not true, and it leads to misunderstanding and hurt with the characters.

The affair between Gudrun and Gerald is "a ceaseless struggle for domination ending in death" (Harris, 1990) as Gerald commits suicide at the end of the story, a very sad ending. Critic Laurie Lanzen Harris writes that the character Rupert Birkin is modeled on Lawrence; Birkin is very concerned about what new technology might do to the human race, which in real life is what that Lawrence the novelist worried about, according to Harris.

The relationship between Gerald and Gudrun is troubled because there is not a complete understanding of the truth between them, and some information is missing. This causes their relationship to "tend towards dissolution and death" (McNichol, 1920). Stella McNichol writes that Gerald is a "hollow man" who has made his father's mine into a mechanized, automated place that the workers like. Because Gerald just wants to make money, it is not possible for Gerald to tell the truth and be involved in a positive relationship because it is all just a game for him, a game of money and prestige and his life is going downhill to death.

Besides the interesting and bizarre things that happen between the couples, Lawrence uses animals frequently in this book. He uses animal images (birds, and insects and other animals) to describe people, and it is part of the confusion of characters that Lawrence is presenting to the reader. If a character is like a beetle that means it cannot tell the truth from a lie, and the novel is full of lies and confusion. For example, in the chapter "Rabbit," Mademoiselle was "standing near…like a little French beetle, observant and calculating" (p. 275). And later on the page Mademoiselle was "like some elegant beetle with thin ankles, perched on her high heels." He is making her part human and part insect. And shortly after that scene Gudrun "came dressed in starling colours, like a macaw" (276).

Anyone who knows how colorful a macaw is will then understand what Gudrun looked like, but can a macaw know the difference between a lie and the truth? The answer of course is no. The rabbit in this chapter was going wild and Winifred was trying to get control of the rabbit; she let Gerald try to grab the rabbit and while he did, Winifred cried out in a "high voice, like the crying of a seagull, strange and vindictive" (277). The rabbit was a "demon-like beast" that could fly "looking something like a dragon" and when Gerald tried to get the rabbit to stop its scratching Gerald "brought his free hand down like a hawk on the neck of the rabbit" (278). This is a fourth animal image in three pages of the book. It is not too hard to see that the author is turning humans into non-humans for his literary effect. Non-humans do not have to be polite and tell the truth, so maybe this is why the birds, insects and other animals are in the book.

Since people don't always behave like humans are supposed to behave, maybe Lawrence turns people into animal images. But he also gave the rabbit some human characteristics: "There was a queer, faint obscene smile over his face," he wrote in the rabbit chapter. How could a rabbit have an "obscene" smile? What is Lawrence saying about the characters? Critic Richard Aldington writes, "I must confess I have not the faintest idea where the obscenity lies" (Aldington, 1950, p. 59).

The novel lets the reader understand that there are definitely gaps of information between the characters; Gudrun did not really know Gerald at the beginning but she got "a strong feeling from him" and wanted to know if it "was real" (p. 34). She wanted to be "ready" for him and when she saw him she got a "strange, sharp inoculation" that changed the "whole temper of her blood" (p. 36). This feeling that Gudrun got when thinking about Gerald is an example of the gap in true information. Just being attracted to someone is not real knowledge about that person. Critic Earl Ingersoll (1994) writes that Gudrun's "bizarre reaction to knowing Gerald visually" (and the word "orgasmic" is used to describe her infatuation with Gerald) suggests that there is power in a "gaze" (Ingersoll).

So Gerald is not really a person, he is like "an object generated by her watching," Ingersoll explains. Gudrun was "tortured with desire to see him again…to make sure it was not all a mistake" (Lawrence, p. 15). So the point is, when Gerald sees Gudrun watching him, gazing at him, "In her gaze he reads a celebration of his own 'masculinity'," Ingersoll goes on, pointing out that there are situations that are not real, and so a relationship that is based on sexual attraction and conceit is not honest from the beginning.

Hermione is another character that Lawrence uses to shows there are serious gaps and deceptions in the available information between people. In the chapter "Class-Room" Rupert attacks Hermione for her questioning of the importance of knowledge. "You want the lie that will match the rest of your furniture," Rupert shouted at her (p. 56). Pointing out her fakeness, Rupert said, "There, in the mirror, you must have everything…but your passion is a lie…You have only your will and your conceit of consciousness, and your lust for power, to know" (Lawrence, p. 57). Critic Jack F. Stewart (writing in Philological Quarterly) claims that Hermione is "mentally manipulating her sensations" and that she "falsifies and contravenes her being." Those who say and do false things in the novel -- and act superficially -- contribute to the lack of honest information.

In this chapter, Rupert tells Hermione that her "little skull" ought to be cracked "like a nut. For you'll be the same till it is cracked, like an insect in its skin" (p. 57). So what the author -- using an insect again as a metaphor for human weakness or weirdness -- is saying is that Hermione is not living a real life and what she says cannot be believed. And when Hermione and Ursula jeered Rupert, Hermione jeered him "as if her were a neuter" (Lawrence, p. 58). The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines "neuter": a) "neither masculine nor feminine"; b) "taking no side: and c) "lacking or having imperfectly developed or nonfunctional generative organs" (www.merriam-webster.com). So in this chapter a verbal war took place with both sides saying the other was not worthy, not honest and only seeing themselves falsely.

Kingsley Widmer offers his critical view of the novel by saying the issue of bisexuality is "half-covert" -- hidden -- and here is another example of a gap in information between couples in the book. At the end of the story, Birkin is said to have an "affinity for men" but he is married to Ursula. Widmer writes that Birkin is "promisingly married to Ursula yet still longing for an 'eternal union with a man too'." (Widmer). Deception, especially from a lover to his loving wife, is a lie that is terribly hurtful when it comes out. At the beginning of this paper it was mentioned that Birkin is supposedly Lawrence's personality put into a fiction character. But Widmer says that the novel "suffers from Birkin-Lawrence's tendency to make abstract statements about tortured subjectivity" (Widmer). That means that the critic doesn't find the character that Lawrence has created to be believable. Birkin "…as a thirtyish, misanthropic school inspector with a substantial income" lacks the "solid personal background and social reality" (Widmer).

Critic William J. Fisher claims that Birkin is like a chameleon, not truthful, hiding parts of his personality, and not to be trusted or to be believed. "By turns, he is a noble idealist, a pouting adolescent, a flaming lover, a finicky hermit, and a tedious pseudo-philosopher" (Fisher, 1956). There is a scene that Fisher references in which Birkin runs from the advances of an "…overcivilized Hermione to the consolation of a dewy hillside, where he strips off his clothes and loses himself in herbaceous intercourse" (Fisher). Herbaceous, of course, means herbs, or leaves, and so Lawrence has put his character in a bizarre situation, and as another hint that Birkin is gay, Birkin discovers that "to lie down, and roll in the sticky, cool hyacinths" is "more delicate and more beautiful than the touch of any woman" (Lawrence, quoted by Fisher). Lying naked in a flowery patch of greens is better than making love to a real woman? This again shows that Birkin has given his associates and friends a deceitful understanding of his real self. If he finds writhing around in plants and flowers naked more enjoyable than being with a woman he is weird and he's hiding his true self most of the time in the novel.

In his brief paragraph about Women in Love, Critic R.P. Draper claims that Rupert Birkin and Ursula provide a "creative counterpoint to the destructive relationship" between Ursula's sister Gudrun and Gerald Crich. It may come as a surprise to some readers of this novel that, according to Draper, Birkin plays a role as "prophet of a new conception of 'polarity' between man and woman, which involves both mutual commitment and a balanced independence" (Draper, 1991). Fortunately for his credibility Draper adds that Birkin "also believes in the need for a relationship of 'blood brotherhood" between man and man." This need to have a man on the side while married to a woman, Draper goes on is done "to complement the martial relationship between man and woman." Again, we find that characters need to hide behind falsehoods and lies, and certainly there is a gap in understanding between Birkin and Ursula.

Regarding Lawrence and sexuality, Murray S. Martin writes in the journal Gay & Lesbian Literature that for the author "sex…was a kind of touchstone of character. He wrote freely about 'manly love'… and his letters spoke often of friendship between man and man" (Martin). However, Martin asserts that "Characteristically" Lawrence claimed, "never to have formed such a friendship himself" (Martin). Critic Rebecca West admits that Lawrence's novel is "a work of genius" and the characters are "masterpieces of pure creation" (West, 1921). All the characters are masterpieces of pure creation -- that is all except Birkin West goes on. The one character that Lawrence has apparently designed as the "mouthpiece of truth never is." As readers can clearly see, West is right when she adds that Birkin "always is patronizing and knowing" like a correspondence writing his weekly report in a "provincial newspaper." Did Lawrence really create Birkin as a mouthpiece of truth? That's an opinion that is 88 years old, but critics have the right to make any statements they wish to and so Ms. West has added hers.

In another 1921 critique of Women in Love, Cal Van Doren reviews the four main characters (lovers) in the book without specifically pointing out the lack of information each shares with the other, or the deception. But it is clear Van Doren understands what a lack of pure truth can lead to: "Mad with love in one hour, in the next they are no less mad with hate," he writes (Van Doren, 1921). These lovers are "souls born flayed, who cling together striving to become one flesh and yet causing one another exquisite torture. Their nerves are all exposed," Van Doren continues. Sounding like he would like to be a writer with Lawrence's skill, Van Doren continues: "The intangible filaments and repulsions which play between ordinary lovers are by Mr. Lawrence in this book magnified to dimensions half heroic and half mad."