Cody Steele
Modernist Primitivism
Wollaeger
Fall 1998 Lawrence the Misogynist  
 

        In her work "The Traffic in Women" Gayle Rubin argues that the leading cause of women’s oppression in the Western part of the world is a "sex/gender system" that involves women as items of exchange between men. The benefits to men of the sex/gender system are that it forms social bonds between them and that it provides them with a helpmate whose socially-prescribed duties are separate from their own. D.H. LawrenceÂ’s work Women in Love supports the propogation of the sex/gender system that Rubin describes in terms of wanting women to serve a different function than men which includes being taken by men rather than taking, and aiding the development of bonds between men. LawrenceÂ’s support of the Western sex/gender system can be seen through examinations of the satisfying nature of Birkin and UrsulaÂ’s relationship as opposed to the tragedy of Gerald and GudrunÂ’s.

        One of the points on which the two couples differ in Women in Love is in their desire for similarity with their partner. Lawrence draws Birkin and Ursula as two people who are concerned with preserving separate roles for one another. The expression of this will for dissimilitude evidences itself clearly in Birkin’s description of the relationship between Adam and Eve as one where Adam kept Eve "single with himself, like a star in its orbit" (Lawrence, 150). Ursula, caught up in convention, immediately assumes that Birkin is speaking of "Mars and his satellite" (150), but this is far from the truth. Of the celestial bodies that Birkin had to choose from, the star is the least likely to be acted upon by another celestial body. Moons orbit planets and planets orbit stars, but stars exceedingly rarely share a solar system, and their action on each other is generally insignificant. By idealizing a relationship where the two participants are stars, Birkin is indicating a strong desire for the separation of selves, and what amounts to a de facto separation of roles. The two distinct selves that Birkin envisions could hardly fill the same role. Though there are many occassions in the novel when Ursula expresses a desire to possess and be possessed by Birkin in opposition to this idea, when their relationship begins to solidify Lawrence writes it as one where "they would give each other this star-equilibrium which alone is freedom" (318). The equilibrium that Birkin and Urusla achieve is one of togetherness, but not one where each has become a facsimile of the other. Though the two often come to agreement on a course of action to take after they argue, it is not because they are the same. That Birkin and Ursula maintain different roles is later demonstrated by the argument they have after buying the antique chair. Birkin’s ultimate rejection of it is motivated by his desire that he and Ursula "avoid having things of our own" (357). Though Ursula agrees not to take the chair, it is not so much because she does not want to own anything, she in fact expresses concern over the idea that they "are never to have a complete place of [their] own," but rather because she is "sick of old things" (357). Though Birkin and Ursula are intimately connected, they maintain distinct personalities based on their individual selves.

        Though it is clear that there is a difference between Ursula and Birkin because they maintain individual identities, it is also true that some of those differences arise because of their gender. H.M. Daleski finds in Lawrence’s work the revelation that "manhood and womanhood outside of the sexual relations are no longer, in other words, to be regarded as achievements, as the consummation of selves which have male and female components, but as singular blessings" (14). Daleski indicates that Lawrence’s belief is that maleness and femaleness are separate natures that must fulfill themselves in different ways. Birkin thinks of men and women that "each has a single, separate being, with its own laws. The man has his pure freedom, the woman hers. Each acknowledges the perfection of the polarised sex-circuit. Each admits the different nature in the other" (201). Birkin’s thoughts about the separate nature of men and women, and their eventual vindication through the relationship he forms with Ursula indicate that many differences between men and women exist because of their natures, and nothing more complex than that. In noting the different natures of men and women, Lawrence certainly makes it clear that men and women must fulfill different roles.

        Lawrence also demonstrates that Ursula and Birkin play different roles by the way in which he describes their sexual relationship. In the prelude to their first experience of having sex together, Ursula becomes aware that in Birkin "there were strange fountains of his body, more mysterious and potent than any she had imagined or known, more satisfying, ah, finally, mystically-physically satisfying" (314). What Ursula discovers in Birkin is something that does not exist in herself. In Birkin there exists a nature so separate that it can provide Ursula with things she can not know in herself as a woman. When Birkin and Ursula do make love for the first time, it is followed by a moment when "she had her desire fulfilled, he had his desire fulfilled. For she was to him what he was to her, the immemorial magnificence of mystic, palpable, real otherness" (320) indicating that the same type of mystery that Birkin holds for Ursula exists in Ursula for Birkin. Both Ursula and Birkin are able to satisfy the needs of their partner, but it is by offering them a satisfaction that only a member of the opposite sex can provide them. What each offers to the other is different, based on whether they are the male or the female, and Lawrence allows their relationship happiness because of it.

        Even further support that Lawrence believes that men and women should fulfill different roles is offered by his development of the relationship between Gerald and Gudrun. Among the most notable characteristics of the relationship that grows between Gerald and Gudrun is their desire for sameness. Baruch Hochman notes that while Gudrun’s "affinity with Gerald is shown to be an affinity between antagonistic but complementary violences that allure each other," Gudrun "is no female Cain" (109) as Gerald is a male one. Both Gudrun and Gerald seek to fulfill themselves in the same way--largely through violence. Lawrence often reveals each characters’ desire for violence through interractions with animals. Gerald demonstrates his violent tendencies when "he bit himself down on the mare like a keen edge biting home, and forced her round. She roared as he breathed, her nostrils were two wide hot holes, her mouth was apart, her eyes frenzied" (111). Gudrun’s violence evidences itself both to some cows when

        "in a sudden motion, she lifted her arms and rushed sheer upon the long-horned bullocks, in shuddering irregular runs, pausing for a second and looking at them, then lifting her hands and running forward with a flash till they ceased pawing the ground, and gave way snorting with terror" (169-170)

as well as to Gerald himself immediately afterwards when she strikes him. Both Gerald and Gudrun possess the same desire to exert their wills over intimate partners. Gudrun and Gerald both fill the same role in their relationship. Gerald and Gudrun confirm that they knowingly wish to play the same role in their relationship when speaking to each other: "’I believe in love, in a real abandon, if you’re capable of it,’ said Gerald. ‘So do I,’ said she" (290). Violence and abandon mark how both Gerald and Gudrun prefer to perform in their relationships. The same role for both the male and the female. This meeting of violent souls ends in Gudrun leaving with Loerke for Dresden, not hopeful of finding love, and brings about Gerald’s death.

        The similarity of roles that Gudrun and Gerald desire also appears in the manner in which Lawrence describes their lovemaking. In contrast to Ursula and Birkin’s experience, when Gerald and Gudrun first have a sexual experience it is not one of mutual satisfaction, it is one of transference. One portion of Gerald and Gudrun’s first encounter reads:

    "His brain was hurt, seared, the tissue was as if destroyed. He had not known how hurt he was, how his tissue, the very tissue of his brain was damaged by the corrosive flood of death. Now, as the healing lymph of her effluence flowed through him, he knew how destroyed he was, like a plant whose tissue is burst from inwards by a frost." (344-345)

The end result of the sexual encounter is that Gerald enters "the sleep of complete exhaustion and restoration" while "Gudrun lay wide awake, destroyed into perfect consciousness" (345), that each person makes their partner adopt the role that the other played entering the sexual encounter. Neither Gudrun nor Gerald gives their partner anything that is not already in themselves. Neither Gudrun nor Gerald gives their partner anything that is part of their gender. Neither Gudrun nor Gerald shows anything in their nature that shows that they are performing their gender roles, and in this failure, is the source of their dissatisfaction.

        Rubin contends in her essay that "if women are for men to dispose of, they are in no position to give themselves away" (175) when calling attention to the fact that women are in a position of disempowerment compared to men. Though Ursula is a strong enough feminist to be labeled a "self-willed bargust" by her father, she does not appear as an active participant in choosing who she is going to involve herself with romantically. On one of the first occassions that Ursula approaches Birkin after he has ended his relationship with Hermione she is hesitant, "she felt she ought to go away, he would not want her. He seemed to be so much occupied" (Lawrence, 123). Though Ursula does not flee, it is only at Birkin’s request that she enters into conversation with him. Ursula maintains her inactive status in her next meeting with Birkin as well. Following her encounter with him at the lake, she waits as "the days went by, and she received no sign. Was he going to ignore her, was he going to take no further notice of her secret? A dreary weight of anxiety and bitterness settled on her" (144). Though Ursula by this time certainly feels love towards Birkin, she does not assert anything of the sort towards him, nor does she act as if this in any way gives her the right to enter into Birkin’s presence. As part of her role as a female, Ursula waits for Birkin to approach her, and is eventually rewarded by getting to marry and fulfill the man she loves.

        In contrast to the correct behavior Lawrence ascribes to Ursula, Gudrun does not wait to be chosen by the man she is attracted to, but seeks to insert herself into his mind. Though Gerald is given the right to make initial overtures, Gudrun does not wait for him after that time. At Breadalby, following Gerald’s interest in her during the time people were swimming, Gudrun enters into conversation freely with Gerald about the "social equality of man," but quickly twists the conversation by drawing it to "the relationship between you and me"( 102). Gudrun is deliberately encouraging Gerald to consider a relationship between the two of them. Gudrun continues her concerted attempts to attract Geralds attention still later at Breadalby. Though at the time to Gerald "in his world, his conscious world, she was still nobody," Gudrun is affected by his approach, becoming "aware of his body, stretching and surging like the marsh-fire, stretching towards her" (120) and she acts to engage Gerald with her. By the end of their meeting "the bond was established between them, in that look, in her tone. 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" (122). Gudrun’s final act of claiming Gerald is when she strikes Gerald at the water party. Lawrence intends for this moment to echo the episode with Mino, and so it is likely that Gudrun wants Gerald to accept her "as a sort of fate" (150). Gudrun, rather than being the female in Rubin’s sex/gender system who does not have the right to influence who she marries, takes it upon herself to choose Gerald. Gudrun’s refusal to enter her gender role is why she fails to find love.

        It is not clear that Lawrence holds, as Rubin does, that women should be transacted among men. Despite this, in Rubin’s assertion that "if it is women who are being transacted, then it is the men who give and take them who are linked" (174) there echoes Lawrence’s desire for women to act to bind men together more strongly. For all Birkin’s accompanying misgivings towards women, it is significant that his proposal that he and Gerald should "swear to be true to each other" (206) follows closely upon his realization that "his life rested with her [Ursula]" (199) and comes after he has heard that the last time Gudrun and Gerald were together Gudrun had struck Gerald. Of Gudrun striking Gerald Birkin "laughed quickly, as if it pleased him" (202) and essentially, it does. Birkin realizes that Gudrun desires Gerald, and in conjuntion with Birkin’s destiny with Ursula, the indication is that Gerald and Birkin will be brothers-in-law. To some degree, it is the prospect of this formalization of their relationship that allows Birkin to profess his love for Gerald so directly. The success of women binding the male characters continues later in the novel as well. It is Birkin who offers to show Gerald jiu-jitsu and suggests that "you can’t do much in a starched shirt" (268) leading to their wrestling match. Out of the wrestling match comes not only the reconsideration of Birkin and Gerald’s pledge to one another, but also Birkins direct assertion to Gerald that "I think also that you are beautiful" (273). The assurance that allows Birkin to both propose the wrestling match and to compliment Gerald comes from his knowledge that he has proposed to Ursula, that he has taken another step closer to a formalized bond with Gerald.

        To a considerable degree, it is Gudrun’s failure and Ursula’s success in their role of binding men together that leads to the death of Gerald. Ursula is quite open in professing to Gudrun that "I think it’s rather beautiful, the friendship between Rupert and Gerald"( 378). The fact of the familiarity between Gerald and Birkin, however, infuriates Gudrun. Her thoughts on how "she wanted the absolutest secrecy kept, with regard to her movements" (378) is not so much because she wants no one to know where she is, as it is that she wants to be the highest confidence to which her chosen lover, in this case Gerald, has access. This same desire to stem the friendship between Gerald and Birkin is what later causes "the strange effect of Birkin’s letter read aloud in perfect clerical sing-song, clear and resonant, phrase by phrase" that Gudrun feels, making "the blood mount to her head as if she were mad" (384). Though Ursula is distressed because Birkin does not believe "you can’t have two kinds of love" (481) she never pursues the destruction of Gerald and Birkin’s friendship as Gudrun does. Ursula is unaware of her binding Gerald and Birkin together, but does not resist their friendship. As is appropriate for a woman in Lawrence, Ursula draws Gerald and Birkin together. Gudrun’s unfeminine blocking of Gerald’s friendship with Birkin not only causes Gerald’s death, but is also part of the casue of life forcing Gudrun to accept that her chosen path will not lead her to "an elixir of life" (464).

        Gayle Rubin opens her essay "The Traffic in Women" noting that "The literature on women--both feminist and anti-feminist--is a long rumination on the question of the nature and genesis of women’s oppression and social subordination" (157). Rubin offers he explanation that much of the causes for the oppression of women lie in a sex/gender system that asks women to perform underalued roles in society and to be a means of exchanging male power, rather than having power of their own. D.H. Lawrence in Women in Love offers a view of women that suggests they should live in the sex/gender system that Rubin describes, asserting that men and women have different natures and roles. The role that Lawrence ascribes to women includes being the recipient of male desire and strengthening bonds between males. Not that Lawrence wants women to be degraded or unhappy. Ursula who performs her gender role well is rewarded with a husband she loves and has her needs satisfied. Ursula is also not doomed to a conventional domestic role in life, even if a man is her reward for her actions. Lawrence, however, should not be excused for so violently limiting the ways that a person may live and express themselves based on their gender. Lawrence’s world does not truly offer the freedom that Ursula and Birkin prize so highly.
 
 

WORKS CITED

Daleski, H.M. "Two in One: The Second Period." D.H. LawrenceÂ’s Women in Love. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1988. 1-8.

Hochman, Baruch. "On the Shape the Self Takes." D.H. LawrenceÂ’s Women in Love. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1988. 101-114.

Lawrence, D.H. Women in Love. New York: Penguin Books, 1995.

Rubin, Gayle. "The Traffic in Women: Notes on the ‘Political Economy’ of Sex." Toward an Anthropology of Women. Ed. Rayna Reiter. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1975. 157-210.