English 272D
Wollaeger
Fall 1998
Stalking Dichotomies and Allotropic Transformations
(Below are paired colums, one placed on top of the other, with numbers to match each line)
The Mechanistic

    1) Gerald:  electrifies and rationalizes the mine ("Industrial Magnate")
                   injured hand was caught in a machine ("Water-Party")
                  Gudrun lapses into "automatic consciousness" after sex with him ("Love and Death")
    2) underworld of the mine ("Coal Dust")
    3) industry
    4) the visual: emphasis on Gerald's appearance, Gudrun's art
    5) sado-masochism ("Rabbit")
    6) domination of woman: Gerald and Minette, the "violated slave"
    7) focused entirely on the present moment
    8) death: he killed his brother, is attracted to underwater darkness ("Water-Party")
    9) primitive as "extreme of physical sensation," obscenity ("Crême")
    10) sensual pleasure as end in itself ("Crême," "Fetish")
    11) "translate the Godhead to pure mechanism" (Industrial Magnate")
    12) "the pure instrumentality of mankind" ("Industrial Magnate")
    13) Gudrun:  irony, neo-primitive statues
    14) finishedness
    15)  Fragmentation of self (Birkin says Gerald is "all in bits" in "Breadalby"

The Organic

 1) Birkin:      discussing pollinating flowers in "Classroom"
                         throwing daisies in the water in "An Island"
                         seeing Ursula as a flower in "Excurse"
    2) pleasure in the underbrush: "Breadalby," post skull bashing
    3) unspoiled nature, art
    4) the verbal: his talk, talk, talking, "like a preacher," says Ursula
    5) sex beyond "the phallic source" in "Excurse"
    6) "star equilibrium" between man and woman ("Mino")
    7) oriented to future yet invested in distant past ("A Chair")
    8) life, vitality: yammers about it constantly
    9) primitive as art, pure culture in sensation ("Fetish")
    10) sensual pleasure as route to somewhere else ("Moony")
    11) "process of destructive creation" ("Water-Party")
    12) "free proud singleness" ("Moony")
    13) Ursula: debunking Birkin; does anything for her correspond to Gudrun's art??
    14) process
    15) wholeness (Birkin's desire for independent singleness)

But where should we place Birkin's desire for the "inhuman" connection, beyond "personality," between man and woman?

Where does Birkin's relationship of "dirt" and "perversion" with Hermione go? And Ursula's claim about him: "You only want us to know death."

And the energetic intensity of Gerald's mining operation? And the fact that he is healthy while Birkin is sickly?

Where does the mud imagery go? Gerald's mud-stained pants as he falls into Gudrun's bed in "Death and Love"?  The fertility of Nile mud? The muddy resting place for Diana Crich and her husband?
Where does the "blood brotherhood" of Birkin and Gerald come in? The kind(s) of relationship(s) explored in "Gladiatorial"

Where should we place Loerke and his art?

How many dichotomies are subverted by allotropic transformation?