Women In Love

Throughout the novel, Lawrence explores a variety of binaries—dualities, paradoxes, or oppositions—to approach the complex, often contradictory nature of his characters’ beliefs. Almost every aspect of the novel’s world is characterized as binary, from the angel/devil imagery associated with Rupert to the past/present imagery associated with England. Binaries can include “a violent oscillation” (297), such as having alternating feelings of hate and love for the same person, or a “horrible fusion of two beings” (309) as in sex or battle.

Rupert’s description of love is a central binary in the novel. He uses the image of binary stars to describe his ideal of love as “maintaining of the self in mystic balance and integrity” (152). Similarly, he sees man and woman as “two pure beings, each constituting the freedom of the other, balancing each other like two poles of one force, like two angels, or two demons” (199). Rupert’s concept of love as balance and equality without one party dominating the other is at odds with Gerald’s view of love (and everything else) as a power struggle that manifests itself in passion and violence. Lawrence uses paradoxical descriptions to define these feelings, such as the “flame of ice” (402) in Gerald’s heart about Gudrun, and Gudrun sees Gerald “like a crystal shadow” (178).

Life and death is another binary that appears throughout the novel. Gerald’s father is ill, between life and death, for much of the novel. While grieving his father, Gerald has sexual intercourse with Gudrun: “His blood, which seemed to have been drawn back into death, came ebbing on the return, surely, beautifully, powerfully” (344). This is a life-affirming act, as sex is both a source of physical pleasure and the means of creating life. Conversely, Rupert believes that sensuality “is death to one self—but it is the coming into being of another” (43). For him, sex is linked to death of the mind as well as the self. Ursula is driven by her desire to “lightly, mindlessly connect with him, have the knowledge which is death of knowledge, the reality of surety in not-knowing” (319). Usually, “not-knowing” is related to uncertainty—which is often perceived as negative—but since sex is a physical rather than an intellectual act, relinquishing knowledge becomes empowering and enlightening.

Binaries are used as a literary device in other contexts throughout the novel. They appear as descriptors for things, like the “black-and-white tempest” (240) of Winnie’s rabbit and the “heavy fleetness” (399) of a Tyrolese girl running in the snow. The process of moving Ursula’s things out of Beldover is taking them “into the out-of-doors” (373), creating a sense of containment for a space—the outdoors—that is usually considered boundless. This highlights the importance of the transition away from Beldover for the sisters because they are not only leaving their home but also entering a new world.

The binary of new and old, or past and present, is significant for the novel’s political and historical context. Rupert believes the past—pre–Industrial Revolution England—is superior to the present (post–Industrial Revolution). He says, “[E]ven Jane Austen’s England—it had living thoughts to unfold even then, and pure happiness in unfolding them. And now, we can only fish among the rubbish heaps for the remnants of their old expression” (355). Austen (1775-1817) wrote during the 1810s, a century before the novel takes place. Like Women in Love, her novels examine gender roles and the institution of marriage. That Rupert considers the 1810s, which had more conservative views than his era, a source of original insight shows his level of distaste for the present day. On the other hand, Ursula dislikes both the past and present: “I hate the present—but I don’t want the past to take its place” (356). As a woman, she understands society’s restrictions on women in a way that Rupert, perhaps, cannot. Though they end up agreeing to build a new, unconventional, future together, Ursula’s and Rupert’s ideas about the future contain another binary: “wonderful light” and “darkness” (388), respectively.