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‘Oh yes, ultimately,' he said. ‘It means a new cycle of creation after ----but not for us. If it is the end, then we are the end ---fleurs du mal, if you like. If we are fleurs du mal, we are not roses of happiness, and there you are.'
‘But I think I am,' said Ursula. ‘I think I am a rose of happiness.'
‘Ready-made?' he asked ironically.
‘No-----real,' she said, hurt.
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‘If we are the end, we are not the beginning,' he said.
‘Yes, we are,' she said. ‘The beginning comes out of the end.'
‘After it, not out of it. After us, not out of us.'
‘You are a devil, you know, really,' she said. ‘You want to destroy our hope. You want us to be deathly.'
‘No,' he said, ‘I only want us to know what we are.'
‘Ha!' she cried in anger. ‘You only want us to know death.'
(Chapter XIV- Water Party, Page 178)
Destruction and dissolution are two fundamental elements of D.H. Lawrence's Women in Love. It is a novel which quite clearly reflects a society that did not survive the first world war or its revolutionary aftermath. The presence of this theme is so strong that when he had almost completed the final revision in November 116, Lawrence himself wrote, "the book frightens me; it is so end-of-the-world,". With detail upon detail Lawrence reinforces this process of dissolution, which exists in every aspect of society, both within the sphere of personal relations, and in the hearts and minds of the individual characters.
As the passage above indicates, this process of dissolution is deeply embedded in the minds of many characters, particularly the novels protagonist, Rupert Birkin. In this dialogue between Birkin and Ursula, Birkin clearly recognizes this deathly nature within himself, and attempts to persuade Ursula toward the same self-recognition. As one observes from the very beginning of the novel, Birkin is a character who is much more pessimistic about the nature of man and the possibilities of escape than the others. The reader is frequently given a glimpse of his views about the natural cycle of life and it's inherent relationship with destruction. As scholar Moynahan argues "He (Birkin) assumes early on that his generation is involved in a natural cycle of destruction preceding a fresh cycle of creation into which neither he nor anyone else can survive." This is precisely the sense one gets from his exchange with Ursula in this passage.
Birkin further equates man with the French term "Fleurs du mal", which means flowers of evil, clearly exemplifying his pessimistic view of the human race. While Birkin's thoughts are rooted in a sense of fatalism, Ursula makes it her task to persuade him otherwise. An examination of this passage however, indicates that Birkin is quite insistent on making Ursula see that the world as she knows it, and the ideals of that world, are all destined for doom. In particular, his skepticism is rooted in his attitude towards love. For Birkin the conventional attitude towards love is entirely conditioned by the present form of society, and because he strongly views this society as destructive he views this form of love in a similar fashion. It is no wonder then, that both Ursula and Birkin as in the passage above, engage many a times through the novel in debates about the nature of both love and dissolution.
An obvious example of Ursula and Birkin's relationship or contribution to the process of dissolution can be seen in their actions after they decide to get married. One of the first things they do after making this decision, is send written resignations from their jobs. Birkin being a school inspector and Ursula a teacher, are clearly active members of society. However, if society is as dead and dying as Birkin argues it to be then by resigning their respective positions both Birkin and Ursula are quite brutally abandoning the defenseless young to a fate which has nothing more than destruction waiting for them.
It is argued therefore, that the process of dissolution is closely linked to the character, Rupert Birkin, and exists both in his individual self and in his relationship with others.
Gerald Crich, is another character for whom the process of dissolution is evident throughout the novel. From the very beginning of Women in Love, Gerald is put under a sort of cloud of fatality, which can be seen in many respects. First, he comes from a family that is mysteriously defective, who "can do things but…cannot get on with life at all." Second, Gerald has been adversely conditioned by his parents, who share a mutually destructive relationship; a marriage that drives his mother into mental alienation and his father into cancer. Finally, he has his own particular defect, a flaw that causes him in his childhood to kill his own brother. It can be argued therefore that Gerald Criche is a character that has an air of destruction surrounding him from the very beginning of his life. By the end of the novel Gerald, who is already defective by inheritance, conditioning, and fate becomes a product of chaos and destruction. As his self-identity begins to disintegrate, he strays to the path of self-destruction and dissolution.
Gerald's relationship to the theme of death and destruction can be seen in many instances throughout Lawrence's Women in Love. For example in the chapter titled ‘Death and Love', we see that Gerald is unable to handle the prospect of his father's death and reacts in an almost hysterical manner. Some scholars such as Gavriel Ben-Ephraim have suggested that Gerald is unable to handle his father's death because he already carries so much death inside him. Similarly, he is attracted to a woman he meets in London by the name of Miss Darrington; his attraction to her is triggered by "the film of disintegration in her eyes". Miss Darrington, or Minette is herfelf along with the rest of her caf friends involved in a form of social dissolution and Gerald's relationship with her is evidence of his destructive tendencies even within the sphere of his personal relations.These and many other such incidents illustrate the extent of dissolution that exists around the character of Gerald Criche.
A more dramatic example of Gerald's relation with destruction and death occurs in the chapter titled ‘Water-party'. After bravely diving in after his drowned sister, Gerald makes utterances that foreshadow the destruction of man, quite possibly himself. "There's room under that water for thousands…a whole universe under there; and as cold as hell, you're as helpless as if your head was cut off." Though in its respective sequence in the novel this scene may appear to be simply peculiar, it is only after one has completed the novel in its entirety that one realizes its full symbolic importance. The icy cold feeling that Gerald experiences under the water in this scene is clearly a hint at what his eventual death is like, where he meets his death in the frozen Alps.
There are other symbolic scenes which also quite brilliantly serve the theme of dissolution in this text. A striking example is the scene in which Gerald forces his horse to stand at a railroad crossing while a train passes. "He bit himself down on the mare like a keen edge biting home, and forced her round… He held on her unrelaxed with an almost mechanical relentlessness, keen as a sword pressing into her." This scene demonstrates Gerald's destructive tendencies, and also depicts the typical product of Gerald's energy ---the transformation of the organic into the mechanical. Gerald defends his brutal subjugation of the mare as necessary to make her useful to him. Clearly, this is an example man imposing his destructive will on the natural world. The terror of the horse and the cold violence with which Gerald asserts his is all correlative to the thematic process of dissolution.
Finally, one of the most obvious symbolic scenes in Wome in Love comes near the ending where Gerald and Gudrun partake in a corrosive death struggle in the Alps. It can be argued that in many respects Gudrun is just as destructive a force as Gerald. The fundamental difference being that Gudrun has a far greater survival capacity, making her a stronger figure then the will-driven Gerald. However, though Gudrun physically survives in the end of the novel, in essence her fate is just as doomed as that of Gerald. A close analysis of the text allows the reader to both equate and distinguish between Gudrun and Gerald's ways of dissolution. Though Gerald is explicitly a destructive force, Gudrun is also quite cold blooded. For example in the scene with the mare, one would assume that Gudrun would react in anger and hostility towards Gerald's treatment of the horse. However, after watching the incident Gudrun's "soul (is) calm and cold, without feeling." Even such extreme brutality, which occupies her mind only for a moment essentially fails to have any lasting effect on her cold control.
The process of dissolution is one that is universal in D.H.Lawrence's Women in Love. It exists in the very form of the society represented, and determines the nature of the experiences the characters within it undergo. Many critics have explained the over powering theme of destruction as a reflection of what Lawrence felt in the aftermath of the first world war. The destructive tendencies that take place within the novel can be argued then to be those which Lawrence detected in his own society. Lawrence is said to have loathed the war, he utterly disbelieved in the necessity of it, and tended to blame its outbreak on the perverse will of mankind in general. Although the war is not mentioned explicitly anywhere in the novel, it is clear that the underlying theme of destruction and dissolution is inspired by it. Clearly the deathly society that exists in the pages of Women in Love, is a reflection of what Lawrence's Europe was experiencing in the days he wrote this book.
As an informed reader then, it is our duty to fully comprehend the symbols and themes that underlie this complex narrative. One comes to appreciate the effort and detail that Lawrence has put into the brilliant integration of this theme in his work. Clearly, the process of dissolution exists within every aspect of the society in Women in Love. For the characters in this text both death and destruction exist not only in the sphere of their personal relations, but also within their own hearts and minds. One can conclude then that the principle statement the novel makes is a deeply pessimistic one. It says that any man or woman who embraces the social destiny offered to them by their industrial society is in essence embracing their own dissolution. If not for the reader this is certainly the case for the characters in Lawrence's Women in Love.
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