Tension at the Heart of Women in Love

73 TENSION AT THE HEART OF WOMEN IN LOVE By Bryan D. Reddick (Olivet College) The basic narrative strategy employed throughout Women in Love is comparison. The novel begins by presenting two sisters , moves on to consider two men, each introduced by a sister's sudden perception of him, and then to compare the two other women with whom the two men, Gerald and Birkin, are at first superficially involved. And so it continues, by two's. Clearly, the most important comparison in the novel is that between the two central "couples," Ursula and Birkin, Gudrun and Gerald. This much, of course, has often been recognized . ElÃ-seo Vivas has gone so far as to claim that the very structure or "form" of the novel is "given to it" by the contrast between these two pairs of lovers.1 But this observation has not been pursued in enough detail; what I would like to suggest is that the structure of Women in Love rests crucially on the two chapters, about two-thirds of the way into the narrative, in which these two relationships are finally confirmed. The preceding chapters seem to be leading up to "Excurse" (pp. 293-313)2 and "Death in Love" (pp. 313-42), preparing for them, and the succeeding chapters seem to look back to the standard and method of comparison first established in these two chapters. The fundamental difference between the fulfilling and vital relationship first achieved in "Excurse by Birkin and Ursula and the destructive, combative one established in the following chapter by Gudrun and Gerald is first and most fully portrayed in this central section. Neither relationship, of course, is static or comfortable. In both the prime necessity urging the lovers on to union is, paradoxically, a profound yearning for liberation and selfhood . In the first instance, however, this freedom is achieved in a mutual, yet independent "wholeness of being"» whereas, for the second couple, the result of the union is an annihilating "self-sufficiency." Since these two chapters appear so central to both the structure and meaning of Women in Love as a whole, they deserve a more detailed study than they have yet received, particularly with a view to narrative form. Lawrence's most remarkable achievement in these pages, I believe, is the "degree to which he involves the reader himself in the dramatic and significant developments that are recounted. The most important means, that is, by which the author portrays the two central relationships here is by establishing through poj.nt of view, focus, and tone a similar kind of relation between the characters and the reader himself. In both of these chapters, indeed 74 throughout the novel, a high though variable degree of distance is maintained, despite the intensity of interest which is generated by the significant events narrated and despite the intimacy which love scenes recounted in detail might tend usually to create. Such formal tension or ambivalence between detachment and immediacy is characteristic of Women in Love as a whole, conveying directly to the reader - and with especial vividness in these two central chapters - the problematic and turbulent emotional world that Lawrence envisaged. Until the last, brief summary paragraph, "Excurse" narrates without interruption a single continuous scene, as Birkin takes Ursula driving, as they fight and return to intimacy, have tea at Southwell and buy food, and return to Sherwood Forest for the night. Most emphasis in all the preceding sections of the novel has been on scenes, rather than summaries or narrative comment, but the unbroken movement of "Excurse" makes it one of the most sustained scenes so far. The chapter is also stressed by the long preparation for it in the earlier sections, the gradual and irregular drawing together of the two lovers. Although somewhat more than half the novel precedes this chapter, relatively few sustained passages of immediacy or intensity have appeared» there are only about four sections before "Excurse " which in this way create a climax in the novel, two of which stress division between characters ("Breadalby" and "Water-Party") and two of which show Birkin's hopes for final or ultimate intimacy frustrated ("Mino" and "Gladiatorial"). "Excurse," then, is a long delayed...