Women In Love

“‘Mother,’ called Diana, a handsome girl a little older than Winifred, ‘I may have wine, mayn’t I?’”

Here, the reader meets Diana Crich, who dies in Chapter 14. She is a minor character, only given this one line at the wedding reception in Shortlands. However, her death emotionally impacts all of the main characters, especially her brother, Gerald.

“One man isn’t better than another, not because they are equal, but because they are intrinsically other, that there is no term of comparison.”

Rupert argues that humans are fundamentally distinct from one another rather than the same, and for that reason, equality should be taken for granted. The “other” is a concept that appears in literary theory for someone who is considered an outsider. The insider/outsider binary influences the characters’ relationships throughout the novel.

“Gudrun was as if numbed in her mind by the sense of indomitable soft weight of the man, bearing down into the living body of the horse: the strong, indomitable thighs of the blond man clenching the palpitating body of the mare into pure control; a sort of soft white magnetic domination from the loins and thighs and calves […]”

This passage describes Gudrun watching Gerald ride a mare as he nears a train crossing. The description, rife with imagery of sexuality and power, develops Gerald’s character as desiring control and representing an object of desire to Gudrun, who at first finds his dominant nature attractive.

“The pleasant sincerity of his voice made Ursula pause to consider her own proposition. And really it was attractive: a clean, lovely, humanless world.”

Throughout the novel, Ursula and Rupert discuss ideals for the future of humankind. In this case, Ursula is tempted by the idea that nature will outlast humanity and that love, being a human concept, is not a universal absolute.

“It’s the last, perhaps highest, love-impulse: resign your will to the higher being.”

Rupert says this to Ursula in his room at the mill. It is one of many conversations Rupert and Ursula have on the highest or most ideal form of love. The subject of human will also arises frequently in the novel, and here, Rupert compares the will of women with the will of a mare that must submit to a greater force.

“Only there needs to be the pledge between us, that we will both cast off everything, cast off ourselves even, and cease to be, so that which is perfectly ourselves can take place in us.”

This line is spoken by Rupert, who rejects traditional, domestic love because he believes it interferes with people developing their own sense of self in favor of fitting into predefined roles. Ursula eventually agrees to live a life of travel and exploration with him rather than settle into a home and routine.

“So saying, having given her word like a man, she and Ursula entered the frail craft, and pushed gently off.”

In this passage, Gudrun assures Gerald that she and her sister are safe in the canoe and do not need his supervision. The descriptor “like a man” implies that decisiveness and responsibility are seen as male characteristics during this time period, and that women are expected to need a man to take care of them in risky or potentially dangerous situations.

“I’m not angry with you. I’m in love with you.”

Gerald speaks this line to Gudrun in response to her request for him not to be angry with her. It develops the connection between passion and violence in their relationship and the interchangeability of love and hate (or anger).

“It was a gladness above all, that this remained to look forward to, the pure inhuman otherness of death.”

This thought of Ursula’s is one of many examples of death being portrayed as beyond the reach of human corruption and, therefore, a positive thing. Ursula and Rupert emphasize that human nature is destructive, and humans will eventually destroy both themselves and the world they live in. This pessimistic view is influenced by the novel’s World War I context.

“Instead of chopping yourself down to fit the world, chop the world down to fit yourself […] Do you want to be normal or ordinary! It’s a lie. You want to be free and extraordinary, in an extraordinary world of liberty.”

Rupert says this to Gerald while he (Rupert) is ill and bedridden. One of the main struggles the characters face is how to reconcile their desires for a new kind of life and love with the traditional, normalizing world that the England of their day represents. Rupert is especially interested in how an individual can overcome society’s limitations.

“The eyes of the two men met again. Gerald’s, that were keen as a hawk’s, were suffused now with warm light and unadmitted love, Birkin looked back as out of the darkness, unsounded and unknown, yet with a kind of warmth, that seemed to flow over Gerald’s brain like a fertile sleep.”

This interaction occurs as Gerald is leaving Rupert’s sickbed. It establishes the complex emotions that Gerald and Rupert feel for one another; Gerald is reluctant to admit his love while Rupert repeatedly tries to talk to Gerald about their connection and is ultimately rejected.

“I love you, and I know it’s final. It is final, so why say any more about it.”

Rupert says this to Ursula after he throws stones into the pond, disrupting the reflection of the moon. Rupert thinks of his love for Ursula as a reality, or a fact, that does not need to be stated, while her ideal of love includes more emotional language from him. This shows their contrasting attitudes about love: as something ethereal and cosmic for Rupert and as a form of communication and action between two people for Ursula.

“‘The right woman, I suppose you mean,’ said Birkin, spitefully.

‘Of course, for choice. Failing that, an amusing man.’”

This section of dialogue from Rupert and Gerald occurs after Ursula does not answer Rupert’s marriage proposal and before the men wrestle. Gerald thinks that love relationships between men are less important than those between men and women, while Rupert thinks that they are equally important, though different types of love.

“She disliked the Grammar School already thoroughly, she wanted to be free. If a studio were provided, she would be free to go on with her work, she would await the turn of events with complete serenity.”

Here, Gudrun considers her move from working in the public sphere to working as a private art tutor for Winnie. As an artist, Gudrun faces the challenges of freedom versus practicality; she needs creative freedom to do her art, but she also needs to support herself—independence is very important to her. Living with the Criches and tutoring Winnie will allow her to have both freedom and security for a time, but she knows she will eventually have to move on.

“Instead of wanting a woman for herself, he wants his ideas fulfilled. Which, when it comes to actual practice, is not good enough.”

Here, Gudrun talks to Gerald about Rupert. One of the main reasons Rupert and Ursula disagree about the meaning of love is that Rupert conceives of love in the abstract rather than as a relationship between two people who both have needs and faults. Gudrun knows that Ursula will not want to be treated as a concept.

“I’m sure a mistress is more likely to be faithful than a wife—just because she is her own mistress.”

Gudrun argues that the freedom of being unmarried is better than being married. To Gudrun, marriage entails obligation, and obligation prompts rebellion. She struggles between wanting love and also wanting to maintain her independence, which during the 1910s was difficult for women in England due to society’s strict gender roles.

“He did not want an odalisk. He wanted a woman to take something from him.”

Hermione would submit to Rupert like an odalisque (concubine), but she knows he does not want the submission that she is willing to offer. Hermione only sees love as a relationship in which one person gives while the other takes, rather than a situation that requires reciprocity from both individuals.

“Do you think I don’t know the foulness of your sex life—and hers?—I do. [...] You are so perverse, so death-eating.”

Here, Ursula refers to Rupert’s past sexual encounters with Hermione. The narrative never specifies why their sex life is considered perverse or why Ursula considers sex with Rupert as “bestial” (413). Since early 20th-century England still held largely Victorian attitudes about sex and sexuality, any free forms of sexual expression outside of the norm may have been considered immoral or taboo.

“And you’ve got to admit the unadmitted love of man for man.”

Rupert says this to Gerald, trying to convince him to take a vow of love with him; Rupert’s ideal form of love is a vow of love with both a woman and a man, which he sees as two different though equally important kinds of love. However, Gerald does not acknowledge their bond in the way Rupert wants him to.

“In the new, superfine bliss, a peace superseding knowledge, there was no I and you, there was only the third, unrealised wonder, the wonder of existing not as oneself, but in a consummation of my being and of her being in a new One, a new, paradisal unit regained from the duality.”

This is a description of the night before Rupert and Ursula get married. The intimacy of this prewedding night is considered as romantic as the intimacy that occurs after a wedding in their conception of love. Here, Rupert experiences the feeling he desires of two people becoming part of something greater through love.

“The worn-out concern, and the rapid, splendidly organised industry, they were alike indifferent to her, they were bad money. Yet of course, she cared a great deal, outwardly—and outwardly was all that mattered, for inwardly was a bad joke.”

Here, Gudrun struggles with her ideals about art and freedom as she admits the need for financial security when she thinks about Gerald’s inheriting his family’s mining business. The mine makes “bad money” because its practices are unethical, but Gudrun bitterly notes that she doesn’t have a say in where the money that supports her comes from if she decides to be with Gerald.

“I never know what those common words mean. All right and all wrong, don’t they become synonymous, somewhere?”

This is Gerald’s response when Rupert asks him if things are all right with him. This conversation occurs right before Rupert and Ursula leave the Alps—it is their last conversation with Gerald before his death. Gerald is not emotionally self-aware; he sees relationships, with workers, lovers, and nature, as a power struggle, and he always desires to have the upper hand. Failing that, he does not know any other means by which to measure his feelings or experiences.

“Why did she leave him standing there, with the ice-wind blowing through his heart, like death, to gratify herself among the rosy snow-tips?”

In this passage, Gerald thinks about Gudrun watching the sunset. The icy, deathly imagery foreshadows how Gerald will die mountain climbing. Gerald is egocentric; despite the animosity he has for Gudrun, he believes she should still be attentive to him rather than to her own desires. Feeling slighted and ignored by Gudrun and Loerke is what pushes Gerald over the edge.