I wanted to look more closely on chapter 30, "Snowed Up", the climatic chapter. Look at the first few paragraphs:
Quote:
WHEN URSULA and Birkin were gone, Gudrun felt herself free in her contest with Gerald. As they grew more used to each other, he seemed to press upon her more and more. At first she could manage him, so that her own will was always left free. But very soon, he began to ignore her female tactics, he dropped his respect for her whims and her privacies, he began to exert his own will blindly, without submitting to hers.
So we see that the Gerald/Gudrun relationship is a "contest" and it is a contest of "wills."
Quote:
When Ursula had gone, Gudrun felt her own existence had become stark and elemental. She went and crouched alone in her bedroom, looking out of the window at the big, flashing stars. In front was the faint shadow of the mountain-knot. That was the pivot. She felt strange and inevitable, as if she were centred upon the pivot of all existence, there was no further reality.
Notice the symbols here. The stars (Ursula and Birkin relationship) set against "the mountain-knot" the Gerald and Gudrun realtionship. The stars are clear and static. The ice world is described in mechanized, kinematic terms, "pivot". A "mountain-knot" is a new reference here, knot representing both the never ending cycle that Gudrun and Gerald are caught in and the unfathomable mystery that is unclear and enigmatic, that which cannot be untied.
And they shortly have their first battle:
Quote:
`Are you alone in the dark?' he said. And she could tell by his tone he resented it, he resented this isolation she had drawn round herself. Yet, feeling static and inevitable, she was kind towards him.
`Would you like to light the candle?' she asked.
He did not answer, but came and stood behind her, in the darkness.
`Look,' she said, `at that lovely star up there. Do you know its name?'
He crouched beside her, to look through the low window.
`No,' he said. `It is very fine.'
`Isn't it beautiful! Do you notice how it darts different coloured fires -- it flashes really superbly --'
They remained in silence. With a mute, heavy gesture she put her hand on his knee, and took his hand.
`Are you regretting Ursula?' he asked.
`No, not at all,' she said. Then, in a slow mood, she asked:
`How much do you love me?'
He stiffened himself further against her.
`How much do you think I do?' he asked.
`I don't know,' she replied.
`But what is your opinion?' he asked.
There was a pause. At length, in the darkness, came her voice, hard and indifferent:
`Very little indeed,' she said coldly, almost flippant.
His heart went icy at the sound of her voice.
`Why don't I love you?' he asked, as if admitting the truth of her accusation, yet hating her for it.
`I don't know why you don't -- I've been good to you. You were in a fearful state when you came to me.'
Her heart was beating to suffocate her, yet she was strong and unrelenting.
`When was I in a fearful state?' he asked.
`When you first came to me. I had to take pity on you. But it was never love.'
It was that statement `It was never love,' which sounded in his ears with madness.
`Why must you repeat it so often, that there is no love?' he said in a voice strangled with rage.
`Well you don't think you love, do you?' she asked.
He was silent with cold passion of anger.
`You don't think you can love me, do you?' she repeated almost with a sneer.
`No,' he said.
`You know you never have loved me, don't you?'
She destroys him with logic and words, all in a knot of logic. She was the one who introduced the thought that he never loved her. It's actually untrue, but the logic of the exchange has him accept it.
Quote:
`I don't know what you mean by the word `love,' he replied.
`Yes, you do. You know all right that you have never loved me. Have you, do you think?'
`No,' he said, prompted by some barren spirit of truthfulness and obstinacy.
`And you never will love me,' she said finally, `will you?'
There was a diabolic coldness in her, too much to bear.
`No,' he said.
`Then,' she replied, `what have you against me!'
He was silent in cold, frightened rage and despair. `If only I could kill her,' his heart was whispering repeatedly. `If only I could kill her -- I should be free.'
It seemed to him that death was the only severing of this Gordian knot.
`Why do you torture me?' he said.
She flung her arms round his neck.
`Ah, I don't want to torture you,' she said pityingly, as if she were comforting a child. The impertinence made his veins go cold, he was insensible. She held her arms round his neck, in a triumph of pity. And her pity for him was as cold as stone, its deepest motive was hate of him, and fear of his power over her, which she must always counterfoil.
Now we see why Birkin is skeptical of love. Love for most (those that cannot achieve the star love like Birkin and Ursula) is a cycle, you love, you don't, you love you don't, another mechanized loop.
And Lawrence gives us several of these cycles in this climatic battle in this chapter. I have more still to say on the climax, but I'll stop here for now.
