Beastly desire: Human/animal interactions in Lawrence's Women in Love

Papers on Language and Literature, Fall 2002 by Howe, Andrew

D. H. Lawrence's Women in Love revolves around an interesting and complicated system of sexual power dynamic, with each of the four main characters engaging in some sort of sadomasochistic behavior. Gerald Crich seeks to dominate his lover, Gudrun Brangwen, and Gudrun's sister Ursula struggles for supremacy with her lover, Rupert Birkin. The novel is filled with violence and struggle, and the characters not only participate willingly in the physical and mental violence that transpires, they seem to enjoy it. Gerald is most definitely a sadist in every sense of the word, with the other three characters at various times exhibiting both masochistic and sadistic qualities. S & M appears in today's academic discourse with some frequency, either portrayed as a harmful system whereby hierarchy is perpetuated' or as a method by which power structures are playfully subverted.2 S & M is a topic "with one foot" in mainstream society, but this was not always the case. Women in Love was written during a time when such concerns were barely articulated and certainly very private. Lawrence sidesteps this problem of bringing the private to the public by having the sadistic acts carried out against animals instead of humans. In "The Interpretation of Dreams," Sigmund Freud posits that animals represent the passionate impulses of which humans are afraid (410). This would include sexual impulses that society deems improper, such as violence as a mechanism for arousal and sexual dominance. In Women in Love, the struggles inherent in human relationships, ones based on dominance and ownership, are projected onto animal proxies. In the novel, the human power dynamic is both constructed and explained by the introduction of animals as object-receptacles of violence.

An animal that symbolizes, even doubles, humans in the novel is Gerald's horse, a red Arab mare. Gerald, hoping to teach her not to fear loud noises and machinery, decides to make the mare stand by a railroad track while a train passes. A mighty struggle ensues, as the horse is overwhelmed with fear. Gudrun and Ursula are sitting nearby, and witness the event:

The locomotive chuffed slowly between the banks, hidden. The mare did not like it. She began to wince away, as if hurt by the unknown noise. But Gerald pulled her back and held her head to the gate. The sharp blasts of the chuffing engine broke with more and more force on her. The repeated sharp blows of unknown, terrifying noise struck through her till she was rocking with terror. She recoiled like a spring let go. But a glistening, half-smiling look came into Gerald's face. He brought her back again, inevitably. (Lawrence 103)

The mare is frantic to escape, but Gerald is determined to tame her, dominate her, and keep her near the tracks, by force if necessary. Gerald does, in fact, resort to violence, beating the horse and cutting it with spurs. "Gudrun looked and saw the trickles of blood on the sides of the mare, and she turned white. And then on the very wound the bright spurs came down, pressing relentlessly" (Lawrence 104). Gudrun cannot handle the sight of blood and faints. The encounter is violent, yet also, at least for both Gerald and Gudrun, sexual, taking on the form of a brutal rape:

A sharpened look came on Gerald's face. He bit himself down on the mare like a keen edge biting home, and forced her round. She roared as she breathed, her nostrils were two wide, hot holes, her mouth was apart, her eyes frenzied. It was a repulsive sight. But he held on her unrelaxed, with an almost mechanical relentlessness keen as a sword pressing into her. Both man and horse were sweating with violence. Yet he seemed calm as a ray of cold sunshine. (Lawrence 104)

The spurs invest the scene with a phallic urgency, as Gerald presses into the mare in a relentless, mechanical fashion, a repetition akin to sexual thrusts. The episode is best interpreted as a sadistic rape, as it is violent and against the mare's will. Gerald is relentless and intense, but also calm. He enjoys the encounter, as he enjoys dominating those around him, winning the battle and asserting his own masculine power in the process. If the horse doubles for a human character in this story, then Gerald feels pleasure from either besting or dominating that person as well. Gerald is best seen as a sadist, or at least a violently controlling person who uses sex as a tool for repression.

Gerald's struggle with the horse is metaphorical for his struggle with human characters throughout the novel. The horse could represent Birkin, as Gerald seeks to place Birkin in the submissive role throughout the novel. This desire is most evident in the notorious, homoerotic wrestling match, where the two naked men grapple to a draw. A more likely interpretation, however, is that the horse doubles Gudrun, Gerald's future wife, a character who, initially, loses every battle to Gerald. Even though she loses this battle (as her double, the mare, does), however, Gudrun is excited by the episode. She is repulsed by Gerald's violent treatment of the horse yet finds it strangely arousing. In addition to feeling anger at Gerald, she begins to feel faint: "It made Gudrun faint with poignant dizziness, which seemed to penetrate to her heart" (Lawrence 103). She eventually faints at the most frenzied violence, the repeated slashing of the spurs akin to sexual climax. When Gudrun awakes, things have calmed considerably, introducing a warped sort of afterglow to the scene. Everything is surprisingly quiet compared to the prior screeching of the train's brakes and the horse's screaming. All she now hears is "the heavy panting of the halfstunned mare" (Lawrence 104). Gudrun hates the violence, but even though the scene was forced upon her, she undergoes a sexual experience nonetheless. The horse represents her double, predicting that she too will undergo similar treatment from Gerald. He will force her in the future to do things against her will, seeking to dominate and subjugate her, asserting his claim over her as master. The fact that she finds the horse's anguish exciting indicates that Gudrun is looking for this type of treatment from Gerald, that she expects to be submissive in her role as wife. Definite parallels exist between Gudrun and the horse, parallels that suggest her attraction for Gerald is driven by some masochistic need.