ESSAYS

Essay on Sexuality and Sexual Difference

Sexuality and Sexual Difference in D. H. Lawrence's St. Mawr

D. H. Lawrence's short novel, St. Mawr (Lawrence 1925), is punctuated by constant references to sexuality and the intricate and complicated relationships between men and women. The horse that gives the novel its title is an embodiment of what Lou, one of the main female characters in the novel, considers the ideal of male virility, and is therefore the dominant force in the novel. Each of the characters stands in an important sexual relation to the symbolic figure of St Mawr, thereby illuminating the disjointedness of their relations with each other. Set in the stifling upper-class society of the 1920s, the novel comments on the sterility of the life the wealthy characters have subscribed to and their dissatisfaction with it. In contrast, the natural sexuality exuded by the groom, Lewis, and, to a lesser extent, by the servant, Phoenix, serves to highlight their vitality as men who are inextricably connected to the natural environment around them. Rico, on the other hand, like Clifford Chatterley in Lady Chatterley's Lover (Lawrence 1928), represents the desexualised impotency of the modern Englishman. The violence with which he attempts to control St Mawr is indicative of his lack of power and, as the novel implies, his masculine sexuality. Indeed, it is the web of power relations that weave their way through the novel that provides the reader with a further insight into the ways in which sexuality and sexual difference operate in this Lawrentian world of passion and sexual apathy.

The complex power relations that exist between the men and women in St Mawr are a result of the sexual connections they experience as individuals. At the beginning of the novel the reader is informed of the courtship and consequent marriage of Lou and Rico. Unlike Gerald and Gudrun in Women In Love (Lawrence 1920) whose relationship thrives on a continuous exchange of dominance and subservience that has its foundation in violence, Lou and Rico have a relationship based on a "nervous attachment, rather than a sexual love", while each partner is "curiously under the domination of the other" (p. 14). The text implies that due to the fact that neither one partner nor the other has ultimate control, any sexual energy that was present has been neutralised until "tacitly, the marriage [becomes] more like a friendship, Platonic" (p. 14). The tension that is built up by a dichotomous positioning of strength and weakness, or dominance and subjugation, is removed when an equality of power is reached. It is, the novel suggests, a kind of sexual stalemate. When Lou is introduced to the stallion, St Mawr, then, she is overwhelmed by the inexplicable attraction she feels towards his animal vitality:

"And she was startled to feel the vivid heat of his life come through to her, through the lacquer of red-gold gloss. So slippery with vivid, hot life!" (p. 21)

The evident sexual overtones in this passage alert the reader to Lou's primitive sexual connection with the horse. The difference between the horse's "power, his alive, alert intensity, his unyieldedness" and her husband's "central powerlessness" (p. 23) is indicative of the novel's constant conflation of power and sex. This becomes all the more evident when the reader considers the character of Lou's mother, Mrs Witt. Her potent sexual energy is evident throughout the novel as she gains the upper hand over her ineffectual son-in-law and is attracted by the underlying earthy sexuality of Lewis, the groom. However, it is the power relation that exists between Mrs Witt and Lewis that serves to prevent their relationship from developing as Lewis declares that " 'No woman shall touch my body, and mock me or despise me' " (p. 115). He recognises that hers is a dominant sexual force and would render him the weaker of the two if they were to marry. Nevertheless, the novel constantly reiterates, even in the case of Mrs Witt, that women want to be defeated and dominated. Despite the fact that it is the women who take action and who are ultimately in control, this typically misogynistic Lawrentian presentation of women runs throughout the novel. Nevertheless, when Lou buys the ranch in America, the understanding that St Mawr has engendered in her makes her stand firm in her resolution not to accept anything less than the spiritual sexual connection she yearns for. The novel suggests that it is her female sexuality that, standing in opposition to the "ghastly kisses and poison-bites" (p. 79) that seem to represent the state of bourgeois male sexuality, must be left to exist alone and untouched "since the mystic new man will never come" (p. 146).

The men in the novel are all representative of different types of male sexuality, yet none of them is wholly satisfactory. As the wealthy landowner accustomed to a life of privilege and ease, Rico is a symbol of everything Lawrence openly detested about English aristocratic existence. Unlike Lewis and Phoenix, Rico's treatment of St Mawr is characterised by violence and impatience as there is no understanding between him and the virile nobility of the stallion:

"…he got his seat, and pulled the reins viciously, to bring the horse to order, and put him on the track again. St Mawr began to rear: his favourite trick. Rico got him forward a few yards, when he went up again. 'Fool!' yelled Rico, hanging in the air. He pulled the horse over backwards on top of him" (p. 74).


Read other essays

All of our sample essays were written by students and then submitted to us to display and help others. Thanks to all the students who have submitted their work to us.