D.H. Lawrence's Male-Female Polarity Theme

Here, I'm going to quickly summarise D.H. Lawrence's concept of male-female polarity which is a central feature of The Study of Thomas Hardy (1915) and which permeates two of his great novels, The Rainbow (1915) and Women In Love (1920).

In The Forked Flame: A Study of D.H. Lawrence, Daleski (1965: 30-31), describes D.H. Lawrence’s male-female polarity theme/theory in terms of male consciousness inclining individuals to value mental clarity and to seek concrete ideas and social relationships, while female consciousness may predispose individuals to value inner feelings, instincts and intuitions and to engage in a fuller emotional life.  Hence, this vision contrasts a male quality of rationally reaching out to an external social world with a female quality of inwardly engaging in emotional fulfilment.  Of course, D.H. Lawrence’s distinction between male and female forces of consciousness is arbitrary, as some men may be more characterised by female features and some women more by male features, especially in Western woke societies where the sexes are often conditioned into rejecting traditional male and female roles. Moreover, Lawrence’s resolution process is for an individual to harmoniously balance opposing male and female forces together both inside his/her individual psyche and in his/her relationships with members of the opposite sex in the social world.