Man to Man explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Critique of Love and Marriage

  Birkin vehemently rejects conventional love, marriage, and domesticity, viewing them as a 'dreadful bondage' and 'horrible privacy.' He advocates for a new, polarized union.

• Male-Female Polarity and Power

  Birkin's meditation on the Magna Mater and his desire for 'pure duality of polarisation' between man and woman explores power dynamics and the struggle for individual freedom within relationships.

• Human Connection and Isolation

  Birkin's proposal of a Blutbruderschaft with Gerald highlights a yearning for deep, impersonal male bonding, contrasting with the isolating nature of conventional coupledom.

Characters to notice

• Rupert Birkin

  Lying ill, Birkin meditates on his abhorrence of conventional love and marriage, desiring a pure, polarized relationship with Ursula. He proposes a blood-brotherhood to Gerald.

• Gerald Crich

  Visits Birkin, showing protective concern but also mistrust. He is attracted to Birkin's proposal of eternal union yet holds back, feeling limited and uncertain.

• Ursula Brangwen

  Referenced in Birkin's thoughts as the object of his desire for a new kind of relationship, but also as a figure he fears will possess him.

• Gudrun Brangwen

  Mentioned by Gerald as a potential art teacher for Winifred, and as the one who hit him at the party.

• Hermione Roddice

  Referenced by Gerald as the one who suggested Gudrun teach Winifred; also appears in Birkin's thoughts as an example of the possessive Magna Mater.

• Winifred Crich

  Mentioned as being clever with plasticine and a potential art student of Gudrun.

Key passages

• “He knew how near to breaking was the vessel that held his life. He knew also how strong and durable it was. And he did not care. Better a thousand times take one’s chance with death, than accept a life one did not want.”

  Birkin is aware of his own fragility and resilience, but he would rather risk death than live a life he doesn't choose.

  Reflects Birkin's existential defiance and rejection of societal expectations.

• “The old way of love seemed a dreadful bondage, a sort of conscription. What it was in him he did not know, but the thought of love, marriage, and children, and a life lived together, in the horrible privacy of domestic and connubial satisfaction, was repulsive.”

  Birkin finds traditional love and marriage oppressive, like being forced into service, and the idea of a private domestic life disgusts him.

  Highlights Birkin's radical critique of conventional relationships.

• “He wanted so much to be free, not under the compulsion of any need for unification, or tortured by unsatisfied desire. Desire and aspiration should find their object without all this torture, as now, in a world of plenty of water, simple thirst is inconsiderable, satisfied almost unconsciously.”

  Birkin longs for a freedom where desire is effortlessly fulfilled, like quenching thirst in a world of abundance, without the torment of longing.

  Illustrates Birkin's ideal of a natural, unforced connection.

• “We will swear to stand by each other—be true to each other—ultimately—infallibly—given to each other, organically—without possibility of taking back.”

  Birkin proposes an eternal, unbreakable bond of loyalty and commitment between himself and Gerald.

  Central to the chapter's exploration of male bonding and the Blutbruderschaft concept.