Death, Life and Love

There was definitely a lot of death and talk about death in the section that we read today. Obviously, there was the death of Diana Crich and Doctor Brindell. And then there was a lot of contemplating about the usefulness of death and how life relates to it, as seen in the conversation between Ursula and Birkin:

 “Death is all right – nothing better.”

“Yet you don’t want to die”, she challenged him …

“I should like to be through with the death process.”

 “And aren’t you?” asked Ursula nervously …

“There is life which belongs to death, and there is life which isn’t death. One is tired of the life that belongs to death – our kind of life. But whether it is finished, God knows. I want love that is like sleep, like being born again, vulnerable as a baby that just comes into the world.” (Chapter XIV, Water Party)

I thought this whole conversation was really interesting. It declares that there is a kind of love that is like a brand new life, and there are also two different kinds of life (one with, one without death). What does this mean? Which kind of life is better, the kind which they are living, or the kind they aren’t? Why is love defined as being like being born, “vulnerable as a baby that just comes into the world”? (I can’t help but get an idea of the tabula rasa as a definition of love). I know this was kind of a scattered post with a lot of questions, but I think love vs life vs death in the terms of all of the different relationships in Women in Love would be an interesting topic to tackle in class.