D.H.Lawrence` s masterpiece charts the fluctuations in the relationship of Ursula Brangwen and her sister Gudrun (first introduced in The Rainbow) with their lovers Rupert Birkin, in many ways a self-portrait, and Gerand, the son of an industrial magnate. Through a series of dramatic scenes-a wedding, a water-party, encounters in flats and restaurants in London, excursions to the countryside around the colliery town of Beldover-Lawrence creates a passionate, lyrical and savagely critical vision of modern society and modern values.
In his friendship with Gerald and his marriage to Ursula, Birkin seeks out new kinds of relationships, attempting to transcend the destructive twentieth-century conjunction of love and death and its mechanical, soulless sexuality.