D.H. Lawrence’s Women in Love engages heavily with what it means to have knowledge – this applies both to knowledge in general and to knowing another person in the form of a relationship. Throughout many parts in the novel, the characters struggle to define themselves in relation to other people, and their attempts manifest into acts of violence either on themselves or on others. This sentiment is not surprising from Lawrence. The idea that knowledge can be harmful recalls the essay “Hymns in a Man’s Life,” where Lawrence decries gaining knowledge of the world at the expense of wonder. More than just an argument about knowledge, however, Women in Love goes further than this essay. Lawrence capitalizes on the characters’ constant debates about knowledge and meaning and uses them as a carrier for emotional and physical violence between characters. 

Early on in a conversation between Hermione and Rupert Birkin, the two argue whether it is right to teach children and effectively destroy their wonder: “Hadn’t they better be animals, simple animals, crude, violent, anything, rather than this self-consciousness, this incapacity to be spontaneous?” (29). It is revealing of Hermione’s mindset that violence is better than an overwrought self-awareness. Rupert argues that knowledge is an essential part of existence, to the point of being the only thing that really matters. Hermione insists that the gaining of knowledge only “cripples” the soul and harms one’s ability to be “carried away” (29). Hermione’s argument seems to be closer to that of Lawrence’s essay, but this is complicated by her antagonistic place in the narrative. Because of this complication, it seems Lawrence is pointing not towards a “correct” answer to this argument, but instead to the two people having it. Rupert and Hermione are locked in an emotional struggle with one another, and this conversation is only the surface of it. Later in the novel, these feelings will bubble into physical violence when Hermione smashes Birkin over the head with a paperweight. This procession from debate to emotional tension to actual physical pain follows the decline of Rupert and Hermione’s relationship in this section of the novel. 

Between other characters, however, this process serves as a starting point for a relationship. Between Gerald and Birkin, for instance, there is obvious tension on a few different levels. Their relationship really begins in the realm of conversation. The two argue over their different approaches to life – Gerald feels he has “harder and more durable truths than any the other man knew” (44). Despite their disagreement, Gerald and Birkin are strongly attracted to one another. At some points, the force of this attraction is translated into agitation or hatred, but the connection between the two men remains steadfast; Gerald is “held unconsciously” by Birkin (44). The culmination of this unconscious tethering arrives as the two men wrestle in the library of the Crich household. As Rupert and Gerald struggle physically against one another, they strengthen their bond by reaching a “mutual physical understanding” (225). Birkin concludes that the wrestling is the manifestation of their relationship: “We are mentally, spiritually intimate, therefore we should be more or less physically intimate too – it is more whole” (227). While the process of debate, emotional struggle, and physical violence dissolves Birkin’s relationship with Hermione, with Gerald it serves an opposite purpose – to solidify the bond the two men share. 

Lawrence works throughout Women in Love to dissolve and create relationships between characters. In these scenarios, the pursuit or rejection of different forms of knowledge is only the means to an end. Debates about knowledge and knowing serve as a carrier for emotional struggle, which in turn becomes the catalyst for physical violence. Lawrence does not condemn physical violence, but instead highlights it as an almost necessary means of creation and destruction.