Predation, the purest face of male gender

- "Goodness, what big eyes you have!"

-"The better to see you with"

Little Red Riding Hood

Brothers Grimm.

While I was reading D. H. Lawrence's The Fox, I was noticing the attitudes that the characters of the story had: March, Banford and Henry, in which ways they behaved. Then I assimilated those characteristics with the philosophy and arts that the writer wanted to show in his texts, paintings, etc. As we already know, Lawrence considered himself as a "Primitivist", someone who had some kind of obsession with human basic instincts. Lawrence proposed that if we get used to live just like in the primitive ages, we should return and reach a certain state of purity. Something really similar to what Friederich Nietzsche proposed with his "Antichrist" by saying that, if a human wanted to be superior, it has to kill God or the imposed ethics and morality, in order to reach a superior level of consciousness, which he used to called "Der Übermensch" or The Super Man, who can't be judged by imposed laws or codes. At the same time, this can be complemented with Psychonalaitic praxis created by Dr. Sigmund Freud, who thought that the human mind was divided into three points: The "Id" or our basic instincts, The "Super Ego", which can be called our personal police officer, and the "Ego", which is the result of the fight between the previous entities mentioned and it  is how we see ourselves in this moment.

Now that we know the context, which I must admit I found quite interesting, I started to look closely to the way in which Henry unveiled the intrinsic instinct of every man: its predatory attitude. ¿How can we distinguish it? There are certain basic elements in the story. For example: he wished to possess the farm as a first goal. Once he was established there, he started to look for another goal, another prey: March, who had this manly behavior in contrast with the other woman, Banford. Additionally, we can read about the shock that March had when she saw the eyes of Henry in the darkness, getting closer to her. She assimilated that gaze with the look of the fox of her nightmares. In addition, Henry catch his prey by kissing March's neck, being pretty similar to what a coyote does to hunt sheep or a lion attacking a zebra. They reach the neck of their victims in order to leave it submissive. (We can also see the same analogy with the bites of a vampire).

After that, we would see the most revealing scenes in the story which demonstrate the most intrinsic and basic instinct of the man (Henry) as a predator, by reading page 44, while he was observing the two women, juts like an animal stalking to its prey:

He hoped he might even put his hand on her bosom and feel her soft breasts under her

tunic. His heart beat deep and powerful as he thought of that. He wanted very much to do so.

At the same, March would demonstrate certain ingenuity to the figure and look of this savage man, almost similar to the innocence that the Red Riding Hood showed with the wolf.

Finally, and as we all already know, Henry, representing the instincts and the sexual force of nature, kills Banford, because he feels the necessity of being the only one who can posses March, eliminating what is between he and his target. Also exhibiting the competitive part that every man has.

In conclusion, what Lawrence tries to make clear through everyday examples are the basic roles of the human being. When I talked with my classmates about their impressions about this story, they told me that they were expecting more sexuality or even explicit sex. They got a tremendous surprise when they read nothing about that, and realized that the only ones who wished to read about sex were them, because Lawrence made us wake our true natural inclinations. Just what is represented by Henry (the predator) who goes for a victim (March) and destroys any obstacle that blocks his way to capture it (Banford).

Finally, I have a question for you: Give control to our natural sexual inclinations in order to give us a superior state of consciousness, is just a crazy and stupid idea or would you consider it as a reasonable and valid option for personal evolution?

To end this post, I want to show you Rammstein's "Du riechst so gut" (Translated to english: You smell so good) music video which is about the relationship between the predator and his victim. Also, the lyrics are based, curiously, on the attack of a vampire and also the Brothers Grimm's Little Red Riding Hood.