I Birkin's"nitro-glycerine，"used in both explosives and the treatment of heart disease，neatly encapsulates the contradiction.Linguistic ties between Birkin and Loerke show the sculptor to be，in part，a caricature or ironic double of the ideologue.In"An Island，"Birkin treats love as a relativistic phenomenon of no speaal account that one may or may not feel"according to circumstance".Loerke maintains that love is the same old instinct masquerading under a multiplicity of guises and that sexual choice is a matter of convenience as arbitrary as the difference between words for love in different languages.Birkin talks of love as an emotion too often idealized and absolutized，Loerke as an appetite that can be indiscriminately satisfied;but their irritation and boredom with the subject link them as critics of the prevailing ideology.

　　They even use the same metaphor-a hat-to symbolize identity（as in Freud），albeit with different assoaations.For Birkin and his interlocutors in"Shortlands，"the hat stands for property and one's liberty and independence，rightly or wrongly based on it;for Loerke the hat represents sexual possession.As property or sexuality the hat，a disposable part of one's apparel，is something that alienated intellectual and artist alike despise.But there the resemblance ends：Loerke's reductive cyniasm is a caricature of Birkin's serious criticism of love.Birkin does love Ursula，but he wants to liberate himself from the inertia and falsity that linguistic and social codes attach to the word and its interpretation."The point about love，"he insists，"is that we hate the word because we have vulgarised it.It ought to be proscribed，tabooed from utterance，for many years，till we get a new，better idea".The issue for Birkin is whether being can flow through the hardened arteries of a soaalized language.In"An Island，"he arrests the automatic flow of consciousness so that Ursula"could not know.She could only watch the brilliant little discs of the daisies veering slowly in travel on the dark，lustrous water".But the return to language，with its witty anthropomorphic conceits metaphorizing daisies as social orders，is parodic，demonstrating the tendency of language to turn natural facts into artifiaal concepts，a logocentric imperialism that substitutes culture for nature.

　　Birkin and Loerke are set apart by their quickness and vitality，critical sense，and awareness of corruption to the point of seeming antihuman.They live unto themselves and are contemptuous of the social contract.Birkin tells Ursula："I don't believe in the humanity I pretend to be a part of，I don't care a straw for the soaal ideals I live by，I hate the dying organic form of mankind".His attitude toward corruption is ambivalent，but he shows personal integrity in his search for understanding and fulfilment.Loerke，however，is cynically corrupt：he conspires with the mechanical principle，and his art，subserving industry，undermines life.Basing his identity on a compulsive work ethicu he cross-examines Gudrun in a tri-lingrustic diatribe：He broke into a mixture of Italian and French，nstinctively uszng a foreign language when he spoke to her.

　　"You have never worked as the world works，"he said to her with sarcasm.

　　……