SOURCE: Diez-Medrano, Conchita. “Narrative Voice and Point of View in D. H. Lawrence's ‘Samson and Delilah’.” Essays in Literature 22, no. 1 (spring 1995): 87-96.

In the following essay, Diez-Medrano examines the function of the narrative voice and point of view in “Samson and Delilah,” which she perceives to be a story about male violence against women.

Each of us has two selves. First is this body which is vulnerable and never quite within our control. The body with its irrational sympathies and desires and passions, its peculiar direct communication, defying the mind. And second is the conscious ego, the self I KNOW I am.

The self that lives in my body … has such strange attractions, and revulsions, and it lets me in for so much irrational suffering, real torment, and occasional frightening delight.

—D. H. Lawrence, “On Being a Man”

The theme of male violence against women runs through many...