Mikes

Michaelis appears briefly in Simone de Beauvoir’s discussion of D. H. Lawrence’s account of sexual relationships. He is identified as Lady Chatterley’s lover, but the passage gives no further personal background or independent account of his actions. His significance lies in the contrast his relationship provides: with Michaelis, Lady Chatterley remains trapped in a self-enclosed encounter rather than attaining the shared reality that Lawrence associates with communion between lovers.

Role in the Argument

The passage groups Lady Chatterley and Michaelis with couples who treat one another as instruments. Their sexuality produces feverish intensity, which Simone de Beauvoir compares to the effects of alcohol or opium, but intensity alone does not establish genuine contact. Each remains enclosed in subjectivity, and neither discovers the other as a reality beyond the self.

Contrast with Reciprocal Communion

Michaelis’s relationship with Lady Chatterley is set against the account of Paul and Clara, whose meeting opens outward to the grass, a bird’s cry, and the turning stars. Lady Chatterley’s later communion with Mellors likewise joins the lovers to trees, light, and rain. These contrasts clarify the failure associated with Michaelis: the relationship does not enlarge either lover’s experience into a shared world, and its passion yields neither the enrichment nor the recognition that the passage calls communion.