Lawrence used the fox, an animal usually referred to women to talk about a man, Henry. This rhetorical choice allows the narrator to operate an overthrown of social hierarchies. To confirm the hypothesis, March is presented by the narrator explicitly with male characteristics.

“March did most of the outdoor work. When she was out and about, in her puttees and breeches, her belted coat and her loose cap, she looked almost like some graceful, loose-balanced young man, for her shoulders were straight, and her movements easy and confident, even tinged with a little indifference or irony. But her face was not a man's face, ever. The wisps of her crisp dark hair blew about her as she stooped, her eyes were big and wide and dark, when she looked up again, strange, startled, shy and sardonic at once. Her mouth, too, was almost pinched as if in pain and irony. There was something odd and unexplained about her. She would stand balanced on one hip, looking at the fowls pattering about in the obnoxious fine mud of the sloping yard, and calling to her favourite white hen, which came in answer to her name. But there was an almost satirical flicker in March's big, dark eyes as she looked at her three-toed flock pottering about under her gaze, and the same slight dangerous satire in her voice as she spoke to the favoured Patty, who pecked at March's boot by way of friendly demonstration”.

On the other hand, continuing the animal metaphor, Banford is presented as a bird, weak and helpless. If early test curiosity and attraction to Henry, treating him like a brother, soon she becomes aware of the love affair between the man and “her” March. She is overwhelm by anger and jealousy toward March, but also toward Henry. Banford would like to be loved instead she is betrayed.