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• Sons and Lovers

Read below our complete notes on the novel “Sons and Lovers” by D.H. Lawrence. Our notes cover Sons and Lovers summary, themes, characters, and an analysis of this novel.

Introduction

Sons and Lovers published in 1913 as David Hubert Richard Lawrence’s 3rd novel. It was initially named as “Paul Morel,” and afterward the name was changed. This novel has also been considered as Lawrence’s autobiography because it has some striking similarities with the author’s personal life.

Settings of the novel are in Nottingham Shire, England. The story opens with the description of Gertrude Morel and William Morel’s married life who tied a knot because of love. Walter Morel is a miner and alcoholic. Within the few days of marriage, Gertrude comes to know that Walter has lied with her about his lifestyle. She gets to know that William doesn’t own the house in which they live.

Her disappointment for her husband leads her to a stronger relationship with her son Paul Morel, who is an artist and leads the house after the sudden death of his Elder brother. Paul tries to get out of his mother’s influence by making sexual relations with other girls which his mother dislikes a lot.

Novel’s autobiographical nature becomes explicit when we have a glance over the author’s own life. D.H Lawrence born in Nottingham Shire, England to a coal miner father and schoolteacher mother. Lawrence’s father used to drink a lot and face financial instability due to his attitude. This makes his parents quarrel, and the environment became tensed at the house.

Mrs. Lawrence, finding no happiness with her husband, focused her attention on her son David and extraordinarily influenced his life. This relationship was so much stronger that after the death of his mother Lawrence lefts his job and quitted his relationship with his lover and adopted a bohemian lifestyle.

This novel is also a critique of industrialization in England and its effects on minor miners. The author talks about exploitation and humiliation that is inflicted on the working class of England by the industrialists. He puts the light that these mines are the ugly faces of the countryside.

Sons and Lovers Summary

The novel opens with the description of settings. Gertrude Morel was pregnant with her third and unwanted child. While she was sleeping, Walter cut off his eldest son’s hair like shorn sheep. They both have an argument over this. Later her husband comes home drunk, and they fight leads to locking Gertrude out of the house.

A flashback scene also occurs, and Gertrude remembers how she and Walter met at a Christmas party, and she loved him not knowing that he was lying about himself. They both get married, and eventually, Gertrude gets to know about the betrayal of her husband and his poverty. They often have argued over his alcoholic nature.

The novel progresses with the birth of Paul, an unwanted child. The parents keep on quarreling, and the father steals money from his wife’s purse. The confrontation by the wife leads Walter to leave him, but he comes back home at night. Walter pays no attention to his family, and the environment of the house gets more tensed.

Gertrude gives birth to another child, Arthur, who has noticeable similarities with his father and receives more love from him by becoming his favorite child. When the eldest son, William, reaches the age of nineteen the father suggested that he should be working as a miner, but the mother fights for the son and sends him to London for work.

Paul and the family remain alienated from their father. Paul finds work at a surgical instruments’ company as a junior clerk. William in London starts dating with a girl, Lily Weston, whose photograph he sends home. Gertrude doesn’t like the girl. William suddenly falls ill and dies of a skin disease. This leads the mother into grief. She nurses her other son, Paul, to her fullest, when he catches pneumonia. Paul recovers from the disease.

Paul and Gertrude develop a deep relationship with each other after the death of William. Paul starts liking a girl, Miriam, who took care of him while he was ill. She is an ambitious girl who tries to change the lot by educating herself. Gertrude dislikes Miriam because she thinks that she will take Paul away from her. Paul shares his feeling towards Miriam with her friend Clara, whom he starts seeing.

Paul leaves Miriam when he decides to be more devoted to his mother who is now an old woman. Paul then develops a strange relationship with Clara. He is not sure whether he is attracted or repelled for Clara. While in confusion he still visits him and develops a relationship with her. Paul diverts most of his attention with Clara, and she tells him about her shattered married life. Paul’s painting is sold to Major Moreton, and it makes his mother happy. She advises him that he should get married now.

Paul patches up with Miriam and tells her that they could not survive the relationship because it didn’t have sex in it. They both sleep with each other, but Miriam holds an opinion that she and Paul are too young for marriage. Paul walks out of her, and it makes both of them irritated with each other. Meanwhile, Paul’s sister and younger brother get married.

After breaking up with Miriam Paul again finds solace with Clara and invites her to meet his mother on the seaside trip. Clara and Paul develop a passionate relationship. Paul happens to meet Clara’s husband Baxter Dawes, with whom he fights and gets injured eventually. Paul finds himself perplexed and divided between his love for his mother and his passion towards other women.

Gertrude Morel gets diagnosed with a tumor and suffers a lot. Paul and his sister give her an overdose of morphine to set her free from the pain. After the death of his mother, Paul finds his life shattered. He wants to finish his life for the sake of his mother, but he doesn’t attempt this. Miriam proposes him for marriage, but he doesn’t accept the offer.

Clara settles down the things between her and Baxter Dawes, and they live happily in Sheffield. Paul becomes a friend of Baxter and Walter, and he sells their house and starts living in rooms in the town. Paul chooses a single life for himself and discovers that he can love only with his mother. There is no place for another woman in his life.

Themes in Sons and Lovers

Oedipus complex.

Freud’s Oedipus complex is the most celebrated theme in the novel. The characters have some striking similarities with the ancient Greek play, Oedipus Rex. The Protagonist himself kills his father unknowingly and gets married to his mother. When he comes to know about this, his mother kills herself, and he removes his eyes with her broaches. Sigmund Freud arguments that there is a hidden desire in every boy to get sexualize with his mother and in girls for their fathers and it is called as Oedipus Complex and Electra Complex respectively.

William and Paul have a strong relationship with their mother. This relationship doesn’t let both of them achieve their love in other girls. Their physical bond with their mother urges them to make a relationship with girls, but they are unable to satisfy their thirst. Paul never liked his father, and he thinks of him to die. His loathe towards Walter shows his Oedipus complex.

Gertrude often tells her boys that she has been into an unhappy marriage and she makes her sons the center of her attention. She disapproves William’s girlfriend Lily and hates Miriam having a reason that Miriam will drift Paul away from her. Paul’s overly stronger bond with his mother is the reason why he was always confused about his love affairs. His relationship with Clara is also evidence of the Oedipus complex. He finds his company with a married, childless woman, whose husband he hates.

Paul’s mother brings him back to life when he faces a pneumonia attack. When she happens to be diagnosed with a tumor, her kids try to console her. Paul overdoses his mother with morphine and pushes him into the face of death. It seems that he does this to get rid of his own complex because he found out that his mother was the only problem with his romantic relations. Like Oedipus, he tries to commit suicide, but then he chooses to live the memories of his mother.

Lack of Free Will

The novel deals with the theme of bondage and free will. Gertrude gets married to Walter due to her free will she remains in the bondage of an alcoholic husband and an unhappy life. Despite hating her relationship with her husband, she was unable to leave him. Then Gertrude develops this bondage for her sons. She influences every instance of their life. Her choice of disliking for their lovers leaves her sons in a constant perplexing thought.

Industrialization is another bondage in the characters’ lives. Mrs. Morel was tired of the mining job of her husband the mines were thought to be places of alive burying. She tries to save her sons from this occupation, but she puts them into other jobs. The writer comments about this industrialization that “he was being taken into bondage”.

The characters are unable to find their free will for their love life. Paul loves Miriam but he didn’t dare to tell this to her, and he shares this with Clara. William despite liking Lily, he couldn’t have her in life because his mother doesn’t like her. So the boys are so much busy in pleasing their mother that they never get their love with other girls.

Social Class

The writer has chosen to portray the binary of social class in the novel. The first protagonist Gertrude has been a former teacher and from the family of professionals. She loathes her husband’s laboring work and thinks of herself as a sophisticated woman. She hates the pit mining jobs and tries hard not to let her sons do this job.

William’s girlfriend from London thinks about the Morel family as they were clowns. William himself acts the way a non-laborer does in front of laborers. Sheer contrast of the two classes is painted with the help of the character of Thomas Jordan. He was the factory owner, and he uses his power when he fires Baxter and tries to make a bond with Paul.

Sons and Lovers Characters Analysis

Gertrude morel.

Gertrude Morel is considered as the protagonist of the novel Sons and Lovers. She was a daughter of an engineer and came from a family of professionals. She met Walter Morel at a Christmas party and was impressed by his looks and dynamic character. They both decided to get married and right after their marriage Gertrude discovered that Walter was not a man she thought he was. Gertrude tried to find her consolation with her sons, especially the eldest, William. After the death of his eldest son, she moved all her expectations to her second son, Paul.

The character of Gertrude was portrayed as a concerned mother, an expecting wife and a woman with morals. She sent William to London to save him from the life of a miner like his father. She focused on Paul and appreciated his life as an artist. But at the same time, she was so much possessive for his sons that she never liked their girlfriends. She showed her disliking toward William’s girlfriend, Lily Weston. She never liked Miriam whom her son loved throughout the novel. She felt somewhat uncomfortable because of the relationship between Paul and Miriam. Her morality is prevalent when, despite having an unwanted relationship, she nursed her husband Walter when he broke his leg.

She was so courageous that she bore the pain of his favorite child’s death and then she took care of her second son Paul who was suffering from pneumonia, and she brought her back to life. She had a tragic end to her own life. She was diagnosed with a tumor, and she was unable to bear her pain. Her death is more than an irony itself. The son whom she helped recovering from pneumonia, along with his sister gave her overdose of morphine which caused the ultimate death of Gertrude Morel.

Another protagonist of the novel was Gertrude’s son Paul Morel, an artist, a failed lover and an obedient lover. Paul was born as an unwanted child in the house. During his early life his mother gave all her attention to her eldest son, but after his death, she diverts her love for Paul. This young man waa successful artist, but a divided soul between his mother and his lovers and he eventually chose his mother over his girlfriends.

Paul replaced his brother in his mother’s life and made a stronger bond with her. He worked as a junior clerk at a surgical instrument’s company and courted with two women. He loved Miriam from the very early age, but he couldn’t get married to her due to his bond with his mother.

He courts with Clara, an anti-masculine woman, but she was in a failed marriage. Paul tried to tie the knot with Miriam, but it never happened even after the death of his mother. He thought that his soul so much attached to Gertrude Morel that it was the only sake of living after her death. His choice of quitting all worldly activities and his refusal to Miriam’s proposal was an evidence of his devotion to his mother.

Walter Morel

Husband of Gertrude and father of Paul, Walter Morel was a lively character of the novel. He was a coal miner and a hard drinker. He found his happiness in routine life by not bothering much about the family. His enjoyments were his time spent with alcohol and miner friends. After his marriage with Gertrude, he vowed not to drink, but he broke his promise after the birth of William. His careless nature drifted him away from his family, and after the death of his wife, he spent his life with regrets.

William Morel

William Morel was the eldest son of Walter Morel and Gertrude Morel and the first solace to his mother’s unhappy marriage. His wanted him to be a miner like him and earn for the family, but the mother never lets him do the mining job. He was sent to London where he met Lily Weston, with whom he could never have a romantic relationship because his mother didn’t like at all. William died of a skin disease and left his mother in deep grief.

Miriam Leivers

Miriam was the true love and romantic partner of Paul. She was a farm girl with an ambition to change her lot. Her relationship with Paul had been facing ups and downs throughout the novel. She never liked Paul’s attitude of emotional dependency on his mother and critiqued it. When Paul asked her to have sexual relations with him, she agreed with him, but she refused to marriage proposal considering it too early. She offered Paul for marriage which Paul didn’t accept, but she thought that her soul would remain connected to Paul’s.

Clara Dawes

Clara Dawes was another partner of Paul’s romance. She was suffering from a failed married life as she had separated from her husband. She was against men, and Paul found it attractive and repulsive at the same time. Paul shared his feelings towards Miriam with Clara, and she often advised him about Miriam. Paul and Clara’s husband fought for her, and this fight causes injuries to Paul. Afterward, her relationship with her husband got better when she nursed her husband during his illness.

Sons and Lovers Literary Analysis

Sons and Lovers is a story of relationships and personal bonds. The first protagonist of the novels loves her husband, Walter in the beginning. When she comes to know that Walter is not as per her expectations she ties her sons in a relationship with her. After the death of William, Paul was the only one who receives mother’s affection.

On the other hand, Paul gets attracted to Miriam. His relationship with his mother doesn’t let him be comfortable with Miriam. She has spiritual nature and never becomes happy with sensual love. Paul seeing his mother’s disapproval walks away from Miriam. Clara makes a sexual bond with Paul, and a new relationship occurs.

Paul always remains confused about his relationships with women. He loves Miriam, but they couldn’t make out due to Miriam’s lack of interest in sexuality and Gertrude’s hatred towards her. The relationship of Paul with his mother always deteriorates Paul’s relationship with Miriam.

Miriam herself feels that she can never fulfill Paul’s sexual desires because she likes spirituality. For Paul’s sake, Miriam invites Clara to take over her relationship and let Paul enjoy Clara’s sexuality. These relationships kill and give birth to each other. Gertrude disapproving Miriam and Miriam introducing Clara to Paul are the main events of the novel.

Gertrude’s overpowering nature and her dictating attitude towards her sons’ relationship is noticeable. She doesn’t like Lily, William’s girlfriend when she comes home. This makes William ill and leads him to sudden death. After his death Gertrude hates Miriam, and the main causes are her better family background and her self-worth.

Paul’s attitude toward Gertrude shows his deep emotions with his mother. He never wants to disappoint his mother that he becomes ready to break his relationship with his lover. He doesn’t let any of his girlfriend to interfere between him and his mother. Even after the death of the mother, he rejects Miriam’s marriage proposal because he thinks that it could be a hindrance between him and his mother’s memories.

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Norbert Haupt

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Book Review: Sons and Lovers – by D. H. Lawrence

I read Sons and Lovers the first time in the spring of 1977, when I was twenty-one and life was a romantic journey just ahead of me, full of excitement, tension, mystery, internal struggle and passion. I had learned about D. H. Lawrence from reading Henry Miller’s books, including and foremost Tropic of Cancer. Lawrence is not an easy writer to read. But I remember enjoying the book thoroughly and I passed it on to others to read. I decided to pick it up again and experience it from a very different perspective and age.

The story is about the Morel family, a miner in the Nottingham area and his young wife, who eek out a living. Morel gets withdrawn and abusive quickly. He is consumed by his work and alcoholism. His wife feels lost and abandoned. She has four children – really three more than she wanted. To cope with her emotional problems, she possesses over her sons. Her oldest, William, and then, her third son, Paul, the main character in the story.

Caught in the web of love and possessiveness of his mother, Paul is not able to establish healthy relationships with girls and later women in his life. Miriam, his girl love, is his faithful companion and soul mate for many years. When their relationship turns sexual, Paul soon withdraws, pulled away by his mother. Clara, a married woman separated from her husband and five years older than Paul is his next love. They share passion, and again Paul pulls back.

D. H. Lawrence’s writing is eloquent, whimsical, extremely detailed and descriptive. Reading Sons and Lovers is like watching an endless movie through fog like diaphanous lace on summer mornings with classical music playing in the background. For a modern reader, used to a plot, tension, action and suspense – this book will be outright boring and difficult to work through.

I was glad I stuck with it, reading it from the perspective not of a young man who has just learned what makes blood boil, like it was when I read it the first time, but from someone who has lived a full life, was lucky to find balance, satisfaction, passion, love, who had children and raised them to adulthood, without clipping their wings or maiming their souls.

Sons and Lovers is a classic, a gem in the English language, and a journey of the mind.

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3 thoughts on “ Book Review: Sons and Lovers – by D. H. Lawrence ”

Sounds interesting especially the part about the controlling mother. I’ve never read any of Lawrence’s books.

Reading D.H. Lawrence is a whole different kind of reading. Try it!

Ok, I’ll try in the near future to get a copy of Sons and Lovers.

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Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence – Book Review

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Sons and Lovers by English writer David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930 ) is a marvelous combination of autobiography, fiction, and psychology. It sits proudly at the 9th spot in the Modern Library’s list of  100 best novels of the 20th century . It is a deeply psychological, semi-autobiographical tale of complex human emotions and relationships. This novel shows how hurtful and disdainful virtue can be. How stifling love can be. How even the reverence for mother can turn into an obsessive compulsion and lead to a lifelong misery.

Here’s what makes Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence so great:

Review of Sons and Lovers

Semi-Autobiographical:

The book draws a lot from the author’s own life. Yet, it is not a biography. The author uses personal experiences as building blocks of his narrative. But he colors the facts with shades of fiction. Like his own father, Walter Morel (the hero’s father) too is a barely literate miner with unrefined manners and habits. Like his mother, hero’s mother Mrs. Gertrude Morel is a refined woman steadfast in her principles. Several other characters like hero’s brother William are also drawn from reality. Paul Morel’s feelings towards his parents and his love interests are also similar to the conflicts Lawrence himself experienced

The Oedipal Complex:

Oedipal or Oedipus Complex is a famous theory of Sigmund Freud (Neurologist and founder of Psychoanalysis). It takes its name from a Greek play Oedipus Rex in which the title character Oedipus is prophesied to murder his father and have sex with his mother. In Oedipal Complex the boy feels attracted towards his mother. He may even dislike his father or feel he is competing against his father for his mother’s affections.

This theory forms the basis of Sons and Lovers. You can hear it even in the title. Sons are lovers. No, there is no incest in the book. But the psychological feeling is strong and binding. Paul loves his mother so much that he can be satisfied with no other woman. He hates his father and often wishes him dead. In the novel, even the mother is caught in this complex. Dissatisfied with her husband, she gives all her love to her sons. She hates their girlfriends, hates her husband, and cannot think of life beyond her sons.

There are numerous scenes in the book in which the togetherness of the mother and son is described in terms of togetherness of lovers. Even their conversation sounds like conversation of lovers.

Paul calls his mother ‘ my love, my pigeon .’

When he gives her a flower, author writes, “Pretty!” she said, in a curious tone, of a woman accepting a love-token. “

When Mrs. Morel goes on a trip with Paul, “ The mother and son walked down Station Street, feeling the excitement of lovers having an adventure together.”

When Mrs. Morel is ill, “He kissed her again, and stroked the hair from her temples, gently, tenderly, as if she were a lover.” And “He kneeled down, and put his face to hers and his arms round her: “My love—my love—oh, my love!” he said.

Complex Relationships:

Sons and Lovers is a book of complex relationships. The love of all major characters in the book is a mix of love and hate. Love that is strong and true, yet guilty. Love that binds, and gives more misery than happiness. Be it the relationship of hero’s parents, or his own romantic relationships with women, there’s hate, misery, and guilt mixed with the love.

Women in Sons and Lovers:

Although the book centers around the hero Paul Morel, it is the women characters that are the highlights of this novel. There are three main women characters in this book. Paul loves all three of them. Yet, none can give him total happiness.

Gertrude Morel – the mother:

Mrs. Gertrude Morel comes from a line of poor but dignified, haughty puritans. She has a small figure, but is a robust, strong woman of high morals. She does not approve of dancing, loves long, intellectual conversations with men of learning, has a quiet but unforgiving temper, hates where she lives, looks down upon her neighbors who are all wives of miners, strives to make her house spotless even when ill, and remains a dutiful mother and wife even when her heart feels crushed under the confining burden. And she is adored by all her children. “no movement she ever made, could have been found fault with by her children.”

She is Paul’s first love and she keeps her hold on him even after her death. She’s an educated, refined woman of high principles. She falls in love with a handsome, sensuous miner. It does not take her long to realize the demeaning limits her poverty puts on her and the lack of manners and principles in her husband. Despairing of her husband, she transfers her love to her sons. First her eldest son William. After she loses William, she turns to Paul. Her extreme love for her sons binds them so tightly that they can unite with no other woman. A vital part of them always remains tied to their mother. And even when they try to form romantic relationships, Mrs. Morel hates their girlfriends. And that makes her sons even more dissatisfied with their lovers.

Miriam – the soul mate:

Miriam is Paul’s first girlfriend. She is a beautiful girl living a secluded life in her family’s farm. She is deeply religious and a woman of deep, intense feelings. “There was no looseness or abandon about Miriam. Everything was gripped stiff with intensity, and her effort, overcharged, closed in on itself.” The intensity of her emotions and love often feel stifling to others, including Paul.

The character of Miriam is modeled after Jessie Chambers. D.H. Lawerence loved Jessie but could not establish a satisfactory relationship with her. Similarly, Paul Morel and Miriam love each other dearly. They love talking to each other. Miriam can touche Paul’s soul just as his mother does. “From his mother he drew the life-warmth, the strength to produce; Miriam urged this warmth into intensity like a white light.” And there lies the problem. Paul’s mother hates Miriam because Paul loves her so much. She feels Miriam will take up whole of Paul and will leave nothing for her. She thinks, “She is one of those who will want to suck a man’s soul out till he has none of his own left.” Mrs. Morel cannot yield her son’s heart and soul to another woman. This casts a shadow on Paul’s love for Miriam.

Miriam too has her own hesitation. Paul wants her to take him as a woman takes a man. But she feels scared of the passionate man in him and wants only to be his soul mate. Her intense love stifles him. His passion scares him. “He was afraid of her. The fact that he might want her as a man wants a woman had in him been suppressed into a shame. When she shrank in her convulsed, coiled torture from the thought of such a thing, he had winced to the depths of his soul. And now this “purity” prevented even their first love-kiss. It was as if she could scarcely stand the shock of physical love, even a passionate kiss, and then he was too shrinking and sensitive to give it.” “He hated her, for she seemed in some way to make him despise himself.”

They both know they love each other. They also know they will never be happy with each other. Because they want different things. “She could not take him and relieve him of the responsibility of himself. She could only sacrifice herself to him—sacrifice herself every day, gladly. And that he did not want. He wanted her to hold him and say, with joy and authority: “Stop all this restlessness and beating against death. You are mine for a mate.” She had not the strength. Or was it a mate she wanted? or did she want a Christ in him?”

Clara – the passion:

Clara is Paul’s second girlfriend. She is gorgeous, but older than him and already married. She is a working, independent woman separated from her husband (but not divorced). In a way, she and her husband to Paul are like his own mother and father. Here, he is free to hate this father figure and have sex with the woman. Mrs. Morel does not hate Clara as much as she hates Miriam. Because she knows Clara will not be able to hold Paul. Their relation is only based on passion. Not being a soul mate, she will never satisfy Paul.

Clara herself realizes this soon. Even when she and Paul are making love, she feels he is not with her. “She knew she never fully had him. Some part, big and vital in him, she had no hold over.” She feels the man is making love to a woman, but Paul himself is elsewhere and she does not matter to him. “You’ve never given me yourself.” she tells him. “I feel,” she continued slowly, “as if I hadn’t got you, as if all of you weren’t there, and as if it weren’t ME you were taking—”

She later re-unites with her husband. Even Paul helps this man and becomes his friend, perhaps to lessen his guilt. This guilt might even include the guilt he feels for hating his father.

Walter Morel:

Walter Morel is also a major and very complex character. He is Paul’s father. The man hated by his wife and children. The man whom his children wish dead. Who becomes an outcast in his own family. He is of easy principles, rude and filthy manners, barely literate, and addicted to drink. His family thinks him a villain. Yet, the author does not let readers hate him. How can you hate a man that is described with the words, “ the dusky, golden softness of this man’s sensuous flame of life, that flowed off his flesh like the flame from a candle. “

Walter is a hearty, robust man who laughs freely, loves dancing, whistles while working in his home, loves going on long walks and can instinctively make himself look handsome even in poor clothes. And even in his middle age, he retains the body of a 28 year old man.

Like his other miner friends, he drinks a lot. Whatever he can spend in drinking, he does. But he never drinks more than what his weekly budget allows. He never misses work due to his drinking. Works hard. Makes his own breakfast so his wife does not have to wake up early. Remains loyal to his wife even when he knows she does not love him. “He would dearly have liked the children to talk to him, but they could not.” As his family alienates him, he falls lower and lower. His sensuous beauty, strength, pride, potential for betterment are crushed and he becomes a mean old man. His wife’s strict unsympathetic attempts end up breaking him.

As the author says, “She fought to make him undertake his own responsibilities, to make him fulfill his obligations. But he was too different from her. His nature was purely sensuous, and she strove to make him moral, religious. She tried to force him to face things. He could not endure it.” “ She could not be content with the little he might be; she would have him the much that he ought to be. So, in seeking to make him nobler than he could be, she destroyed him.” “The author also says, “She would have felt sorry for him, if he had once said, “Wife, I’m sorry.” But no; he insisted to himself it was her fault. And so he broke himself. So she merely left him alone. There was this deadlock of passion between them, and she was stronger. ” And so, there’s misery for both.

Paul Morel:

Paul, the hero of the book, is caught in the Oedipal complex. He loves three women. They love him back. Yet, he can belong to none of them.

He loves his mother with all his heart. “The deepest of his love belonged to his mother.” She is his soul. Yet, she cannot give him the physical passion his youth craves for. But “His soul seemed always attentive to her.” He is at peace only when he knows he loves his mother best. “There was one place in the world that stood solid and did not melt into unreality: the place where his mother was. Everybody else could grow shadowy, almost non-existent to him, but she could not. It was as if the pivot and pole of his life, from which he could not escape, was his mother.” The future he plans with his mother is, “ But I shan’t marry, mother. I shall live with you, and we’ll have a servant.” He tells his mother, “I’ll never marry while I’ve got you—I won’t.”

He loves Miriam. She touches his soul like his mother does. And so, he also hates her because her love makes him feel guilty of betraying his mother. He must love his mother best or he cannot be at peace with himself. He wants Miriam to soothe his body and leave his soul for his mother. But Miriam must have the union of souls otherwise there’s a distance between them. Her heart is seeped in religion and shrinks from physical intimacy. Paul wants Miriam to want the male in him. But bodily passion for her is a sacrifice that she has to suffer for love. Paul knows this and hates himself for scaring her by his passion.

“She fretted him to the bottom of his soul. There she remained—sad, pensive, a worshipper. And he caused her sorrow. Half the time he grieved for her, half the time he hated her. She was his conscience; and he felt, somehow, he had got a conscience that was too much for him. He could not leave her, because in one way she did hold the best of him. He could not stay with her because she did not take the rest of him, which was three-quarters. So he chafed himself into rawness over her.” He feels he owes himself to her, yet cannot give himself fully. “She was only his conscience, not his mate.”

He knows that his love for Miriam hurts his mother. So he hurts Miriam and is cruel to her. Then he hates himself for hurting Miriam and feels she is too good and he too unworthy. Mrs. Morel once says to him, “I can’t bear it. I could let another woman—but not her. She’d leave me no room, not a bit of room—” And immediately he hated Miriam bitterly. “And I’ve never—you know, Paul—I’ve never had a husband—not really —” He stroked his mother’s hair, and his mouth was on her throat. “And she exults so in taking you from me— she’s not like ordinary girls.” “Well, I don’t love her, mother,” he murmured, bowing his head and hiding his eyes on her shoulder in misery. His mother kissed him a long, fervent kiss. “My boy!” she said, in a voice trembling with passionate love.”

Paul and Miriam know they love each other truly and ardently. But they also know they will never be happy with each other. Miriam’s religion and Paul’s mother will always be between them

But Clara is not a competitor of his mother. She does not have that depth to touch his soul. Paul does not feel connected with Clara. He has passion for her. She’s gorgeous. But she’s nothing like her mother. He respects her. He cares for her. Loves her even. But he does not love/hate here like Miriam. She only satisfies his body, but not his heart. And so, he remains unsatisfied even with her. “There was a big tenderness, as after a strong emotion they had known together; but it was not she who could keep his soul steady. He had wanted her to be something she could not be.”

Clara knows it. And so, she too cannot separate herself fully from her husband. She knows Paul will never belong to her as her husband does.

Paul is caught in a trap where he feels guilty of giving his heart to anyone. Yet, cannot feel fulfilled otherwise. His mother’s love has forever cast a shadow on his love life. He knows “ He would never make sure ground for any woman to stand on.” He wonders, “Why—why don’t I want to marry her or anybody?” and tells his mother, “And I never shall meet the right woman while you live,”

Sons and Lovers is a magnificent literary masterpiece. Brilliant characterization, masterful weaving of facts with fiction, and layer upon layer of psychological conflicts form the highlights of this book. The plot is tightly knit and moves at a steady pace. Relationships form its cornerstones and binding elements. Some characters speak in dialect. Some characters maybe hard to relate to. Like Miriam who seeks happiness in sacrifice, rather than in love. Yet, all characters are vivid and believable and layered. No character is simple and straightforward. It is primarily a character-driven book. The characters create their own pitfalls. They decide their own escapes. Some succeed in escaping, some don’t.

If you like reading books with intense story, complex characters and psychological depths, do check out Sons and Lovers.

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I think Paul was not necessarily too attached to his mother to not have made a good relationship with Miriam, it was Miriam’s intense desire to have a purely spiritual relationship with Paul and finding the physical side so repellant that made Paul feel so guilty. He often wanted to make love to Miriam but was constantly rebuffed by her which sent him into a frenzy. He wanted a complete relationship but she only wanted the spiritual side and would only partake of the physical side to keep him happy, she was sacrificing herself for him and he felt a brute for making her feel this way. When he finally had a relationship with Clara it was purely lustful and although she had allowed him to make love to her he was not truly on her wavelength and didn’t particularly want to be

Hi, thanks for your comment! You are right, Miriam’s weakness is a major cause of breakdown of her relationship with Paul. But Paul’s love for her also makes her a rival of his mother. He cannot be at peace with that. There’s a very complex interplay of various psychological forces. And therein lies the greatness of this book.

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Sons and Lovers: a bad book by a very good writer

We've already developed quite a rap sheet against Lawrence here on the Reading group, and to that growing list, now I'm a healthy 300-odd pages in, I can also add being silly, tedious and sloppy.

To explain the first charge, I can cite Paul's endlessly repeated feelings of "hate" for Miriam, his wish that she didn't make him "spiritual", the "delicious delirium in his veins", the talk of his artistic soul, and ( as Reading group contributor vernacula pointed out ), his habit of deeply sniffing flowers. I can also quote the following:

"She felt the accuracy with which he caught her, exactly at the right moment, and the exactly proportionate strength of his thrust, and she was afraid. Down to her bowels went the hot wave of fear. She was in his hands. Again, firm and inevitable came the thrust at the right moment. She gripped the rope, almost swooning."

That's a description of Paul pushing Miriam on a rope swing. Steady on!

For the second, I can moan about how often I've set the book down in despair, and about how much of a trudge it is. I can complain of the drudgery. That humourless striving for passion, that cold talk of "fire". That endless mithering, and picking at the same wound ...

Those two are matters of opinion, I know. Some people love this book and will quite rightly disagree with me. There are also mitigating factors. We are told Lawrence's raw, red-lipped (he's always talking about red lips!) sensuality, was something new in 1913. I have also frequently read that there was something revolutionary about his attempt to give an emotional account of Paul – to get so deep inside the heart and mind of a working-class man. Most importantly, there was something new in that he was a working-class man writing about a working-class man. Which is true. So long as we forget that Charles Dickens ever existed. But I do accept that Lawrence was treading new ground, pushing the novel into places it hadn't been before. Perhaps the fact that we can laugh at that swing scene now shows how effective his influence has been.

The charge of sloppiness, however, still stands. Is it acceptable, for instance, for Lawrence to spend 100-odd dull pages outlining apparently every detail about the workings of Miriam's family, only to announce out of the blue:

"She had an elder sister Agatha, who was a schoolteacher. Between the two girls there was a feud. Miriam considered Agatha worldly. And she wanted herself to be a schoolteacher."

Why, in fact, does Agatha wander on to the scene at all? She lasts all of three paragraphs before Lawrence is done with her forever.

Lawrence even makes similar bizarre, tangential announcements within the space of one paragraph: "Annie, who had been teaching away, was at home again. She was still a tomboy; and she was engaged to be married. Paul was studying design."

Was he? Where did that information come from? Why put it there? While I'm asking questions, why does Miriam so inevitably go on holiday with Paul's family, if they all hate her so much? Or at least, why isn't this explained?

It would be possible to pick the novel apart in this manner for pages and pages. Sons and Lovers has, as Ford Madox Ford famously said of The White Peacock , "every fault that the English novel can have". As Lawrence tells the story, Ford shouted that remark to him on a London bus. He added: "But, you've got genius."

In spite of everything, I have to agree with Ford. In among the dross there are revelations, there are magnificent descriptions, there is writing of remarkable force and power. Lawrence does have something special. To explain what, exactly, is hard – but fortunately I am spared the task. This week I was alerted to a wonderful piece of criticism of a Lawrence short story, written by the great Ford Madox Ford himself.

First of all Ford explains why Odour of Chrysanthemums is such a good title, and then he gets stuck into the first paragraph. Here he is:

"At once you read: 'The small locomotive engine, Number 4, came clanking, stumbling down from Selston,' and at once you know that this fellow with the power of observation is going to write of whatever he writes about from the inside. 'Number 4' shows that. He will be the sort of fellow who knows that for the sort of people who work about engines, engines have a sort of individuality. He had to give the engine the personality of a number … 'With seven full wagons' … The 'seven' is good. The ordinary careless writer would say 'some small wagons'. This man knows what he wants. He sees the scene of his story exactly. He has an authoritative mind. "It appeared round the corner with loud threats of speed' … Good writing; slightly, but not too arresting … 'But the colt that it startled from among the gorse … outdistanced it at a canter.' Good again. This fellow does not 'state'. He doesn't say: 'It was coming slowly', or – what would have been little better – 'at seven miles an hour'. Because even 'seven miles an hour' means nothing definite for the untrained mind. It might mean something for a trainer of pedestrian racers. The imaginative writer writes for all humanity; he does not limit his desired readers to specialists … but anyone knows that an engine that makes a great deal of noise and yet cannot overtake a colt at a canter must be a ludicrously ineffective machine. We know then that this fellow knows his job."

Ford continues like this for another couple of hundred words, using his own wonderful eye for detail to explain why Lawrence is so good. I'd urge you to read it all. I felt almost embarrassed, by the end, that I missed so much in the quoted passage – but also elated. It helped me see Lawrence with new, better eyes. There are dozens of passages of similar – apparently effortless – quality in Sons and Lovers. My opinion of the book remains the same. It stinks. It's a bad novel. But it is one written by a very good writer.

Next week, we'll no doubt talk some more about Lawrence's good and bad qualities. We are also very fortunate that Lawrence expert Geoff Dyer has agreed to do a Q&A session with us on Friday 28 June at 1pm, so keep your calendar free.

In the meantime, there are still eight unclaimed copies of Sons and Lovers to give away. It's worth owning – and definitely worth reading, no matter what I say. So the next eight people to leave an opinion on Lawrence, or something related, and request a copy will get one. So long as they're based in the UK and remember to email in to [email protected] afterwards. We can't track you down ourselves!

• DH Lawrence
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A Boy's Best Friend Date: October 6, 1996, Late Edition - Final Byline: Lead: September 21, 1913: ' Sons and Lovers ' by D. H. Lawrence There is probably no phrase much more hackneyed than that of ''human document,'' yet it is the only one which at all describes this very unusual book. It is hardly a story; rather the first part of a man's life, from his birth until his 25th year, the conditions surrounding him, his strength and his numerous weaknesses, put before us in a manner which misses no subtlest effect either of emotion or environment. And the heroine of the book is not sweetheart, but mother; the mother with whose marriage the novel begins, with whose pathetic death it reaches its climax. The love for each other of the mother and her son, Paul Morel, is the mainspring of both their lives; it is portrayed tenderly, yet with a truthfulness which slurs nothing even of that friction which is unavoidable between the members of two different generations. Text: The scene is laid among the collieries of Derbyshire. Paul's father was a miner; his mother, Mrs. Morel, belonged a trifle higher up in the social scale, having made one of those ''romantic'' marriages with which the old-fashioned sentimental novel used to end, and with which the modern realistic one so frequently begins. The first chapter, which tells of their early married life before the coming of their second son, Paul, is an admirable account of a mismated couple. Walter Morel could never have amounted to very much, but had he possessed a less noble wife he might, by one of those strange contradictions of which life is full, have been a far better man than he actually was. His gradual degeneration is as pitiful as it is inevitable -- the change from the joyous, lovable young man to the drunken, ill-tempered father, whose entrance hushed the children's laughter, the mere thought of whom could cast a shadow over all the house. Mrs. Morel was strong enough to remake for herself the life he had so nearly wrecked -- he could only drift helplessly upon the rocks. It is wonderfully real, this daily life of the Morel family and the village wherein they lived as reflected in Mr. Lawrence's pages; the more real because he never flaunts his knowledge of the intimate details of the existence led by these households whose men folk toil underground. They slip from his pen so unobtrusively that it is only when we pause and consider that we recognize how full and complete is the background against which he projects his principal characters -- Mr. and Mrs. Morel, Paul, Miriam, and Clara. Paul himself is a person who awakens interest rather than sympathy; it is difficult not to despise him a little for his weakness, his constant need of that strengthening he sought from two other women, but which only his splendid, indomitable little mother could give him -- a fact of which he was constantly aware, though he acknowledged it only at the very end. And it is not easy upon any grounds to excuse his treatment of Miriam, even though it was a spiritual self-defense which argued him to disloyalty. Mr. Lawrence has small regard for what we term conventional morality; nevertheless, though plain spoken to a degree, his book is not in the least offensive. It is, in fact, fearless; never coarse, although the relations between Paul, Miriam, and Clara are portrayed with absolute frankness. And one must go far to find a better study of an intense woman, so over-spiritualized that she has almost lost touch with ordinary life and ordinary humanity, than he has given us in the person of Miriam. We pity her for her craving, the self-distrust that forbade her to take the thing she most wanted even when it was almost within her grasp; and yet Paul's final recoil is readily comprehensible, his feeling that she was making his very soul her own -- would, as his mother said, leave nothing of him. The long, psychic battle between the two, a battle blindly fought, never really understood, is excellent in its revelation of those motives which lie at the very root of character -- motives of which the persona they actuate are so often completely ignorant. Clara is less remarkable than Miriam only because she is necessarily more obvious -- a woman in whom the animal predominates, certain after a brief time to weary one like Paul. And better than either, strong of will, rich in love and sympathy, holding her place in her son's heart against even Miriam, who so nearly took him from her, reigning at last supreme over every rival stands the heroic little mother -- the best-drawn character in a book which contains many admirable portrayals. From the moment when we first meet her taking her older children to the ''wakes'' and trying to nerve herself to endure a life which appears to be an endless waiting for something that can never come, until at the last she wages her valiant, losing fight against the cancer that is killing her by inches, she is always real, a fine, true woman, mother to the very core. Mr. Lawrence has mercifully spared us the terrible details of her illness; it is only her ''tortured eyes'' we see, and her children's grief and horror. Whether or not it was right for Paul to do the thing he did is an open question; only we are sure that in very truth he ''loved her better than his own life.'' His impotent resentment of her growing weakness is an excellent bit of analysis, the effect upon him of her death, which he seemed to take so calmly -- the blankness, the unreality and emptiness of all things -- strikes home. Without her his life was meaningless; yet live he must, and for her sake. The book is full of short, vivid descriptions: ''The steep swoop of highroad lay, in its cool morning dust, splendid with patterns of sunshine and shadow, perfectly still. . . . Behind, the houses stood on the brim of the dip, black against the sky, like wild beasts glaring curiously with yellow eyes down into the darkness.'' Each a picture drawn in a sentence. Although this is a novel of over 500 closely printed pages the style is terse -- so terse that at times it produces an effect as of short, sharp hammer strokes. Yet it is flexible, too, as shown by its success in depicting varying shades of mood, in expressing those more intimate emotions which are so very nearly inexpressible. Yet, when all is said, it is the complex character of Miriam, she who was only Paul's ''conscience, not his mate,'' and the beautiful bond between the restless son and the mother whom ''his soul could not leave'' even when she slept and ''dreamed her young dream'' which makes this book one of rare excellence.

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Sons and Lovers

By d. h. lawrence introduction by blake morrison edited by helen baron and carl baron, category: literary fiction | classic fiction.

Nov 28, 2006 | ISBN 9780141441443 | 5-1/16 x 7-3/4 --> | ISBN 9780141441443 --> Buy

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Nov 28, 2006 | ISBN 9780141441443

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About Sons and Lovers

Sons and Lovers is a highly autobiographical and compelling portrayal of childhood, adolescence, and the price of family bonds. Repelled by her uneducated and sometimes violent husband, delicate Gertrude Morel devotes her life to her sons. But conflict is inevitable when Paul seeks relationships with women to escape the suffocating grasp of his mother. As profoundly affecting today as it was nearly a century ago, this is the peerless Lawrence at his most personal. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Also by D. H. Lawrence

About D. H. Lawrence

The son of a miner, the prolific novelist, poet, and travel writer David Herbert Lawrence was born in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, in 1885. He attended Nottingham University and found employment as a schoolteacher. His first novel, The White Peacock, was published… More about D. H. Lawrence

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Lawrence’s masterpiece… a revelation. (Anthony Burgess)

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Review: Sons and Lovers

Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence My rating: 3 of 5 stars My reactions to this book veered from extremely positive to quite negative, so it is difficult to know how to begin. If you have an ear for prose, then Lawrence will seldom completely disappoint. At his best, Lawrence’s prose is lush, caressing, and aching. He evokes a kind of aesthetic tenderness that I have seldom experienced elsewhere—an intimacy between the reader and himself, a vulnerability that is disarming. In his strongest passages Lawrence is as meditative as Proust and as lyrical as Keats. But this book is, unfortunately, not exclusively composed of Lawrence’s strongest passages. And as it wore on, I felt that Lawrence had exhausted his limited emotional range, and was overplaying his thematic material. The premise of the book is quite simple: a woman in an unsatisfying marriage pours her emotions into her sons, who then become so dependent on her that they cannot form satisfying relationships for themselves. For me, there is nothing wrong with this (arrestingly Freudian) idea; but I did think that Lawrence beats the reader over the head with it. In general, I think it is unwise for any book to be too exclusively devoted to a theme. It does not leave enough room for levity, for spontaneity, for fresh air to blow through its pages. Sons and Lovers certainly suffers from this defect. But the book’s faults become apparent only in the second half. I thought the beginning of the novel was quite astonishingly beautiful. Lawrence wrote of the sufferings of a young wife with amazing sympathy. He manages to bring out all the nobility and strength of Mrs. Morel, while avoiding portraying Mr. Morel in an unnecessarily harsh light. The miner is a flawed man in a crushing situation, and his wife is a resolute woman with few options. Their tragedy is as social as it is personal, which gives this section of the novel its great power. When the focus shifts from Mrs. Morel to her son Paul, then the quality generally declines. Paul is not as interesting or as compelling as his mother; and his problems seem like sexual hang-ups or psychological limitations, rather than anything diagnostic of society at large. Perhaps our own social climate is just not ripe for this novel. Nowadays we are little disposed to care about the inability of a young man to find complete satisfaction in his relationships. In fairness, there are charming and insightful sections in this second part of the novel as well. I liked Miriam as a character and I thought the dynamic between her and Paul was compelling, if a touch implausible. (On the other hand, I disliked the reconciliation between Clara and her pathetic husband.) Even so, I thought that the writing became noticeably worse as the book went on, as Lawrence inclined more and more to repetition. The characters speak, desire, recoil, hate each other, relapse, and so on. It is tiresome and it begins to wear on the reader, who longs for someone to do something decisive and bring all this emotional dithering to an end. I am hopeful that Lawrence’s later novels have more of his strengths (his sympathy, his lyricism, his tenderness) and fewer of his weaknesses (his lack of range, his lack of humor). As for this one, I will end where I begin, with a confused shrug. View all my reviews

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Sons and Lovers

D. h. lawrence, everything you need for every book you read..

Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on D. H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

Sons and Lovers: Introduction

Sons and lovers: plot summary, sons and lovers: detailed summary & analysis, sons and lovers: themes, sons and lovers: quotes, sons and lovers: characters, sons and lovers: symbols, sons and lovers: literary devices, sons and lovers: theme wheel, brief biography of d. h. lawrence.

Historical Context of Sons and Lovers

Other books related to sons and lovers.

• Full Title: Sons and Lovers
• When Written: 1913
• Where Written: London, Germany, and Italy
• When Published: London
• Literary Period: Modernist
• Genre: Literary fiction
• Setting: Northern England
• Climax: Mrs. Morel, who has an unusually close bond with her son, Paul, dies from cancer and leaves Paul lost and disorientated
• Point of View: Third person

Extra Credit for Sons and Lovers

Jessie Chambers. Lawrence closely modeled the character of Miriam in Sons and Lovers on his real-life friend Jessie Chambers. Chambers took an active interest in Lawrence’s literary career and the pair had a brief sexual relationship. Jessie was so hurt by Lawrence’s portrayal of her as the zealous Miriam in his novel that she never spoke to him again after reading a draft of the work.

Utopian visions. When Lawrence moved to the United States with Freida, he had plans to set up a communist utopia with a group of friends on land that they bought in New Mexico, near an artist colony at Taos. This was a place where creators and bohemians congregated and mingled, and Lawrence spent several years here and documented his experiences in a series of short stories called Taos Quartet in Three Movements . Although Taos was supposed to be a place of utopian collaboration and peace, the atmosphere among the group was often strained and tempestuous.

Sons and Lovers – Book Review

• 25th September 2018

Alok Mishra

Sons and lovers, the novel, holds a very important place in my life. i have read it as a student and then studied it as a grown-up man having literary occupations. both the times, i had that mesmerising effect which is conventional as far as the novels of this quality are concerned. d. h. lawrence becomes as detailed as thomas hardy and as philosophical as aldous huxley; it purely depends on the context, nonetheless., get a copy of lawrence’s novel – click here (amazon india), sons and lovers is a classic novel to be very honest at the very outset of this prolonged argumentative article. why am i ascribing to it what’s generally ascribed to dickens’ or brontes’ well, i have read them all – the certified classics. i have read some of the lawrence’s as well. yes, they are different in tone, nature and subject matter; and, to sound perplexed to many ones, that very difference brought by d. h. lawrence is classic to me, sons and lovers is mainly about the sexual experience, confusion around physical intimacy and a very delicate philosophical exploration of the secondary protagonist named paul. yes, i believe that the central or the most important protagonist in the novel is gertrude herself. she is the one who drives the storyline as directed by the novelist. every life in this novel is somehow connected to the centre of this circle called gertrude – a sophisticated lady failed by her choice of husband… passionate but never fulfilled… sensible but very emotive at times. she is gertrude., other important characters in the novel are miriam and clara. i believe both these ladies act as two distinct poles in the life of paul – one as the intellectual compulsion and the other as the physical exploration in love. paul is passionate with both – with miriam, he is exploring the intellectual and philosophical truths and lies and with clara, he tries to understand whether he has that sexual desire or not, actually. in contrast with each other, miriam is the second powerful lady in the terms of impact on paul, only next to gertrude. however, she gives in to paul’s undenying appeal and they both (paul and miriam) understand it failed. gertrude is more careful about paul’s relationship with miriam than with clara because she, somewhere deep, fears the power of miriam’s ‘wisdom’ about life., ending of the novel is justified to me. lawrence has shown that without the centre, a circle cannot hold anything – in fact, there is no concept of a circle without a centre. gertrude dies and paul is shattered into pieces. this is how the novel ends and we are supposed to presume that paul is going to neither of miriam and clara. he would suffer and die alone as he could never come out of the eternal enigma of love, life and his priorities., critically, the novel is complex. it has many things to offer to the readers but at centre, the major place is occupied, no doubt, by gertrude’s passionate dreams which never fruited. about incest and offensive and obscene elements in the novel, i have seen many people complain even without reading it. there is nothing like that the novel can be read and enjoyed by anyone. go ahead and read this amazing piece of fiction of you will miss something very important, sons and lovers by d. h. lawrence.

• Overall AM's Rating

Sons and Lovers is a novel which is undeniable… once you begin, you have to finish it! A perfect fiction for readers – starters, pros and champions!

First and foremost a poet, Alok Mishra is an author next. Apart from these credentials, he is founder & Editor-in-Chief of Ashvamegh, an international literary magazine and also the founder of BookBoys PR, a company which helps writers brand themselves and promote their books. On this blog, Alok mostly writes about literary topics which are helpful for literature students and their teachers. He also shares his poems; personal thoughts and book reviews.

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Sons and Lovers as an Autobiographical Novel

Autobiographical novel  is primarily comprised of made up events and characters that may be based on the author’s own experience and self. The protagonist might be modeled after the author and do at least some of the things the author has actually done in his or her life.  Sons and Lovers is an autobiographical novel , much of which is taken from Lawrence’s own early life in the midland coal-mining village of Eastwood. The experience of Lawrence and Paul overlaps a lot.

The  autobiographical  setting of Bestwood has a close resemblance with Eastwood, the place here Lawrence grew up as a child. Lawrence was born at a mining village in Nottinghamshire. In the novel, Lawrence also showed us the pen picture of coal-miners’ life in the English Midlands according to his life experience. His father, a coal miner with little education was a heavy drunkard. The miners did terrible hard labour in the dark and damp pits day and night, thus they risked their life. They became rough and peremptory gradually. Only the wine can make them forget their distress and fatigue temporarily. They ill-treated their wives and children. Meanwhile, their wives brought up children in the narrow and small houses. The thousands of the coal miners’ wives had the same predicament as Gertrude’s(Paul’s mother).

It was the very social background that caused the family conflicts of the Morel couple which stands similar to the Lawrence couple, Arthur and Lydia, Paul’s parents. They had a short period of happiness after their marriage, but the poverty, the hard labour and the low level of education destroyed her beautiful dream. Paul’s father got alcoholic. But his mother, once a school teacher was from a somewhat higher class, who came to think that she had married beneath her, and desired to raise the cultural level of her sons so as to help them escape from the life of coal miners. The conflict between the earthy and coarse, energetic but often drunk father and the refined, strong-willed and up-climbing mother is vividly presented in  Sons and Lovers .

Lawrence was very close to his mother so much that even he admitted that his relationship with his mother interfered with his own relationships with women. Lawrence confessed at one point that he looked at his mother in a sexual way. His relationship with his father was very much like Paul’s – both young men sided with their mothers and clung to them. They hate and detested their fathers and treated their mothers with love. As a young boy, he was sick and weak and preferred to stay at home with his mother and sisters rather than play with the boys.

There is close resemblance of Lawrence’s girlfriend of Nottingham high School, Jessie Chambers with that of Paul’s beloved Miriam in Sons and Lovers. As a student Lawrence was very intelligent and smart. Jessie was reserved and shy with him, because she felt inferior to him. The Chambers family was impressed Lawrence’s knowledge of literature and philosophy. Lawrence cared for Jessie very deeply, but he didn’t feel any attraction for her. His relationship with Jessie fluctuated between love and hate.

After Paul’s broken relationship with Jessie, he began another one with Louie Burrows in the last days of his mother’s life. His mother died on December 10, 1910; Lawrence was ill and grief-stricken for moths. Prior to his mother’s death, Lawrence started to write Sons and Lovers, which he called Paul Morel first.  Sons and Lovers is his most autobiographical novel  –  Lawrence drew upon his own memories and experiences to write the story of Paul Morel.

Paul bears a very clear and close resemblance with his own creator.  Like Paul, Lawrence was also a weak and sickly boy and he was brought very close to his mother by a serious attack of pneumonia. The persistent atmosphere of disharmony and the regular bickering of the parents had lain a great strain of Lawrence. Like Paul, Lawrence too was an introvert and shrank from life. He too had fits of depression and melancholy and a nameless horror filled his souls.

• Oedipus Complex in Sons and Lovers

In conclusion we may say that  Sons and Lovers  is the most  autobiographical novel  penned by D. H. Lawrence. There is abundance of  autobiographical elements in  Sons and Lovers  which speaks directly to the modern reader, eliciting both sympathy and empathy as Paul tries to become his own man.

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analysis of the novel is very simple to understand.

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Sons and Lovers Paperback – January 2, 1985

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• Print length 416 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Signet Classics
• Publication date January 2, 1985
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• ISBN-10 0451518829
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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Signet Classics (January 2, 1985)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 416 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0451518829
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0451518828
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 7.2 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4.2 x 1 x 6.8 inches

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Book review: Sons and Lovers

Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence. Recommended.

Sons and Lovers is said to be the most autobiographical of D. H. Lawrence’s novels; according to the introduction by Benjamin DeMott, some critics have found it too flatly so. Like the protagonist Paul Morel, Lawrence was born to a coal miner and a woman who has married beneath her class. His older brother died young, DeMott notes. Many other details coincide as well.

Unlike some of Lawrence’s other works, such as Women in Love , in which Lawrence explores lofty themes in a philosophical and grim tone, Sons and Lovers is as down to earth as Paul’s rough, violent, yet congenial father Walter.

Despite his many apparent and iterated flaws, Walter Morel is shown as a whole person with a gentle, content, industrious side — when he’s sober. His “smallness” is a function of where he is and who he is expected to be rather than who he could be. He’s so tied to his mining lot in life it doesn’t occur to him his gifted sons could aspire to more. That they achieve more is a source of both pride and derision for Walter Morel. Although Walter is a background character, he, “an outsider,” forges the bond between Gertrude Morel and her sons William and Paul.

Gertrude Morel is not the first woman to live her life through her children. Her hold over her sons, however, dooms their relationships with other women to failure, leaving them deeply unsatisfied and unhappy. Her motivations may be questionable, but she is sometimes right. William’s fiancée Lily would have cost him dearly, emotionally and financially, had he lived to marry her, and Mrs. Morel sees her own mistake of a marriage in his future. Although she makes her beliefs known, she seems willing to let William make his decision and suffer the consequences.

Having learned from the experience with William, Mrs. Morel takes a different approach with Paul, who seems to be her last, best hope for justifying her own life. Her relationship with Paul becomes overtly sexual. When they go out together, they behave like lovers on a date. “He stroked his mother’s hair, and his mouth was on her throat.” When Paul tells his mother that he doesn’t love Miriam, she “kissed him in a long, fervent kiss. ‘My boy!’ she said, in a voice trembling with passionate love. Without knowing, he gently stroked her face.”

It would be too easy to attribute all this to an Oedipal complex, but it is more complicated, as life is. Paul serves as Mrs. Morel’s alter ego, pseudo-lover, and breadwinner. Everything she did not or cannot have must be Paul’s. She is savvy enough to know who is a threat to her hold and who is not. She recognises in Miriam a woman much like herself — intelligent, thwarted, let down by men, hungry for a kindred spirit or soul mate. Paul, too, is aware of this and hates Miriam for it — and for the fact he does, indeed, love her, making him unfaithful to the woman to whom he owes his fidelity. There are spiritual overtones as well, as the religious Miriam tries to sacrifice herself for Paul, whom she sees as a “Walter Scott hero.” This sacrifice repels Paul ever further.

Mrs. Morel rightly perceives that Clara Dawes is not a threat to her — she is fascinating, attractive, enigmatic, and sensual, but she lacks the ability to be more to Paul than a diversion from Miriam, Mom, and himself. Knowing that nothing of importance will come of this affair, Mrs. Morel even encourages it. It cannot divert Paul from her, and it fails as a result.

In the end, the only intimacy Paul is capable of is with his mother. She has come between him and his own consciousness — and he has allowed her. Everything is filtered through her. How she has achieved this is not always clear, as she uses more than rhetoric and conscious effort to mold Paul. When he wishes her dead, there is hope that then he would begin to live. “Mother!” he whimpered. “Mother!” Then: “He would not take that direction, to the darkness, to follow her.” With the past buried, there may be a future for him. Only Lawrence knew as he wrote this most human of his novels.

25 May 2003 Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

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