Sons and Lovers - D.H. Lawrence

I was first introduced to the works of D H Lawrence by my English literature teacher and I have read and re-read many of his novels. But my favourite remains the largely autobiographical “Sons and Lovers”, written in 1913.

Set in the mining village of Bestwood, the novel depicts the life of the Morel family. Gertrude Morel is a high-minded woman, religious, hard working and very moral. She is first attracted to Walter Morel, ...
...we might say that Walter is her “bit of rough” but when that initial spark of passion is spent, Mrs Morel realises that she and her husband have nothing in common. She regards him in every way as her inferior and she grows to despise him and the lifestyle he has forced upon her. The further the husband and wife grow apart, the closer the mother grows to her sons, at first, her eldest son, William, and then, after his death, her second ... more

I was first introduced to the works of D H Lawrence by my English literature teacher and I have read and re-read many of his novels. But my favourite remains the largely autobiographical “Sons and Lovers”, written in 1913.

Set in the mining village of Bestwood, the novel depicts the life of the Morel family. Gertrude Morel is a high-minded woman, religious, hard working and very moral. She is first attracted to Walter Morel, a coal miner, because of his passionate, earthy nature. Today we might say that Walter is her “bit of rough” but when that initial spark of passion is spent, Mrs Morel realises that she and her husband have nothing in common. She regards him in every way as her inferior and she grows to despise him and the lifestyle he has forced upon her. The further the husband and wife grow apart, the closer the mother grows to her sons, at first, her eldest son, William, and then, after his death, her second son, Paul. (Lawrence’s alter ego.)

Mrs Morel invests all her hopes and dreams in Paul, living out her ambitions vicariously through him. The relationship between mother and son is abnormally close and stifling, to the exclusion of all others. Walter Morel becomes an outcast in his own home and the son grows to hate the father, seeing him as the cause of all his mother’s pain and unhappiness. Throughout the novel, Lawrence has the father speaking in dialect, which only serves to highlight his estrangement from the rest of the family. It is as if he literally “doesn’t speak the same language.”

But as Paul reaches adulthood, his closeness with his mother causes problems. He is unable to form a proper, grown-up relationship with another woman because no one can take the place of his one true love. He meets Miriam, an intensely soulful and spiritual girl, with whom he thinks he might have a future. Miriam is much like Mrs Morel in that she is pure, passionate-natured (in a virginal way) and deeply religious. But the relationship is doomed because of Paul’s feelings for his mother. Mrs Morel, too, resents Miriam, because she realises that the girl wants Paul’s soul more than she wants him physically, and Mrs Morel cannot allow this. Forced ultimately to choose between Miriam and his mother, there is no contest. Paul rejects Miriam.

He then meets Clara Dawes, who is so very different from Miriam.Clara is married, a suffragette, liberated and passionate. Clara fulfils Paul’s sexual needs, and helps him to become a man. But she soon becomes aware that when they are making love, Paul is not really involved, just going through the motions. Once again, the relationship ends because of Paul’s greater need for his mother. He is himself aware of the problem but powerless to do anything about it, if in fact, he even wants to.

“I feel as if I wronged my women…I couldn’t belong to them. They seem to want me, and I can’t ever give it them…”
“And I never shall meet the right woman while you live.” (to his mother.)

Of course, the inevitable happens. Mrs Morel becomes ill (with cancer) and after a long battle, she dies. Paul is inconsolable. He is free from his mother’s possessive grip, but he is lost. How can he go on without her? How can he bear the dreadful loss? But at the end, there is a glimmer of hope, for Paul (and, ultimately, for all of us). He decides to fight, to go on, to live the rest of his life.

“He would not take that direction, to the darkness, to follow her. He walked towards the faintly humming, glowing town, quickly.”

There are two central themes in “Sons and Lovers” One is the class theme, which recurs in other works by Lawrence, perhaps most famously,”Lady Chatterley’s Lover.”Nowadays, the idea of class is largely irrelevant but in Lawrence’s day, there was a social stigma attached to consorting with someone of lower social status.

Secondly, there is the unnaturally close relationship between Paul Morel and his mother. This has been described as classic Oedipus complex, in which a child harbours intense sexual feelings for the parent of the opposite sex, whilst growing to despise the same-sex parent. There is in the novel no suggestion that the relationship between Paul and Mrs Morel was ever expressed in a physical way, but clearly it was not a normal mother-son relationship. A modern phrase I have heard to describe such a relationship is “smother love” and it seems quite apt.

Despite being written in 1913,and given that the class theme might now be a little dated, I still think that this novel has much to offer. It is undoubtedly one of the great Classics and is, I believe, well worth reading, especially as an introduction to Lawrence.
 

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