4Sons&Lovers - Summary Sons and Lovers PDF

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SONS AND LOVERS (1913) – DH Lawrence Plot Overview The first part of the novel focuses on Mrs. Morel and her unhappy marriage to a drinking miner. She has many arguments with her husband, some of which have painful results: on separate occasions, she is locked out of the house and hit in the head with a drawer. Estranged from her husband, Mrs. Morel takes comfort in her four children, especially her sons. Her oldest son, William, is her favorite, and she is very upset when he takes a job in London and moves away from the family. When William sickens and dies a few years later, she is crushed, not even noticing the rest of her children until she almost loses Paul, her second son, as well. From that point on, Paul becomes the focus of her life, and the two seem to live for each other. Paul falls in love with Miriam Leivers, who lives on a farm not too far from the Morel family. They carry on a very intimate, but purely platonic, relationship for many years. Mrs. Morel does not approve of Miriam, and this may be the main reason that Paul does not marry her. He constantly wavers in his feelings toward her. Paul meets Clara Dawes, a suffragette who is separated from her husband, through Miriam. As he becomes closer with Clara and they begin to discuss his relationship with Miriam, she tells him that he should consider consummating their love and he returns to Miriam to see how she feels. Paul and Miriam sleep together and are briefly happy, but shortly afterward Paul decides that he does not want to marry Miriam, and so he breaks off with her. She still feels that his soul belongs to her, and, in part agrees reluctantly. He realizes that he loves his mother most, however. After breaking off his relationship with Miriam, Paul begins to spend more time with Clara and they begin an extremely passionate affair. However, she does not want to divorce her husband Baxter, and so they can never be married. Paul’s mother falls ill and he devotes much of his time to caring for her. When she finally dies, he is broken-hearted and, after a final plea from Miriam, goes off alone at the end of the novel.

Character List Gertrude Morel - The first protagonist of the novel. She becomes unhappy with her husband Walter and devotes herself to her children. Paul Morel - Paul Morel takes over from his mother as the protagonist in the second half of the book. After his brother William’s death, Paul becomes his mother’s favorite and struggles throughout the novel to balance his love for her with his relationships with other women. Walter Morel - Gertrude’s husband, a coal miner. William Morel - Their first son, who is Mrs. Morel’s favorite until he falls ill and dies. Annie Morel - Paul’s older sister. When their mother lies dying toward the end of the novel, she and Paul decide to give her an overdose of morphia pills. Arthur Morel - Paul’s younger brother, not central to the plot. Miriam Leivers - The daughter of the family at Willey Farm. She befriends Paul and becomes his first love. Clara Dawes - A friend of Miriam’s, she is a suffragette, who is separated from her husband. She becomes Paul’s second love, and they have a passionate affair. Baxter Dawes - Clara’s husband. He fights with Paul, but they later become friends while he is ill.

Mrs. Radford - Clara’s mother. Thomas Jordan - The owner of the factory where Paul works. Paul dislikes him from their first interview because he is rude and makes Paul look foolish. He later fires Baxter Dawes because he knocks him down a flight of stairs. Louisa Lily Denys Western - A girl William sees in London, and to whom he becomes engaged. The rest of the family is less than impressed with her when he brings her home, and William shortly becomes sick of her as well. Mr. And Mrs. Leivers, Agatha, Edgar, Geoffrey, Maurice - The family who live at Willey Farm. Fanny - A hunchback who works in the finishing-off room at the factory, who likes to have Paul come visit her to sing or talk. She organizes the other girls to get Paul a birthday present. John Field - A man with whom Gertrude is friendly when she is nineteen. He gives her a Bible, which she keeps for the rest of her life. From John she learns that “being a man isn’t everything.” Jerry Purdy - Walter Morel’s bosom friend. Walter goes for a walk to Nottingham with Jerry, during which he takes the nap on the ground that eventually causes an illness. Mr. Heaton - The Congregational clergyman who visits with Mrs. Morel every day after Paul is born. He is Paul’s godfather and teaches him French, German, and mathematics. Beatrice Wyld - A friend of the Morel family who ridicules Miriam and flirts with Paul. She eventually marries Arthur when he returns from the army.

Context David Herbert Lawrence was born in 1885 in Nottinghamshire, England where his father was a miner. His experience growing up in a coal-mining family provided much of the inspiration for Sons and Lovers. Lawrence had many affairs with women in his life, including a longstanding relationship with Jessie Chambers (on whom the character of Miriam is based), an engagement to Louie Burrows, and an eventual elopement to Germany with Frieda Weekley. Sons and Lovers was written in 1913 and contains many autobiographical details. Many of Lawrence’s novels were very controversial because of their frank treatment of sex, and both The Rainbow and Lady Chatterley’s Lover were banned during his lifetime. This controversial treatment of sex is evident as well in Sons and Lovers; Lawrence’s fear of negative public opinion may have been one reason for his vague use of language and the obscure treatment of sex in the novel.

Themes Family – The book's called Sons and Lovers. So it's about family. Especially the weird webs of love and hate that form between people who've known each other their entire lives. Whether he's discussing the Morel family's united resentment for their father, or Mrs. Morel's unhealthy attachment to her son(s), Lawrence uses this novel to throw a pretty huge wrench into any idealistic ideas we might have about family bonds and unconditional love.

Love – If there's one thing you need to know about love in this book, it's that it never shows up without its bedfellow, hate. Lawrence seems to believe that people can't feel love without feeling enmity at the same time. This is probably because love fulfills our desire to connect with other people, but those connections can only occur when we break down some of the barriers between us and other people. And it's those barriers that make us individuals. So, in Sons and Lovers, pretty much no one can escape this combo of love and hate. Drugs and alcohol – If you were to judge Lawrence's views on drugs and alcohol by this book alone, you'd guess that he didn't believe people could use such substances in moderation. In Sons&L, Lawrence suggests that a man is either a total drunk, or he never drinks a drop. The most obvious example of an alcoholic in the book is Walter Morel, whose boozin' habits destroy his relationship to his family. The equally alcoholic Baxter Dawes might be understood as a redeemable version of Walter, since Paul seems to help Baxter overcome his substance abuse problem. Women and feminity – As the title suggests, Sons and Lovers focuses primarily on sons, not daughters. Nonetheless, the book still delves deeply into questions of femininity, and how women are supposed to act. In it, Lawrence provides us with different models of what a woman can be like, from the battle-hardened Mrs. Morel to the spiritual and somewhat naïve Miriam. What many of these models boil down to, though, is the (then?) timely conflict over whether or not to be submissive to a man. Men and masculinity – Just as Lawrence delves deeply into the realm of women and femininity, he also provides us with a sneak peek into men's heads. Sons and Lovers tells us a lot about the kinds of ideas that float through guy's masculine brains—or, at least, the kinds that did back in early-20th-century Britain. Just as there are many different versions of femininity, there are many different versions of masculinity in this book. On the one hand, you have the abusive, alcoholic father, Walter Morel. On the other hand, you have the sensitive artist, Paul. But just as the women in this book are held back by their gender roles, the men are often victims of societal expectations. Art and culture – Paul thinks of painting as his great escape from the modern industrial world portrayed in Sons and Lovers. It's understandable, then, that his favorite thing to paint is natural landscapes. But not only is painting a source of pride for Paul, it's also the primary way that Mrs. Morel projects all of her unfulfilled ambitions onto her son. Paul's success in painting makes Mrs. Morel feels "cultured" in a way that allows her to think she's just as good as any upper-class person in her town. Ultimately, climbing that old social ladder is all Mrs. Morel really cares about. Technology and modernization – Our cold, industrial modern world is rife with technology. But just as some older folks today feel that the technology we love is kind of evil, those people's parents and grandparents felt the same way about their own generations' innovations. It's a cycle. So, in Sons and Lovers, the appearance of modern technology always represents some sort of alienation from a more idyllic past. For Lawrence, technology represents the enslavement of men by industry. And the only way to break outta these chains is to reconnect with nature. Pride – Everywhere you look in Sons and Lovers, characters are suffering from wounded pride or getting all up in arms about others' arrogance. Paul, Miriam, Mrs. Morel, Walter Morel, and Clara Dawes all get their egos bruised, and they constantly feel insecure in the presence of people who act superior to them. In Paul's case, pride is one of the many things that keeps him from fully accepting Miriam's love. It's tragic, really. So while D.H. Lawrence seems to suggest that pride is a necessary aspect of human experience, it can also can get in the way of personal growth. Amen, brother.

Symbols The pit mines - Workin' in the coal mine, goin' down, down, down… As you might have guessed, the alwaysunpleasant pit mines in Sons and Lovers seem to symbolize the world of hard labor. Lawrence drops a lot of not-so-subtle hints about the exploitation of the workers that happens in these mines throughout the book. After all, Walter Morel makes "17.11 pounds" for his work, but has to give back "16 an' 6" for "stoppages for rent and tools". That's more than 90% of his earnings that he has to pay back to the company. How would you feel about "taxes" like that? The misery of working in the mines might actually be our main source of sympathy for Walter. Lawrence also positions the mines as places where only the manliest of men go to work. He does this primarily through the eyes of Gertrude Morel, who "realized the life of the miners, hundreds of them toiling below earth and coming up at evening […] seemed to her noble". Lawrence really wanted manly men to exist in the world because he worried that modern technology would eventually make men "soft." (What would he think about the internet? Gasp.) So even though he's opposed to exploitative labor, he's still half-glad that the mines kept men good and tough. And drunk, we might add.

Painting - Apart from hanging out with his coterie of women (including his mother, Mrs. Morel), Paul's biggest amour is painting. And he's not half bad at it either. Every time the book mentions painting, Paul seems to be winning some new prize for it. His painting is opposed to the commercial world that Paul hopes to avoid. As the narrator reveals: He was quite a clever painter for a boy of his years, and he knew some French and German and mathematics that Mr. Heaton had taught him. But nothing he had was of any commercial value. In this text, painting represents Paul's sensitivity as an artist, and his tendency to look at the world in a more romantic way than "normal" people. Art also represents his ambition to do something with his life that isn't "common," like the menial work he ends up doing at Mr. Jordan's factory. Paul's painting is also the main focus of his mother's pride in him, since she yearns for Paul to distinguish himself in some way from others. When Paul turns out to be an excellent painter, his mother is over the moon about it. At first, she can't really believe his success: "Name—Paul Morel—First Prize." It looked so strange, there in public, on the walls of the Castle gallery, where in her lifetime she had seen so many pictures. And she glanced around to see if anyone had noticed her again in front of the same sketch. But, over time, Mrs. Morel trusts in her son's ability and uses it as a way to feel like she's just as good as any rich woman in her county. So, painting represents a lot of the characters' hopes and dreams in Sons and Lovers. It's their golden ticket out of Normal Town, and into Greatness City.

Nature - So there you are, just chilling, reading Sons and Lovers at an easy pace, loving all of Lawrence's straightforward sentences. Then: boom. The language explodes into epic floweriness as you're confronted with some insane, paragraph-long description of a flower. When it comes time for Paul to find a job, he laments the fact that he has to lose his childhood innocence, which is characterized by his connection with nature: Already he was a prisoner of industrialism. Large sunflowers stared over the old red wall of the garden opposite […] Already his heart went down. He was being taken into bondage. His freedom in the beloved home valley was going now.

For Paul, nature = freedom and happiness. Even though he has to spend his days working in a factory, he continues to to find comfort in the natural world during his off hours. In all of his books, D.H. Lawrence tends to use nature as a source of relief from the cold forces of modernization and technology. Later in the book, Clara Dawes expresses a view similar to that of Lawrence's. Standing on a hill, she looks over a town and tells Paul she's glad that the town isn't any bigger. Paul, however, defends the town, saying that "'it's only temporary. This is the crude, clumsy make-shift we've practiced on, till we find out what the idea is. The town will come all right'". In other words, Paul says the town is okay because it, like all humanmade things, will eventually be gone. Here, Lawrence gestures toward the notion that even though modern technology and industry seems to ruin nature, it's ultimately nature that'll have the last laugh.

William’s suit - Still skeptical that Mrs. Morel thinks of Paul as a replacement for her dead son, William? Well, it's pretty hard to stay skeptical after Mrs. Morel tells Paul to run upstairs and put on his dead brother's old suit. Dude is literally filling his brother's shoes in this scene: And as [Mrs. Morel] smoothed her hand over the silk collar she thought of her eldest son. But this son was living enough inside the clothes. She passed her hand down his back to feel him. He was alive and hers. The other was dead. Lawrence shows us here that Paul will never live up to the standard set by his dead brother. He continues: [Paul] went upstairs and put on the coat and vest. Coming down, he looked strange in a flannel collar and a flannel shirt-front, with an evening coat and vest. It was rather large. How do we know that Paul is going to have a tough time living up to his older brother's memory? Think symbolically. William's shoes are literally too big for Paul to fill, though his mom doesn't seem to mind.

Romantic imagery - Throughout this book, Lawrence talks about Paul's relationships with Clara and Miriam in romantic terms, and there's nothing weird about that. What is weird, though, is that Lawrence uses many of these same romantic terms to describe Paul's relationship with his mother. In Chapter 5: The mother and son walked down Station Street, feeling the excitement of lovers having an adventure together. Now, if Lawrence only used this kind of language to describe Mrs. Morel and Paul's connection once, you could write it off as writerly clumsiness. But as the book unfolds, you realize that Lawrence is really going out of his way to suggest that there's some sort of unconscious sexual deal going on between Paul and his mum. Again in Chapter 5, Lawrence writes that Mrs. Morel "was gay, like a sweetheart. She stood in front of the ticket-office at Bestwood […] his heart contracted with pain of love of her". In Chapter 8, Paul loves sitting between his mother and his beautiful "friend" Miriam at church, "uniting his two loves under the spell of the place of worship”. The direct comparison between Miriam (Paul's lover) and his mother shows us just how much Lawrence must have been influenced by Sigmund Freud's theory of the Oedipus Complex. This theory basically says that all little boys have an unconscious attraction to their mothers, but they can't acknowledge that attraction, because society frowns on the whole incest thing. That's why Lawrence takes it upon himself to say the things that his characters can't admit to themselves. He was way ahead of his times in that respect; he wanted to thrust issues of psychology, sexuality, and family into the spotlight in early-C20th Britain. And yes, people weren't cool with Lawrence talking about this stuff way back in 1913....