Themes

Here are some major themes of Sons and Lovers. They will be discussed in depth:

Man/Woman Love:

Sons and Lovers is an investigation of love between men and women. Paul has a spiritual love with Miriam and a sexual one with Clara. Both relationships leave him unfulfilled because Paul needs a love that combines both spiritual and sexual elements in one woman. Lawrence clarified and developed his ideas on the importance of man/woman love in his later novels. Still, in this novel you get a strong feeling that survival in modern, industrial society depends on strong heterosexual relationships. Such a relationship is only possible when both man and woman are spiritually and physically vital. Paul Morel’s unfulfilled quest for this sort of relationship is a major theme of Sons and Lovers. Sex is a bone of contention between Paul and his two loves, Miriam and Clara. Both women want a personal, emotional relationship, whereas Paul views sex as rather impersonal. The woman isn’t exactly an object, but a catalyst for man’s mystical communion with nature. Clara and Miriam both feel that Paul doesn’t make love to them as individuals, but as symbols of womanhood. They feel used, while Paul fears they’re trying to possess and smother him. Lawrence felt that modern, industrial life caused such sexual warfare between men and women. Sex, which the author viewed as a healthy expression of man’s link to God and nature, had been perverted by Victorian morality and the dehumanization of mechanized, industrial life.

Lawrence’s sense of sex as good was alien to the Victorian belief that it was evil and beastly. Sex was not supposed to be a topic of conversation between a man anda good woman. The character of Miriam is a depiction repressed sexuality common in the Victorian woman. Many other writers were encouraged by Lawrence’s bold descriptions of the sexual act and continued his revolutionary work in their own novels.

The Maturation of an Artist:

Sons and Lovers tells the story of an individual growing up to become a talented painter and a deeply sensitive troubled young man. The novel traces Paul’s discovery of his need and ability to paint. Art for Paul is inspired by nature and women. The beauty of the countryside stimulates his creativity, as do the gentle, devoted encouragement of Miriam, the sensuality of Clara, and the protective, sensible nurturing of Mrs. Morel. As the novel progresses, Paul becomes more and more confident in his paintings. He starts to believe he will make a great artist someday. What’s most interesting about Paul as an artist is the way he sees things. He imbues raindrops, birds, and with a supernatural vitality. They appear to ‘l him like miraculous affirmations of brilliant, individualistic lives struggling against eternal darkness and chaos. The artist’s mission in life, according to Lawrence, is to help others see beyond the commonplace and into life’s mystery and wonder. At Jordan’s factory, Paul draws the local shop girls in such a way as to make each of them appear unique. He makes the girls see their own inner beauty and specialness.

Class Conflict:

You can see Sons and Lovers as a novel that epitomizes the conflict between the unskilled, ill- educated working class and the rigidly moral, emotionally and sexually inhibited middle class. Walter Morel, a symbol of the working class, has the positive qualities of instinct, warmth, and spontaneity. His wife, Gertrude, a symbol of the middle class, embodies their work ethic and their intellectual and social aspirations. Gertrude and Walter ‘ ought to complement one another with their very different positive points, but in fact they, like the lower and middleclasses, can’t get along, In Sons and Lovers, the lower class’s hatred of snobbery and phony propriety and the middle class’s concern with money and social advancement cause Gertrude and Walter to come to blows. Lawrence in his life and later novels sought a way of bringing these two social realms into harmony. Sons and Lovers can also be viewed as a working-class novel, a novel that focuses on the everyday lives, trials, and tribulations of unskilled, poor laborers. Through Lawrence’s words, you get a picture of what it was like to be a miner or a factory worker around the turn of the century.

Industrial life vs. Nature:

We have a sense in Sons and Lovers that modern industrial life perverts people. They’re cut off from nature and their own instinctive sexuality. Industrialism and its rigid moral code enslaves nature and discounts the sensual and aesthetic needs of humans. As you read the novel, pay close attention to the narrator’s description of Jordan’s factory and the way that Clara and Paul, on a brief escape from work, view the cityscape as a scar on the countryside. Factory life with its enforced confinement and long working hours isolates man from the natural world that is his true connection to the life force. Flowers, water, and other natural images are identified with sensuality and beauty, while the mines bury the fields in dust and darkness.

Opposing Forces: Light and Dark:

Sons and Lovers deals constantly in oppositions, such as light and dark. Lawrence believed that oppositions in the grand scheme of things form a completeness, rather than a vicious, irreconcilable struggle. Light stands’ for rational life and day-to-day reality. It is most strikingly associated with Mrs. Morel. Darkness symbolizes the wonder and mystery of existence, as well as the human subconscious and brute instinct. This quality is exemplified in Walter Morel, who every day descends deep into the earth. To Lawrence, light and dark, like life and death, opened naturally into each other. When you come -to William’s death in Chapter 6, you’ll notice that the coffin isbrought from the dark into the family’s lighted Lawrence, always ill and close to dying himself, felt that death was a natural extension of life and should be treated as such. To deny death, he believed, was truly to deny life.

Style:

Lawrence uses a combination of realistic description Style and poetic images to create the world of sons and Lovers. Realism is a style of writing that attempts to describe in a true-to-life manner concrete, everyday events. Poetic narrative, on the other hand, serves to lift life out of its normality, making it seem supernatural or symbolic of universal themes outside ordinary daily experience. Poetic narrative achieves this feat by using word comparisons, metaphors and similes, many adjectives, or elaborate and rhythmical language, rather than everyday speech.

The realism in Sons and Lovers is strongest in the first half of the novel, where the narrator describes the Morel family’s day-to-day existence. Mr. Morel hammers away at work, and the children help him along with his tasks. Mrs. Morel goes out marketing and comes home with a load of domestic treasures. The narrator also uses realistic detail to great effect when he presents the miners dividing their weekly pay in the Morel home. The men’s gestures are carefully described in almost photographic detail. The realism of Sons and Lovers gives you an accurate picture of working-class life at the turn of the century. You come to know, almost as if you were there, the pains and joys of their hard lives.

Lawrence’s poetry comes to the forefront in his descriptions of nature, where, for example, vivid sunsets and blazing rosebushes stand out against darkening skies. The poetic portions of Sons and Lovers seem to make the common lives of its characters miraculous and heroic.

Many times Lawrence uses a pattern that starts in realism, expands into lyrical poetic narrative, and then puts you back on your feet with a return to realism. You’ll notice this particularly in the scenes between Paul and women- his mother, Miriam, and Clara. He’ll start them off on a normal walk or conversation and then heighten thelanguage to give you a sense of their souls’ communication. The poetic style serves the purpose of evoking an emotional response in the reader rather than advancing the plot’s action. As you read Sons and Lovers, try to discover where the different styles are used and what each of them offers. How do they enhance each other and create what’s unique about the novel as a whole?

Lawrence also uses dialect to accurately convey his working-class characters’ conversations. The Midlands dialect is quite different from Standard English and you may have some difficulty understanding its slang terms, as well as its contractions of words. Dialect often drops beginning consonants of words and employs the old- fashioned “thee” and “thou” for “you.” To Lawrence, this sort of language was more warm and intense than StandardEnglish. Walter Morel speaks in dialect, emphasizing his social background and his sensuality. Gertrude Morel, on the other hand, speaks the Standard English of the educated middle class. You’ll notice that Paul speaks both “languages,” as well as French, which he teaches Miriam. Paul uses dialect for sensuous love with the sexually uninhibited Clara and for flirtation with Beatrice. He reserves proper English for Miriam and his prim mother.

Point of View:

Sons and Lovers is told from the point of view of an omniscient, or all-knowing, narrator. Most of the time, the narrator tells you more about the characters than they themselves know. This helps you accept and understand actions that might otherwise seem arbitrary or unmotivated. Since this book is highly autobiographical, many readers identify the narrator with Lawrence, who seems to be looking back and trying to come to terms with his own youthful problems and feelings through the character of Paul Morel. The narrator’s subjectivity about Paul shows through. At times he sympathizes with Paul, and at other times he condemns him. You may find the other characters judged in a similar way. Some readers find the narrator’s changing opinion indicative of Lawrence’s own confusionover his various past relationships. Others feel that the narrator is simply reflecting how people naturally change their perspective depending on the circumstances.

At times, the narrator seems to step aside and allow the characters to speak for themselves in passages of dialogue, you may feel closer to them when the narrator doesn’t guide your view of their motivations. But don’t forget that the narrator is choosing the speech and actions to be revealed, in order to influence your reactions. Sometimes, instead of stepping aside, the narrator seems almost to take over a character, even if the result is at odds with that character’s personality. For instance, when Gertrude Morel is locked out of her house in Chapter 1, she seems mystically transported by her experience with the daylilies. But isn’t she really “out of character”? Some would say that the narrator (or author?) has stepped into her shoes in such a totally subjective way that he reveals his own artistic and spiritual nature rather than Gertrude’s. Others might feel this is the only way to depict a character’s hidden inner feelings.

Structure:

Sons and Lovers has fifteen episodic chapters, divided into Parts One and Two. Part one deals with the Morel familyhome life, emphasizing social and historical influences. Paul, the protagonist, is not yet the main focus of the novel. The core of Part One is the story of Mr. and Mrs. Morel’s failed marriage and the promise of son William’s success in life. Part one ends with the death of William and Mrs. Morel’s new Part Two begins the story of sons and Lovers in terms of Paul’s perceptions. Part Two, or the story of Paul’s life, can only begin once the favored son William dies and Paul takes his place in his mother’s heart. This section of the novel concentrates more on the conflicting inner feelings of its characters than on the straightforward, action- and detail-oriented realism of Part one. It also focuses on the battle between Miriam and Mrs. Morel for Paul’s soul. sons and Lovers moves chronologically from before Paul’s birth through his life as a Young man and ends withhis mourning the death of his mother, Flashbacks are often used, particularly in Part One, where Lawrence deals with the Morel parents’ premarital backgrounds and Paul’s early childhood memories,

Part Two involves a series of repeated attempts of male/female unions, exemplified by Paul’s relationship first with Miriam, then with Clara. Many readers feel that these relationships take forever to resolve and that when they do, the result is quite unsatisfactory. Other readers believe that the monotonous repetition of the failed Miriam/Paul relationship theme is deliberate. Feel that Sons and Lovers is structured like ocean waves. There’s a rhythmic return pattern to various themes, such as the decay of Mr. and Mrs. Morel’s love after it has reached its climax. This serves to show that •there are no clear-cut resolutions in life. People make the same mistakes again and again. Part Two can be considered a journey from the known, realistic world of Part One into the realm of the unknown, where there are no definitive solutions. Part Two explores the subconscious and mysterious forces that motivate people. Lawrence saw this sort of exploration more far more important than providing his audience with resolutions.