David Herbert Lawrence (1885-1930)

Sons and Lovers

Lawrence was an exceptional figure of the English literature. His name was associated with scandals because of his works.1He dealt with questions that shocked the Puritan English society and when Lady Chatterleys Lover was published, the authorities charged him with pornography and the novel was banned for a long time. His achievements as a writer are worthy to mention mainly in connection with his outstanding short stories and some famous novels such as Women in Love, Sons and Lovers. Lawrence composed his works at the beginning of the 20th century. This period was a very critical one in the English history. Traditional Victorian values were not suitable any more and people could not find new ones that would be able to reassure them in the changing world. Not only did mentality change but people had to undergo great historical alterations as well. England lost its supremacy over the world. Inside the country the urban working class that tried to make its voice heard, the increasing role of the trade unions, the women who fought for their rights to vote and the Irish efforts of independence caused a lot of problems to the government2 and led people to feel uncertainty and disillusionment. The effects of this burdensome situation can be also seen in his works. Lawrence wrote Sons and Lovers, his first really successful novel in 1913 not long after his mothers death. The novel is full of autobiographical elements. The author was

Cs. Berta, English Literature in the Nineteenth Century and in the First Half of the Twentieth. (Budapest: Nemzeti Tanknyvkiad, 1998.): 98. 2 J. ODriscoll, Britain. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.): 29.

brought up in a mining area of Nottingham. His family was poor and their parents marriage was an unhappy one. His father was an uneducated person and he worked as a miner3. His mother was a religious woman and comparing to her husband she was better educated. She had great influence on her family especially on her son. As we read the novel we can realize Lawrences social and autobiographical background step by step. Firstly, the story takes place in a mining field in Nottinghamshire. The people living there are poor people mainly mining families that have difficulties in making ends meet. Secondly, the Morel family is very similar to Lawrences own family especially the parents: the illiterate fathe r (there is a hint in the novel that the father did not write anything apart from his name for such a long time that maybe he cannot write any more) and the genteel mother who has her roots in the lower middle-class. Thirdly, I have to mention the relation between the mother and her son that reflects also his life. Being at the relations I can say that the whole novel is based on the different relationships: between child and parent, wife and husband, man and woman. The common element that links up these human connections is some kind of love. First of all, love inside the family. Paul Morels really thought provoking attachment to his mother or his ambiguous connection with his girlfriend, Miriam are worth mentioning and thinking about them. The writer shows Mrs. Morels adult life, the short period of her happiness and he let us know the reasons that caused her love with her husband die. After this point she does everything for her sons. First for William, whose death she could hardly survive, and then for Paul. Paul became an excellent subject of her love because from his childhood he was fond of her mother, he admired her. Paul was a bit jealous of William because her mother loved her firstborn son better than anyone else and she put all her hopes into Williams rise but when the eldest son went to work to London Paul was ready to take over his part in his mothers soul with pleasure. He became her support in her loneliness. The mother discussed every matter of life
3

Vilgirodalmi Kisenciklopdia (1. ktet). (Budapest: Gondolat, 1978.): 640.

with Paul and as Paul was growing their relationship became more and more intimate. As a result of the mothers solitude and the developed closeness between them their relationship turned into a mentally unhealthy relationship, in which the mother became the oppressing power and the son lost his own will. His main aim was to meet his mothers requirements and not to cause disappointment for her. He subordinated his whole life and his human relations to her mothers expectations. As time passed Paul tried to get rid of her mothers oppression but his endeavour was doomed to failure. Mrs. Morel accepted and even expected his son to behave in a way that she liked. She wanted to posses her sons love. She did not want to let anyone else into their closed world. She believed that she was the only person who knew exactly what her son needed both in his personal connections and in his career. Their behaviours reminds me to a modern Oedipus complex that is not totally fulfilled with sexual desire but describes a really depressing and poisoning situation concerning the relations of the mother and her son. Pauls affection to her mother determined his relationship with Miriam as well. He loved the girl but their love could not burst into bloom. The main reason is the mother again. Seemingly the situation is clear: Mrs. Morel rejected the girl from the first saying that Miriam did not suit Paul at all and later in a marriage she would ruin his ambitions by oppressing him. However, the things stand in a completely different way. Miriam was similar to Pauls mother in her appearance, in her ambitions and in her thoughts as well. Maybe at the beginning Paul loved the girl because of the similarities and finally, these similarities made him reject her. Unconsciously by rejecting Miriam he wanted to get rid of her mothers influence. So, their pure love was predestined for failure from the beginning. The mothers effect made impossible for Paul to build relationships with other girls, too. Although she realized that her son grew up and he also needed sexual love but she wanted to keep him away from women. It is interesting that finally Paul found the sexual love

with Clara, a woman whom he loved only for her body. This attraction towards her was only the attraction of flesh and nothing else. I can say that it is to some degree her mothers victory because she saw that Paul would not left her for Claras sake and that was the reason why she accepted this relationship instead of the other with Miriam. The other point here is the authors standpoint in connection with love. He considered love as a huge power in a humans life. However, he claimed that sexual love was even more important because the union made the relationship more complex and more possible. For him sexual love never meant a tricky game, a heartless intercourse, but he considered it as the real flower of sympathy, warm and generous. As a result of his views he became the apostle of a neo-pagan cult of love and sex, of the unconscious, instinctive wisdom and knowledge of the blood.4 He emphasised that people in the ancient times followed the laws of nature and body and they lived happily without thinking about the reasons all the time. However, the ancient values were destroyed by the modern civilization that depended on reasons. His aim with his novels was to reintroduce the ancient way of life, to improve the civilization.5 In Sons and Lovers Lawrences original ideas related to sexual love could not been carried out. On one hand, Miriam was a unique figure of the novel. She was longing for a better life and she believed that knowledge could lead towards it. She admired Paul, who was better educated than her brothers, he could even speak French and she proved to be a good companion to the boy. She helped him with her pieces of advice. They loved speaking about nature, literature and painting to delight their minds but not their bodies. Similarly to Mrs. Morel Miriam also wanted to make sacrifices for Paul but she was not able to give up herself to the natural feelings of carnal pleasures. For Paul sexual love meant the part of the way to self-perfection but for her sexual love meant nothing else but self-denial. It did not help to deepen their love but to ruin it. Miriam felt it but she could not change her mind.
4 5

Bertha: 99. Bertha: 99.

On the other hand, Clara, the uneducated working woman could satisfy Pauls sexual desires although she could not afford an intellectual background to Paul. In both of his love affairs I can feel the tension: the tension between the mind and the body. The novel is based on the struggle between the intellect and the instinct. According to Lawrences views in case of people living in modern civilizations there is always a fight between these two sides of the human being.6 People can improve the intellectual side while the instinct side is matter of inheritance. These two sides should be in balance and if the balance evolves people can develop. However, Lawrence suggests that there is a great obstacle that prevents people from development. This obstacle is the industrialized civilization that makes the development of the total, balanced human personality impossible. Mechanized, industrialized civilization relies on reasons, thus the balance between the intellectual and the emotional sides of human being is turned over and instinct becomes repressed. 7 Here I would like to go back to the point of love once more. Lawrence examined not only the personality-forming love between man and woman, but he examined love on other fields as well. If I see love between the father and his son I can say that it hardly existed. They lived next to each other but they were completely different. The father felt that he was responsible for his children and he ensured that his family had enough to live on but it was all he could do. His drinking habits and his plainness had tragical consequences because the connection with his wife worsened and it made the mother turn to his son with exaggerated love. There is one more example for love that is worth mentioning: love between man and man. Claras husband, Mr. Dawes, and Paul were rivals in love. They hated each other on the surface. The reason was understandable: they loved the same woman. However, under the
6 7

Bertha: 99. Bertha: 99.

surface they felt some kind of sympathy towards each other. When Dawes became seriously ill, Paul visited him at the hospital and helped his recover as he could. Their close relationship lasted only for a short period and it finished after Claras and his reconstruction of marriage but still I think, it is a good example for man friendship that is eternal and maybe it stands above the love between man and woman. I have not mentioned the form yet. At the beginning of the 20th century the genre of novel was changing a lot. The strict linear way of events that was typical in a novel that was written in the 19th century disappeared for the 20th century. While authors in the 19th century wanted to depict a total picture of the society, the aim of the writers of the 20th century changed as well. These changes did not succeed in Sons and Lovers. Lawrence chose a rather traditional form to his novel. He wrote it as a Bildungsroman8. It means that the reader can follow with careful attention the heros life from his childhood to his young adulthood. It requires the actions to happen in a chronological order, which is also one of the characteristic features of the 19th century novel. Each of the actions and every thought of the hero are described in details. The reader can be the witness of his contemplations. In this way Pauls inner life is shown, the polarity of his personality and his reactions to the other persons. His mental life happens in front of our eyes. In my opinion, definitely not the form was new and outstanding in Lawrences novel but his ambition to go down to the deepest levels of the human psyche and to show it to the public. The other novelty in his works occurs because of his above-mentioned views related to the contrast between the industrialized civilization and the natural life. Lawrence depicts Miriams home as an ideal one. The natural surroundings, the flourishing flowers and trees, the animals, the work on the farm beam naturalness and harmony while the other side, the town shows more serious picture. The inhabitants of towns have wider possibilities in some fields but the fulfilling life can take place only within a natural environment.
8

Bertha: 100.

The style of the novel is realistic. Sometimes Lawrence uses naturalistic elements for instance to emphasize the main heros passion but he applies detailed description of nature or the landscape as well, which is far from naturalistic style and it amuse the reader. The symbolism is not present at this point or for only up to a very limited level. According to Csilla Bertha Paul is a symbolic figure of the disintegration of the modern man, becomes naked of everything, with a drift towards death by the end of the novel, and despite the image of the towns gold phosphorescence, towards which he turns in the last scene, there is not much hope that he can find life there again. 9 And Paul, after his mothers death, had no chance to survive either under the circumstances that the sober town could ensure him or in harmony with Miriam. I think, that the novel provides people with open-ended questions that are worth thinking about. These questions cover not only the complexity of love but Lawrences other ideas as well. The man, especially the man of the 21st century has to think about his society, in which he lives, and about the environment that is dying around us. People should make conscious efforts to protect nature, the only place where they can find harmony.

Bertha: 100.

Works Cited

Berta, Cs. English Literature in the Nineteenth Century and in the First Half of the Twentieth. Budapest: Nemzeti Tanknyvkiad, 1998. Encyclopaedia. Vilgirodalmi Kisenciklopdia (1. ktet). Budapest: Gondolat, 1978. ODriscoll, J. Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. Vilgirodalmi Kisenciklopdia (1. ktet). (Budapest: Gondolat, 1978.): 640.