account of his early home life and the ambiguous relations with his parents - an obsession and the claustrophobic relationship with his mother and hatred he felt for his father. Life at Eastwood offers nothing to a vital, unambitious man like Paul s father, except the pit and the pub. To his wife, with her intelligence and her longing for refinement, it offers only the chapel and the hope of getting up into the middle class - through her children if not through the disappointing husband. This is Paul Morel s heritage, and the neurotic refusal of life engendered in him is the direct result of his parents failure. And the parents failure is the direct result of the pressures of an inhuman system. s mother has one passion in her life - a passion for her sons; first for the eldest, then the second. Paul is urged into life by the reciprocal love of his mother. But when he comes to manhood, he fails to fall in love because his mother is the strongest power in his life. Lawrence shows the feelings and passion of Paul's mother. First it was motherly love to her little son. She cared about him, defended him from the cruelty of her husband and from hard work in the mine. She wants him to become a painter, she is so glad when he is successful in study and work. But she is very jealous and she demands the same love to herself from him. Meanwhile Paul comes into contact with a sensitive girl Miriam. She is timid and self-conscious because she loves him, and with a prophetic insight fears that he will go beyond her limitations. Paul is angry with her emotional intensity because it already begins to constitute a claim on him. Strongly drawn to Miriam, he cannot and will not give himself to her; he wants to be safe. Miriam fights with Paul s mother for the possession of his soul. But mother gradually proves to be the stronger of the two, because of the tie of. Their blood. Paul realizes that he cannot really love Miriam, but he does not know why. He does not clearly recognize the power of his mother. It is true that he returns to his mother, but he thinks that he is still faithful to Miriam, that she still holds him in the depths of her soul. Miriam wants a completely committed love with faithfulness, tenderness and understanding - qualities that Paul cannot give. Yet her possession of his soul comes to matter less and less. His mother wins the fight for his soul. His mother is the chief thing to him, the only supreme thing . He said about Miriam to his mother, No, Mother - I really don't love her. I talk to her, but I want to come home to you. ... I could let another woman - but not her. She d leave me no room, not a bit of a room - . And immediately he hated Miriam bitterly. Another woman comes into his life. Clara comes to work at the factory where Paul is employed, and her husband also works there. Clara is different from Miriam. She is independent, emancipated and experienced. The development of their relations is wholly without any tender glow. But his mother is not displeased; she thinks that he is getting away from Miriam, and that he is growing up.Paul is severely hurt by Clara s husband and pneumonia follows, his mother nurses him, and he again returns safely to his mother s care. But his safety is clouded by his mother s illness; it is a fatal cancer. Paul is prostrated with grief. Clara leaves Paul because she realizes that her husband has more dignity than Paul.last effort with Miriam fails. They meet again, with all the old tension. She suggests marriage, and in a scene of tortured, enigmatic confusion Paul rejects it. He says: You love me so much, you want to put me in your pocket. And I should die there, smothered. Lawrence s exposition of the novel closes with these words: He is left in the end naked of everything, with him drift towards death. s work has been the subject of violent argument. On the one hand, it was praised to the skies, on the other, it was reviled as immoral. The truth of the matter is that Lawrence was one of the first among English writers to be absolutely outspoken on questions of love and relations between men and women while the element of social protest in Sons and Lovers is not strong.
Comprehension Questions and Tasks
1. Comment on Modernism as a major literary movem...
