"Cliff Notes - Sons and Lovers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cliff Notes)

Mr. and Mrs. Morel were initially attracted to each other because they were so different. He is working-class, sensual, nonintellectual, and fairly irresponsible. His wife is middle-class, pious, intellectual, and eminently reliable. The passion that held them together in the first glowing months of their marriage cannot survive their social and moral differences.

When Paul is born, Mrs. Morel is determined to make him feel loved, to compensate for his unwanted conception. Paul is a feeble, oversensitive child, who seems to be living proof of the shattered love of his mismatched parents.

William, the eldest son, is the favorite of the family. He's a great athlete, student, worker, and companion. He lands a good job in London and gets caught up in the exciting urban life. He becomes engaged to Louisa Lily Denys Western ("Gyp"), a young woman who is beautiful but not bright.

Meanwhile, Paul gets an office job at Jordan's artificial limb factory in Nottingham. The shop girls, particularly the hunchbacked Fanny, adore this shy, sweet boy who offers them encouragement and kindness. He has also become serious about landscape painting.

On a holiday visit to the farm of family friends, Paul meets his first sweetheart, Miriam Leivers. At first, Miriam means far less to Paul than do the other members of the Leivers family, whom he visits frequently.

In the city, William works endlessly to support his fiancee's extravagant whims. He resents Gyp's frivolity and stupidity but is sexually enthralled by her. She satisfies his passion, without loosening his mother's hold on his heart and mind. The conflict between William's attraction to Gyp and his devotion to Mrs. Morel eventually undermines his health. He dies of pneumonia in his cold, lonely London flat (apartment).

Now all Mrs. Morel's passions and aspirations pour into Paul. As he becomes the center of his mother's universe, he truly begins to live.

The Leivers become like a second family to Paul. Soon, the daughter Miriam grows closest to the sensitive, artistic youth. The two share long, idyllic walks through the countryside, talking and reading to each other. Paul helps Miriam overcome her many physical fears, such as climbing fences and letting the barnyard chickens eat out of her hand. He teaches her French and algebra, opening up a new, exciting world. Miriam appeals to Paul's own growing mysticism and creativity and loves nurturing Paul's artistic growth. They experience an intense relationship but don't know how to express it physically.

As Paul grows into manhood, he finds his abstract, spiritual relationship with Miriam unsatisfactory. Mrs. Morel, however, is jealous of Miriam's influence over Paul. She fears Miriam will suck the life and energy out of him with her dreamy mysticism. Paul, in turn, becomes frustrated by Miriam's otherworldliness. He eventually realizes he wants to have a sexual relationship with her, but can't get up the courage to make a pass at her. He knows how much she fears sex. Confused and frustrated, Paul starts to hate Miriam and treat her cruelly.

At the Leivers farm, Paul meets Clara Dawes, a political and social activist who has left her unfaithful husband. As the relationship between Miriam and Paul becomes more hopeless, his affinity for the older, sensuous Clara develops. Clara suggests to Paul that Miriam might actually want him as a man and helps him find the courage to approach Miriam as a lover.

Finally Paul and Miriam make love. The act dissatisfies both of them. Miriam acts as if making love is an unenjoyable sacrifice she endures for Paul's benefit only. Paul can't stand feeling that his wanting Miriam as a woman hurts her. He finally follows his mother's advice and ends his affair with Miriam. In hope of finding an outlet for his intense sexual passions, he turns to Clara.

Paul and Clara have an affair. She satisfies his sensuality without breaking his attachment to his mother. But Clara, like Miriam, wants to make their relationship permanent, or at least stable. This is impossible because of Paul's devotion to Mrs. Morel.

Paul comes to befriend Clara's husband, Baxter, who has not hidden his hatred for Paul and even thrashed him for having an affair with his wife. While Baxter is in the hospital, Paul visits him, then helps place the broken man in a convalescent home. Meanwhile, Paul's mother is dying of stomach cancer.

Neither Paul nor his sister Annie can bear to see their mother in pain. Paul finally gives her an overdose of morphine to end her suffering. After his mother's death, Paul feels that life isn't worth living. His relationship with Clara has disintegrated, and he decides to renounce her. Clara, believing she will never get close to Paul, goes back to Baxter.

Paul remains in deep despair over his mother's death. He can't do anything but mourn and think about dying. Eventually, his will to live wins out. Paul heads toward the blazing lights of Nottingham and a new life.


^^^^^^^^^^SONS AND LOVERS: PAUL MOREL

Paul Morel, the protagonist of Sons and Lovers, is based on the youthful D. H. Lawrence. Paul is a young man in the painful process of growing up. He's also gradually discovering that he's a gifted artist. Most important to the story, Paul is torn between his passion for two young women, the mystical Miriam and the sensual Clara, and his unyielding devotion to a possessive mother.

You may see Paul merely as a fellow under the thumb of a dominating mother. Some readers feel that his feeling for her is more passionate and that his difficulties with Miriam and Clara stem from this unresolved passion. Only her death frees him at the end. Another view of Paul is that he derives great strength from his mother and is inspired rather than crippled by his relationship to her. The failure of his relationship with Miriam, according to this view, is caused more by her horror of physical intimacy, than by Gertrude Morel's superior place in Paul's affections. How you interpret Paul's relationship with his mother will have much to do with your view of her character.

Another of Paul's conflicts centers on his apparent hatred for his father. You can see Paul's abhorrence of Walter Morel's vulgarity and alcoholism, but you can also see his imitation of Walter's carefree spirit and lust for life. Isn't some of Paul's own brutality to Miriam derived from his father's behavior? In some people's eyes, masculine virility is only another version of brutality.

Many readers see Paul's inner conflicts as a reflection of his parents' very different personalities and class backgrounds. He combines his father's working-class simplicity, spontaneity, and sensuality with his mother's middle-class steadfastness, intellectualism, and social ambition. Paul can be viewed as the volatile offspring of both the lower and the middle classes.

He can also be seen as a lovable, charismatic character. He's often kind and jovial, especially to his mother and the shop girls at Jordan's. Paul shares a healthy companionship with other men. It helps him appreciate the everyday joys of life and escape his brooding tendencies.

There's also a dark, brutal side to Paul. He can be very cruel, particularly to his girlfriends. He can't bear Miriam Leivers' superspirituality when it interferes with his sexual desires. After she finally gives up her virginity to him, he leaves her. Given the importance of virginity to an unmarried woman in the early twentieth century, Paul's treatment of Miriam seems shockingly inconsiderate. Once the proud Clara falls in love with Paul, he leaves her as well, telling her to go home to her husband. If Paul is such a sensitive, caring young man, why does he do such cruel things?

Paul is a fascinating mixture of extremes: vitality and despondency, spirituality and sensuality, love and hate, sensitivity and cruelty. Do you think any of these contradictions are resolved as the story ends?

^^^^^^^^^^SONS AND LOVERS: GERTRUDE MOREL

Gertrude Morel is one of the most formidable mothers in all of Western literature. To the narrator, and perhaps to Paul Morel, she is both a giving, selfless nurturer of her children and a possessive tyrant.