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

William is Paul's older brother. He's based on Lawrence's own brother Ernest, who was the pride and joy of his family. Like his fictional counterpart, Ernest died in London at an early age.

William is robust and merry like his father. He's also intellectual and responsible like his mother. He's Gertrude's darling because he distinguishes himself early and remains devoted to her. When he goes off to a promising job in London, he meets and falls in love with a shallow-minded beauty, Louisa Lily Denys Western ("Gyp"). She satisfies his passion and fulfills his aspiration to marry someone from a higher social class, but leaves his mind and soul unfulfilled. Some readers think that William chooses such an unsuitable mate because he fears having a woman who might usurp his mother's place in his heart. Lawrence, in an unpublished foreword to Sons and Lovers, ascribes William's death from pneumonia to his internal struggle between his physical passion for a young, frivolous woman and his true love for his mother.

^^^^^^^^^^SONS AND LOVERS: LOUISA LILY DENYS WESTERN ("GYP")

Gyp is William Morel's fiancee. She's a flighty, foolish, but beautiful young woman whose family has fallen upon hard times. Even though she is forced to work as a secretary, Gyp still treats people like the Morels as inferiors.

^^^^^^^^^^SONS AND LOVERS: THE OTHER MOREL CHILDREN

Annie Morel is Paul's older sister. She becomes a schoolteacher and marries her childhood friend, Leonard. Arthur Morel is Paul's younger brother. He's much like Walter Morel, unintellectual and fun-loving. He marries Beatrice Wyld, a friend of Annie's.

^^^^^^^^^^SONS AND LOVERS: THE LEIVERS

The Leivers are Miriam's family. They provide a home-away-from-home for Paul. Paul is very close to Mrs. Leivers, a flighty, mystical woman very different from his pragmatic mother. He's also friendly with the strong, rationalistic Edgar, Miriam's oldest brother. The Leivers family give Paul much support.


^^^^^^^^^^SONS AND LOVERS: SETTING

Sons and Lovers is set in the British Midlands at the turn of the twentieth century. This is a region in central England that is highly industrialized. Factories, coal pits, and ugly row houses are abundant. Yet, Robin Hood's Sherwood Forest is close by the busy industrial city of Nottingham, where Paul works, and the river Trent swirls its way from the city through the wide-open country hills and vales. Sons and Lovers constantly contrasts the sensuous, natural environment with that of the cold, drab monuments of industrial town and city life.

Paul grows up in the vicinity of Bestwood, a mining village within an hour's train ride of Nottingham, a large, factory-lined city. Bestwood, which is based on Lawrence's birthplace of Eastwood, is a conglomerate of company-owned miners' dwellings. The homes are ugly and impractical; the adjacent areas, dirty and crowded. The town is surrounded by coal pits, lush green valleys, and old farms, such as Willey Farm, where Paul spends a great deal of time.

In Sons and Lovers, natural landscapes are the true home of human sexuality. Most of the lovemaking scenes take place out-of-doors, near rivers, in forests, by the sea. Nature represents life's beauty and fertility. Flower imagery abounds in this novel. You'll see how Lawrence uses flowers as both spiritual and sexual symbols.

The industrial cityscapes in Sons and Lovers serve to show us how modern technological life ravages people, depriving them of their dignity, sense of beauty, and natural drives. You'll notice this particularly in the Jordan factory scenes and at Clara's home, where she's a "slave" to the cottage-industry of lace-making. Her job is quite similar to ones in the computer industry, where people are often paid minimum wages to make various computer parts at home. At the same time, town life means human community, with its ongoing survivalist drive. You'll see at the end of the novel that Paul walks away from the dark, uninhabited country fields and toward the bright city lights. Some readers see this act as Paul's walking away from death and toward life. Consider this interpretation in light of Lawrence's comparison of city and country. Is it consistent to identify the city with life and the country with death?

^^^^^^^^^^SONS AND LOVERS: THEMES

Here are some major themes of Sons and Lovers. They will be discussed in depth in "The Story" section of this guide.

1. SONS, MOTHERS, AND THE OEDIPUS COMPLEX

You can look at Sons and Lovers as a story of the unnatural devotion of Paul Morel to his possessive mother. Many readers see the novel as a fictional study of the "Oedipus complex," described by Lawrence's contemporary, the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. Freud took the old Greek myth of Oedipus, in which the hero unknowingly kills his father and marries his own mother, as a reflection of man's subconscious sexual desires. Freud rebelled against the Victorian idea that children are asexual. He believed that a child's earliest sexual attraction (at about three to five years of age) is to the parent of the opposite sex. Freud concluded his theory with the warning that if a boy did not eventually suppress this attraction and begin to identify with his father, he would never be able to transfer his early love for his mother to a suitable partner.

Paul Morel seems very much like a man suffering from an Oedipus complex. At times Paul's relationship with Gertrude is disturbingly passionate. He hates his father and dreams of living exclusively with his mother. Paul has grave problems finding a satisfying relationship with any woman other than his mother. The novel traces his unsuccessful attempts to reconcile spiritual love, sexual passion, and filial devotion. Mrs. Morel encourages her son's dependence and is envious of Miriam, her rival for his affection.

Along with the Oedipus complex, you'll want to consider the positive aspects of Paul's relationship with his mother. She encourages his art, education, and social advancement. In many ways, Mrs. Morel embodies the Victorian concept of the ideal mother. She lives for her sons and will do anything to see them make their way in the world. Paul's life on his own is just beginning at the novel's end. Do you think Mrs. Morel's influence on her son will prove to be for better or for worse?

2. 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 and a good woman. The character of Miriam is a depiction of 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.

3. THE MATURATION OF AN ARTIST