Sons and Lovers

Sons and Lovers is the third published novel of D.H. Lawrence, taken by many to be his earliest masterpiece. It tells the story of Paul Morel, a young man and a budding artist. This autobiographical novel is a brilliant evocation of life in a working class mining community.

The original 1913 edition was heavily edited by Edward Garnett who removed eighty passages, roughly a tenth of the text. Despite this the novel is dedicated to Garnett. It was not until the 1992 Cambridge University Press edition that the missing text was restored.

Lawrence rewrote the work four times until he was happy with it. Although before publication the work was usually called Paul Morel, Lawrence finally settled on Sons and Lovers. Just as this changed title makes the work less focused on a central character, many of the latter additions broadened the scope of the work thereby making the work less autobiographical. While some of the edits by Garnett were on the grounds of propriety or style, others would once more narrow the emphasis back upon Paul.

In 1999, the Modern Library ranked Sons and Lovers ninth on a list of the 100 best novels in English of the 20th century.

Plot summary

Part I:

The refined daughter of a "good old burgher family," Gertrude Coppard meets a rough-hewn miner at a Christmas dance and falls into a whirlwind romance. But soon after her marriage to Walter Morel, she realizes the difficulties of living off his meager salary in a rented house. The couple fight and drift apart and Walter retreats to the pub after work each day. Gradually, Mrs. Morel's affections shift to her sons, beginning with the oldest, William.

As a boy, William is so attached to his mother that he doesn't enjoy the fair without her. As he grows older, he defends her against his father's occasional violence. Eventually, he leaves home for a job in London, where he begins to rise up into the middle class. He is engaged, but he detests the girl's superficiality. He dies, and Mrs. Morel is heartbroken, but when Paul catches pneumonia, she rediscovers her love for her second son.

Part II:

Both repulsed by and drawn to his mother, Paul is afraid to leave her but wants to go out on his own, and needs to experience love. Gradually, he falls into a relationship with Miriam, a farm girl who attends his church. The two take long walks and have intellectual conversations about books, but Paul resists, in part because his mother looks down on her. At work, Paul meets Clara Dawes, who has separated from her husband, Baxter.

Paul leaves Miriam behind as he grows more intimate with Clara, but even she cannot hold him, and he returns to his mother. When his mother dies soon after, he is alone.

Lawrence summarised the plot in a letter to Edward Garnett on 12 November 1912:

It follows this idea: a woman of character and refinement goes into the lower class, and has no satisfaction in her own life. She has had a passion for her husband, so her children are born of passion, and have heaps of vitality. But as her sons grow up she selects them as lovers — first the eldest, then the second. These sons are urged into life by their reciprocal love of their mother — urged on and on. But when they come to manhood, they can't love, because their mother is the strongest power in their lives, and holds them. It's rather like Goethe and his mother and Frau von Stein and Christiana — As soon as the young men come into contact with women, there's a split. William gives his sex to a fribble, and his mother holds his soul. But the split kills him, because he doesn't know where he is. The next son gets a woman who fights for his soul — fights his mother. The son loves his mother — all the sons hate and are jealous of the father. The battle goes on between the mother and the girl, with the son as object. The mother gradually proves stronger, because of the ties of blood. The son decides to leave his soul in his mother's hands, and, like his elder brother go for passion. He gets passion. Then the split begins to tell again. But, almost unconsciously, the mother realises what is the matter, and begins to die. The son casts off his mistress, attends to his mother dying. He is left in the end naked of everything, with the drift towards death.

This is the most autobiographical of all Lawrence's works as the author himself had a similar relationship with his own mother. The use of this oedipal theme is one of a number of Freudian concepts he used throughout his books. Like many of his works, Sons and Lovers was criticized when first published for obscenity and one publisher called it "the dirtiest book he had ever read" but compared to his later works it is quite constrained.

Screen adaptations

The book was adapted into a film in 1960 by T.E.B. Clarke and Gavin Lambert. It was directed by Jack Cardiff. It stars Trevor Howard, Dean Stockwell, Wendy Hiller, Mary Ure, William Lucas and Donald Pleasence. This film won an Academy Award for Best Cinematography and was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Trevor Howard), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Mary Ure), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White, Best Director, Best Picture and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.

Sons and Lovers was made into a BBC television miniseries in 1981. It starred Eileen Atkins, Tom Bell and Lynn Dearth. It was adapted by Trevor Griffiths and directed by Stuart Burge. It aired in the US on PBS in 1982.

Another television adaption of Sons and Lovers was broadcast in the UK in 2003

Standard editions

Sons and Lovers (1913), edited by Helen Baron and Carl Baron, Cambridge University Press, 1992, ISBN 0521242762

Paul Morel (1911-12), edited by Helen Baron, Cambridge University Press, 2003, ISBN 0521560098 - an early manuscript version of Sons and Lovers

Critical studies

Michael Black. D H Lawrence: The Early Fiction (Palgrave MacMillan, 1986).

Michael Black. Sons and Lovers (Cambridge University Press, 1992).

Thomas L. Jeffers. Apprenticeships: The Bildungsroman from Goethe to Santayana (New York: Palgrave, 2005), 135-58.

External links

Guardian article by Helen Baron on an earlier version of the novel, entitled Paul Morel

Amants et fils

Gourt Home::Gourt :: Sons and Lovers

Plot summary

Screen adaptations

Standard editions

Critical studies

External links