matriarch

Mr. Morel is regarded as the hegemonic father and governing power in the household, but after careful scrutinization, it is not hard to find that the mother herself falls prey to the whole context and to the intense relation with her husband. Her transference of love and preoccupation to Paul make him breathless and spiritully suffocated by her overwhelming love. Neither did Mrs. Morel nor her husband should be put to blame as the sore problem of their aloofness in husband and wife's relation. However, Paul is also to be blamed for his manipulation of Miriam and Clara. It is because her mother puts too much anticipation to her son and build on him too much spiritual burden, as if no one else could be a better subsitute to him. Lawrence merely offers one particular type of mother-son relaitonship to us to demonstrate that love can be thick and tendering and killing, hurting simultaneously.