Sons and Lovers

[Janine]

Firstly, i'd like to say that Jessie writes beautifully.
I really liked this letter. Thanks for posting it Janine .
I have separated a few paragraphs that i liked most.

Hello today ~ manolia and amalia, I am so glad you both were interested in this passage by Jessie. This is actually not a letter, but part of her book she wrote; and if you notice it was years later in 1935 that it was published...so it is much past their breakup period; I am sure things had time in her mind to settle down so she could be more objective. It is not a letter, but one could say it is a letter to the world explaining her take on Lawrence and her relationship, the breakup and the ideas/origins behind the story. You might be interested in reading that book someday. I have seen used copies available on Amazon at fairly reasonable prices - no doubt it is out of print now. This book is called:

D. H. LAWRENCE
A PERSONAL RECORD by 'E. T.' (Jessie Chambers) (1935)

I may eventually invest in it myself. I keep it in my 'wish list' on
Amazon so that when the price is right I may purchase it.

Is Jessie suggesting that L should write a novel about his life (and his mother mostly) for therapeutic reasons? To purge himself and fight his own demons? And that he wasn't eventually succesful in doing so?

That is a good question, M, and I think that is what she is basically saying, when she suggested he rewrite the book or work on it, in a more realistic manor; one that would more directly relate to L's life. His version "Paul Morel" had only half the story and not all and it left out vital parts such as the son Ernst. I think he is the one whom William is fashioned after, but I am not sure. Do you know, Virgil? I will look it up later. If he was being left out originally then the whole death scene would have been eliminated as well. This would have greatly impacted the book and the book would have lost much. Maybe it was just too painful for L at that time to write about his older brother's death - you can imagine it would be.

Definately agree with this quote!! She summarizes beautifully what I like in L's writing as well.

I thought so, too. Jessie was a very smart, intense, sensitive person. I feel she knew Lawrence well and was sensitive to his good and bad points, his strengths and weaknesses. Afterall they had a special bond of closeness from a very early age - how could it be otherwise?

Poor Jessie..that's what i thought reading this (and the second half of the letter).

Yes, she was quite crushed. I think, as women, we can all relate to that. Sorry, V and Q - guess that leaves you guys out. (temporarily). I know that even Lawrence admits that he has hurt her badly and deeply. I will eventually dig up his letter to her, and you will see what he does say about it. I know he eventually felt badly, and so did several of his friends about the separation, even as far as their friendship goes. If you have had a bond of friendship and love it is that way sometimes and perhaps can't be helped.

So Clara wasn't an actual person but a composition of three women in L's life? Do you know anything about these women?
And what about Ernest (the brother who isn't mentioned in the novel)? Why Jessie insists that he was so important?

I have read this in several biographies. I can look up what women he modeled her character after.
I answered about Ernest in my entry, previous. I must look those facts up to confirm what I said. I am not a walking Lawrence encyclopedia unfortunately. But I have enough books now that it has to be in one of them. Finding which one is the task.

Poor Jessie..again..it is nice to know her side of the story I was beginning to think that what i've read-finished the book last night - was somewhat what happened...

manolia, so glad you finished the novel. How did you like the ending? I am still not on the second part. I am up to the part where William is getting a bit disillusioned with his girlfriend - they are home for the holidays or it might be the next visit. The chapter is called: 'Death in the Family', so I know what is to follow - besides I did read the book before. I am enjoying my reading although it is slow. I keep stopping to read the commentary books so I can scan stuff for all of you. I may not even finish the book before the month is up. Last night I feel asleep reading it and today I am going out so don't know if I will get much reading done later - probaby be too tired out....we will see...

Poor Jessie, indeed...She must have suffered greatly. Still, we must be "thankful" for this, because her letter sheds light to many aspects of the story and Paul's relationships.

Hello amalia, Yes, as I said above this is not a letter but in a sense it is her letter to the world about L. I think she did suffer greatly. I don't think a love like she had for L would easily be forgotten or gotten over, do you. He was a genius and a very special person. I feel for her.

The revelation regarding Clara was shuddering! She is such a fascinating and multi-dimensional character that one can trace the hints of composition in her, but personally, I understood this only today when I read the letter Janine very kindly posted for us.

Thank you - you are kind too, to say that last part. It did take me awhile to scan all of this. It was about 8 pages in the book...long but I felt worthwhile for all of you to read. I actually took it from the Gaimini book which compiles many things about L - criticisms, letters, excerpts (such as this one). I love that reference book and glad I purchased it recently.
I am just happy that all of this shed light on the characters and the formation of the book and the relationship of Jessie and Lawrence. If it has added to the discussion, then it was well worth the effort it took me.

The words Jessie uses are so revealing... "betrayal", "distorted", "anguish". I don't think she is melodramatic, or that she overreacts. I can understand her.

In this passage, I do not think she is being melodramatic. I don't know about the entire book, but this part seems to show that she is talking sensibly and being quite honest, don't you think?

[amalia1985]

Of course, I agree with you, Janine. She is honest and expresses her feelings bravely, I think that this is the kind of woman who would fall in love with Lawrence. She doesn't hide anything, and- from what I can understand through the passage- she retains a good balance between her love for him and her knowing of "the reasons why". I think that she understands him.

It is too bad that their relationship did not work out eventually. But perhaps, two strong and, apparently, so independent minds such as theirs would eventually find themselves in conflict? I don't know, but I deeply admire the way she demonstrates her feelings. Simple, honest and without hatred or pity. She must have been a remarkable woman...

[Janine]

Of course, I agree with you, Janine. She is honest and expresses her feelings bravely, I think that this is the kind of woman who would fall in love with Lawrence. She doesn't hide anything, and- from what I can understand through the passage- she retains a good balance between her love for him and her knowing of "the reasons why". I think that she understands him.

It is too bad that their relationship did not work out eventually. But perhaps, two strong and, apparently, so independent minds such as theirs would eventually find themselves in conflict? I don't know, but I deeply admire the way she demonstrates her feelings. Simple, honest and without hatred or pity. She must have been a remarkable woman...

amalia, Yes, I think there is no doubt she was remarkable and special. I don't personally think their relationship would have worked out or been a happy one, in the long run. I think they were too alike and yet too different. For one thing, Lawrence wanted to roam the world and this would not have suited Jessie. If you read the story we did, awhile back in 'Short Story' thread, called "The Shades of Spring" you will feel the main woman character was definitely based on Jessie, so now we get a little peak into how Lawrence felt later in life about her. I really thought this story added to my overall understanding of the two people. She was rooted to the land and Lawrence was not, although his mind and thoughts came back to it often. Read the story - it is not at all long - and you will see what I mean.

[amalia1985]

Thanks for the suggestion, Janine. I will read it tonight.

[Janine]

amalia,Oh, good.... being so interested in Jessie and Lawrence's breakup, I think you will find it very enlightening.


Here are some Lawrence poems that I think you will like very much. This first one I think relates to what Jessie so eloquently stated that Lawrence's strenght was with the fact that he could take ordinary things and show them as special and with importance and significance:


We are Transmitters


As we live, we are transmitters of life.
And when we fail to transmit life, life fails to flow through us.

That is part of the mystery of sex, it is a flow onwards.
Sexless people transmit nothing.

5 And if, as we work, we can transmit life into our work,
life, still more life, rushes into us to compensate, to be ready
and we ripple with life through the days.

Even if it is a woman making an apple dumpling, or a man a stool,
if life goes into the pudding, good is the pudding
10 good is the stool,
content is the woman, with fresh life rippling in to her,
content is the man.

Give, and it shall be given unto you
is still the truth about life.
15 But giving life is not so easy.
It doesn't mean handing it out to some mean fool, or letting the living dead eat you up.
It means kindling the life-quality where it was not,
even if it's only in the whiteness of a washed pocket-handkerchief.

The next three poems are about his mother's illness; quite sad:

D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930). from Amores. 1916.

Sorrow


WHY does the thin grey strand
Floating up from the forgotten
Cigarette between my fingers,
Why does it trouble me?

Ah, you will understand;
When I carried my mother downstairs,
A few times only, at the beginning
Of her soft-foot malady,

I should find, for a reprimand
To my gaiety, a few long grey hairs
On the breast of my coat; and one by one
I let them float up the dark chimney.


Silence

Since I lost you I am silence-haunted,
Sounds wave their little wings
A moment, then in weariness settle
On the flood that soundless swings.

Whether the people in the street
Like pattering ripples go by,
Or whether the theatre sighs and sighs
With a loud, hoarse sigh:

Or the wind shakes a ravel of light
Over the dead-black river,
Or night's last echoing
Makes the daybreak shiver:

I feel the silence waiting
To take them all up again
In its vast completeness, enfolding
The sound of men.

Brooding Grief

A yellow leaf from the darkness
Hops like a frog before me.
Why should I start and stand still?

I was watching the woman that bore me
Stretched in the brindled darkness
Of the sick-room, rigid with will
To die: and the quick leaf tore me
Back to this rainy swill
Of leaves and lamps and traffic mingled before me.

[amalia1985]

Such moving poems, are they not? I read the story, and I understood your point regarding Jessie, Janine. I think that her love for the land was a bit restrictive for Lawrence. I believe that he loved her, but perhaps, felt that his freedom was threatened? What do you all believe?

I think that the first poem is a hymn to life. Lawrence was a lover of life, of freedom. Sexuality could be regarded as freedom for him, he declared LIFE for both women and men.

The way he uses "grey hair" as a symbolism of his mother's death in the "Sorrow" is so moving...

I love the way he uses images taken from nature, in the second poem "Silence" to descrine his loneliness after her mother's death. "River", "wind". Taken in mind the place of his birth, the wild, fascinating countryside of England, we can see the deep influence of nature in his works.

Something similar could be applied to the third poem you were so kind to post for us, Janine. The image of nature linked with the darkness is haunting and the way he describes the wind is almost supernatural. It brings chills to your skin, as a cold wind, indeed.

[manolia]

I liked the "sorrow" better
Thanks Janine.

[Virgil]

Here are some Lawrence poems that I think you will like very much. This first one I think relates to what Jessie so eloquently stated that Lawrence's strenght was with the fact that he could take ordinary things and show them as special and with importance and significance:

Thanks Janine, and I definitely agree with Jesse. That is one of Lawrence's strengths for sure. And while i don't necessarily take up the same themes as Lawrence in my writing, it (finding significance in the ordinary) is one thing I try to do, possibly because of all the reading of lawrence I have done.

Such moving poems, are they not? I read the story, and I understood your point regarding Jessie, Janine. I think that her love for the land was a bit restrictive for Lawrence. I believe that he loved her, but perhaps, felt that his freedom was threatened? What do you all believe?

I think that the first poem is a hymn to life. Lawrence was a lover of life, of freedom. Sexuality could be regarded as freedom for him, he declared LIFE for both women and men.

I agree with most of what you said Amelia, but I am not so sure about the sexuality as freedom thought. That may be more of a reading into it from the perspective of our current values. I don't really see too many Lawrence stories where sexuality is contrasted against social restrictions. I think one of Lawrence's points is that the sexuality is happening around whether it's acknowledged or not. The conflict with freedom is his frankness in presenting it and getting it published; but I don't think the themes inside the works deal with this freedom. At least in the works I'm recalling in my mind now. Sexuality for Lawrence is a spiritual experience, and I think you can see it in that poem. Lawrence was actually quite prudish himself in real life, not so much because he felt it was indecent but because it seems to trivialize the religious aspect of the sex.

[Janine]

Everyone's comments were well stated. I enjoyed reading them. I figured these poems would fill-in in a slow period of our discussions. I always have something up my sleeve. haha.

In the BBC film called "Coming Through" (there is a poem named the same) a very thin and young Kenneth Branagh plays young Bert Lawrence, and in one touching scene, he carries his sick mother down the stairs and in his mind recites this sensitive poem - "Sorrow". The movie is not a great one, but the parts that explore Lawrence's early years are commendable and quite well done. Helen Mirren plays Frieda and I felt she fit the role well. If you have a change to see this film, do; it might be hard to find. It is more an educational film, as Virgil has pointed out to me. One does learn some new things about Lawrence - even exploring Virgil's last thoughts, concerning Lawrence sometimes prude attitudes. It is true that he looked at sexual freedom as not really a nice thing (loose sex was not to his liking at all), but rather looked at permanent relationships, having genuine sexual freedom within that structure, to be a religious act, a transfiguration. I hope I stated that correctly. Anyway, in S&L, remember that he is exploring a young man's first sexual experiences and at the end he of the book he throws off Clara and is quite alone, not really knowing what he wants to do now or how he thinks of sex and love. He is quite confused, so that he looks towards devotion to his dead mother.
The film is basically an exploration of Lawrence's poetry and life, up until he meets Frieda. I really liked the film myself, and found it interesting, although I think the director should have stuck to the past and not incorporated present day and the past interspersed...sometimes it gets annoying. They even show the parents tomb and Lawrence's name is on it as well. They go to the house he was born and also from a distance one sees the delapidated farmhouse and grounds that was the Hagg's (Jessie's family) farm.

Virgil, I sometimes see images in your poetry that are Lawrentian...such as the use of a cross at times and other images he uses.

[amalia1985]

I never said that sexuality was not something spiritual for Lawrence. I may have looked upon the issue with modern eyes, because for me sexuality is freedom. Is not frankness related to freedom? What did I miss here?

[Janine]

Thanks Janine, and I definitely agree with Jesse. That is one of Lawrence's strengths for sure. And while i don't necessarily take up the same themes as Lawrence in my writing, it (finding significance in the ordinary) is one thing I try to do, possibly because of all the reading of lawrence I have done.


I agree with most of what you said Amelia, but I am not so sure about the sexuality as freedom thought. That may be more of a reading into it from the perspective of our current values. I don't really see too many Lawrence stories where sexuality is contrasted against social restrictions. I think one of Lawrence's points is that the sexuality is happening around whether it's acknowledged or not. The conflict with freedom is his frankness in presenting it and getting it published; but I don't think the themes inside the works deal with this freedom. At least in the works I'm recalling in my mind now. Sexuality for Lawrence is a spiritual experience, and I think you can see it in that poem. Lawrence was actually quite prudish himself in real life, not so much because he felt it was indecent but because it seems to trivialize the religious aspect of the sex.

Virgil, Here's were it all seems to get confusing to me, with Lawrence and his sexual outlook. He was against Miriam and her religious sense of confiction and yet he is a 'prude' himself' or so you say. Maybe 'prude' is not the word we should be using. Afterall' he paved the way for the world in open attitudes towards sex within his writing so how can we truly say he is a prude? I think this idea of him being prudish actually is more the case in his younger years. But for heavens sake, he was out in the woods having sex, or trying to with a married woman (women he based Clara on) and then meeting Frieda, also married, it is of great conjecture as to whether he broke through his own prudishness and did indeed have sex with her very early on. I have read all manor of renditions and conjectures on that thought. Some biographers claim they have proof of it. At anyrate they were co-habiting 2 yrs before marriage, while she was still legally bound to her husband in England.

So amalia, I am not sure it is accurate to assess Lawrence as truly prudish, or even the thought of him not believing in sexual openness and freedom. I think I have to recant what I said prior and agree with you, to some extent on this point.

[Janine]

Since it is quiet on here right now. I will post some more of Michael Black's commentary. Hope I am not repeating myself here; if I am please let me know. Here goes:

The Morels
Lawrence's bias in Sons and Lovers, of course, is obviously in favour of the mother in the conflicts which take place both between Paul's parents and between the mother and Miriam, but it is important to remember Lawrence's own critical dictum - to trust the tale, not the teller - when reading the novel. That is to say, the novelist may write with conscious intent to take up certain attitudes in his work whilst the process of imaginative creation in the writing of the book may in fact suggest other attitudes. This is borne out almost from the start of the novel, for example in the scene where Morel comes home late at night from the public house:

At half-past eleven her husband came. His cheeks were very red and very shiny above his black moustache. His head nodded slightly. He was pleased with himself.
'Oh! Oh! waitin' for me, lass? I've bin 'elpin' Anthony, an' what's think he's gen me? Nowt b'r a lousy hae'f-crown, an' that's ivry penny-'
'He thinks you've made the rest up in beer,' she said shortly.
'An' I 'aven't-that I 'aven't. You b'lieve me. I've 'ad very little this day, I have an' all.' His voice went tender. 'Here, an' I browt thee a bit 0' brandysnap, an' a coconut for th' children.' He laid the gingerbread and the coconut, a hairy object, on the table. 'Nay, tha niver said thankyer for nowt i' thy life, did ter?'
As a compromise, she picked up the coconut and shook it, to see if it had any milk.
'It's a good 'un, you may back yer life 0' that. I got it fra' Bill Hodgkisson. "Bill," I says, "tha non wants them three nuts, does ter? Arena ter for gi'ein' me one for my bit of a lad an' wench?" "I ham, Walter, my lad," 'e says; "ta'e which on 'em ter's a mind." An' so I took one, an' thanked 'im. I didn't like ter shake it afore 'is eyes, but 'e says, "Tha'd better ma'e sure it's a good un, Walt." An' so, yer see, I knowed it was. He's a nice chap, is Bill Hodg¬kisson, , e' s a nice chap !'
'A man will part with anything so long as he's drunk, and you're drunk along with him,' said Mrs. Morel.
'Eh, tha mucky little 'ussy, who's drunk:, I sh'd like ter know?' said Morel. He was extraordinarily pleased with himself, because of his day's helping to wait in the Moon and Stars. He chattered on.
Mrs. Morel, very tired, and sick of his babble, went to bed as
quickly as possible, while he raked the fire. p. 6-7

This is the first introduction of Morel into the action of the novel, and in itself the quotation shows his warmth and delicacy con¬trasted with the graceless and hard conduct of his wife, whose action in shaking the coconut to see if it is 'good' is unpleasant and insulting. In its context, however, the reader cannot regard the scene in this way, for Lawrence has already prejudiced us against Morel in the preceding pages by his sympathy for Mrs. Morel's situation. The scene is typical of Lawrence's own predi¬lection in the novel, for as H. M. Daleski has aptly commented: 'the weight of hostile comment which Lawrence directs against Morel is balanced by the unconscious sympathy with which he is presented dramatically while the overt celebration of Mrs. Morel is challenged by the harshness of the character in action' (The Forked Flame, p. 43). However, Lawrence himself suggests that Morel is an awkward and unpleasant parent, although the failure in the marriage is obviously as much the mother's fault as the father's, and Morel's supposed failure as a husband and father is suggested as being the dominant factor in driving the mother into closer sympathy with her children, particularly Paul.

Lawrence's bias in describing the family life of the Morels does not interfere, however, with the skill with which it is depicted in literary terms, and the tension in the family between the parents is what gives the early part of Sons and Lovers its power and interest. The scenes between the parents are charged with dramatic force which Lawrence is able to convey with brutal realism. The tragedy of their married life is the failure of both of them to adapt to the very different background and attitude of the other, so that once the initial sensual element has palled they spend their lives in mutual recrimination. The mother, Gertrude, comes from a middle-class family and is fascinated by Walter Morel when she first meets him;

He was well set-up, erect, and very smart. He had wavy black hair that shone again, and a vigorous black beard that had never been shaved. His cheeks were ruddy, and his red, moist mouth was noticeable because he laughed so often and so heartily .... He was so full of colour and animation, his voice ran so easily into comic grotesque, he was so ready and so pleasant with everybody. p. 9

She is opposite to him in many ways, and he in consequence interests her. After the first few months of marriage, however, they drift apart when she tries 'to open her heart seriously to him' and she fails in her efforts to 'improve' him until they become almost totally estranged. For all of Lawrence's sympathy, it is obvious that Mrs. Morel fails to adjust to the demands of her marriage and remains quite unable to see the values of the working-class environment in which she finds herself, remaining detached and alien to her surroundings and attempting to influence her children to feel as she does.

Paul and Miriam
At the same time it must be recognised that the better life which she wishes for her children is certainly not to be deplored, and the novel is able to strike a fine balance between the virtues of Mrs. Morel's idealism and those of the working-class life in which the story is set. Her idealism is not mere social snobbery, and Paul in particular is able to respond to the warmth and vitality of the world into which he is born despite the family discord. He does not become a snob, and although he does not respect his father he is not out of key with his father's world. It is a remarkable achievement of Sons and Lovers that it manages to avoid any suggestion of the facile and merely political and social features of class-consciousness which has beset and stifled so much of English life in this century. The pictures of working-class life in the early part of the book are wonderfully evocative of the feel of the mining village of Best wood, of the life of the miners and the warmth of their dialect, of the games of the children:

Annie and Paul and Arthur loved the winter evenings, when it was not wet. They stayed indoors till the colliers were all gone home, till it was thick dark, and the street would be deserted. Then they tied their scarves round their necks, for they scorned overcoats, as all the colliers' children did, and went out. The entry was very dark, and at the end the whole great night opened out, in a hollow, with a little tangle of lights below where Minton pit lay, and another far away opposite for Selby. The farthest tiny lights seemed to stretch out the darkness for ever. The children looked anxiously down the road at the one lamp-post, which stood at the end of the field path. If the little, luminous space were deserted, the two boys felt genuine desolation. They stood with their hands in their pockets under the lamp, turning their backs on the night, quite miserable, watching the dark houses. Suddenly a pinafore under a short coat was seen, and a long-legged girl came flying up.
'Where's Billy Pillins an' your Annie an' Eddie Dakin?' 'I don't know.'
But it did not matter so much-there were three now. They set up a game round the lamp-post, till the others rushed up, yelling. Then the play went fast and furious.
There was only this one lamp-post. Behind was the great scoop of darkness, as if all the night were there. In front, another wide, dark way opened over the hill brow. Occasionally somebody came out of this way and went into the field down the path. In a dozen yards the night had swallowed them. The children played on.
pp.76-7

Paul is able to benefit from the values both of his environment and of his mother, and even though his mother's love is even¬tually crippling through its very force its virtues must not be underestimated. From his birth it is clear that his mother lavishes affection upon him as a reaction against the guilt she feels at the failure of her marriage. In the second chapter, 'The Birth of Paul', Mrs. Morel takes the baby out into the late summer evening and, looking at him, feels 'in some far inner place of her soul, that she and her husband were guilty' :

She no longer loved her husband; she had not wanted this child to come, and there it lay in her arms and pulled at her heart. She felt as if the navel string that had connected its frail little body with hers had not been broken. A wave of hot love went over her to the infant. She held it close to her face and breast. With all her force, with all her soul she would make up to it for having brought it into the world unloved. She would love it all the more now it was here; carry it in her love. Its clear, knowing eyes gave her pain and fear. Did it know all about her? When it lay under her heart, had it been listening then? Was there a reproach in the look? She felt the marrow melt in her bones, with fear and pain. pp. 36-7

It is a mark of Lawrence's genius as a writer that even in this unsentimental age such writing does not seem false or over-emotional. The values which the mother feels here, and those which she gives to Paul as he grows up, are genuine ones in themselves, and it is the sincerity and the sanity of the portrait of Paul which prevent him from appearing as either a prig or a snob to the reader. Lawrence's ability in portraying Paul (largely as an autobiographical self-portrait) is all the more remarkable when we remember the failure of Thackeray in Pendennis and even of Dickens in David Copperfield to carry through the portraits of their central characters convincingly without making them appear stilted and priggish when they pass through adolescence and early manhood. Sons and Lovers achieves its success where these other novels fail largely because of Lawrence's genuine attempt to deal sincerely with the complex emotions his character experiences and not to be dissuaded from his task by any notions of what the reading public might or might not be expected to want his hero to be like.
The genuineness of Paul's experiences is borne out not only in his relations with his mother, but also in his love and friendship with Miriam, detailed in the second part of the novel, and just as the conflicts between the parents had given the first part of the book its impelling tension so the struggle between Mrs. Morel and Miriam over Paul dominates this section. Although Miriam lives with her parents on their farm she is the opposite of the stereotyped image of the practical, natural country-girl. At first she is reluctant to offer her friendship to Paul, for she lives in a dream-world of spirituality:

Everywhere was a Walter Scott heroine being loved by men with helmets or with plumes in their caps. She herself was something of a own imagination. And she was afraid lest this boy, who, nevertheless, looked something like a Walter Scott hero, who could paint and speak French, and knew what algebra meant, and who went by train to Nottingham every day, might consider her simply as the swine-girl, unable to perceive the princess beneath; so she held aloof. p.142

Soon, however, she responds to Paul, and together they enjoy a platonic relationship which is a major factor in his development, She encourages and applauds his intellectual and artistic interests, and the real value which they both place on these interests is well conveyed by Lawrence. Yet Miriam is still very limited in her attitudes, and Paul finds her constant tendency to spiritualise and etherialise life more and more frustrating as the novel progresses, although at first he is unable to explain his sense of frustration in sexual terms. Miriam's refusal to accept or tolerate the physical aspects of life - indeed, her fear of life is brought out symbolically in Chapter VII, 'Lad-and-Girl Love'. When she shows him the swing in the cowshed, for example, Paul enthusiastically plays on it, but when it comes to her turn she is reluctant and afraid when Paul begins pushing her higher. Her fear and sense of shame in this episode obviously relate to something more than just fear of the swing, and are characteristic of her. Again, soon after this, Miriam's nature is illustrated when late one evening she insists on showing him a wild-rose bush she has discovered, for even this simple enough act has to be spiritualised into something more than a natural event:

'They were going to have a communion together - something that thrilled her, something holy.' When they reach the bush Paul is disquieted and pained by her attitude, for the natural beauty of the rose is not enough for her:

She looked at her roses. They were white, some ill curved and holy, others expanded in an ecstacy. The tree was dark as a shadow. She lifted her hand impulsively to the flowers; she went forward and touched them in worship.
'Let us go,' he said.
There was a cool scent of ivory roses-a white, virgin scent. Something made him feel anxious and imprisoned. The two walked in silence.
'Till Sunday,' he said quietly, and left her; and she walked home slowly, feeling her soul satisfied with the holiness of the night. He stumbled down the path. And as soon as he was out of the wood, in the free open meadow, where he could breathe, he started to run as fast as he could. It was like a delicious delirium in his veins.
p.160

This is indicative of the whole relationship. Miriam gives much to Paul and encourages him in his painting in a way in which his mother was unable to do for all her interest, but there are whole areas of life which she cannot face. Even though she lives on a farm Miriam is unable to face up to the physical realities 'of the continual business of birth and of begetting which goes on upon every farm', and at first she influences Paul to feel the same:

'their intimacy went on in an utterly blanched and chaste fashion. It could never be mentioned that the mare was in foal' (p. r62).

It is Miriam's blindness to certain features of life which so antagonises Mrs. Morel towards her. Paul cannot at first understand his mother's dislike of Miriam, and indeed his mother cannot properly make it explicit herself. The two women are of obviously different temperaments, as is evidenced, for example, three or four pages after the rose-bush episode, where the mother becomes full of enthusiasm over some 'glories of the snow' which she finds in her garden. The 'joy', 'excitement', and the 'elation' which she shows when she discovers the flowers contrasts markedly with the cloying sentimentality of Miriam's attitude towards the wild-roses. Partly, of course, Mrs. Morel's dislike of Miriam is that of a possessive mother jealous of any rival, but that it is not entirely this factor alone is shown by Mrs. Morel's relative friendship towards Clara. The real cause of the antagonism lies in Miriam's 'spirituality', for by her refusal or inability to see Paul as a lover rather than as an intellectual or artistic 'companion' she is challenging Mrs. Morel on the only grounds in which the mother can hope to continue her dominant relationship with her son. Mrs. Morel is understandably hostile towards the girl who becomes the centre of her son's artistic life and whose main fulfilment seems to lie in 'mothering' or caring for his soul and mind.

Eventually Paul himself begins to feel imprisoned and stifled by the kind of 'love' which Miriam is offering him, and he attempts to alter Miriam by suggesting that they become lovers in a physical sense. This itself naturally fails, and soon after Miriam has reluctantly given herself to Paul he breaks off the relationship and becomes more closely involved with Clara. Even here, however, one of the remarkable features of the novel can be noted, for it is impossible for the reader to find fault entirely with Paul or with Miriam. We can see some justifIcation in Miriam's sense of outrage when she is cast off, although there is a certain smugness and self-satisfaction in her view that Paul is simply sowing wild oats with Clara before he returns - a smugness which we partly want to see hurt. There is also justification in Paul's behaviour, however, and a feeling that he has no alternative but to behave as he does, and the fact that we feel this way pays tribute to Lawrence's ability in depicting character. The realism of the whole relationship - the sincerity with which it is portrayed - is its most compelling feature. It is patently life-like that Paul should have struggled through to his understanding of the need to reject Miriam in spite of what she has to offer him, just as it is life-like for him to continue to be entirely unsure as to whether he ought to marry Miriam or not, even until almost the close of the novel. But the reader is in no doubt that giving in to Miriam will be the spiritual death of Paul, and much of the last half of the book involves the tension between Paul's drift towards either death or life.

Clara
Miriam's 'spirituality' finally becomes intolerable to Paul, who sees the true nature of her character in yet another flower-episode in Chapter IX, 'Defeat of Miriam', where she shows him some daffodils, going on to her knees before them, and taking one, 'caressing it with her mouth and cheeks and brow'. Her enthusiasm for the daffodils is still cloying:

'Aren't they magnificent?' she murmured. 'Magnificent ! it's a bit thick-they're pretty.'
She bowed again to her flowers at his censure of her praise. He
watched her crouching, sipping the flowers with fervid kisses. 'Why must you be always fondling things?' he said irritably. 'But I love to touch them,' she replied, hurt.
'Can you never like things without clutching them as if you wanted to pull the heart out of them? Why don't you have a bit more restraint, or reserve, or something?'
She looked up at him full of pain, then continued slowly to stroke her lips against a rumed flower. Their scent, as she smelled, it was so much kinder than he; it almost made her cry.
'You wheedle the soul out of things,' he said 'as if you were a beggar for love. Even the flowers, you have to fawn on them-' Rhythmically, Miriam was swaying and stroking the flower with her mouth, inhaling the scent which ever after made her shudder as it came to her nostrils.
'You don't want to love-your eternal and abnormal craving is to be loved. You aren't positive, you're negative. You absorb, absorb, as if you must fill yourself up with love, because you've got a shortage somewhere.'
She was stunned by his cruelty, and did not hear. He had not the faintest notion of what he was saying. It was as if his fretted; tortured soul, run hot by thwarted passion, jetted off these sayings like sparks from electricity. She did not grasp anything he said. She only sat crouched beneath his cruelty and his hatred of her. She never reillised in a flash. Over everything she brooded and brooded. p. 218

In contrast, Clara is willing to accept Paul as a lover, and she is much more practical and realistic about life than is Miriam. At the same time it must be admitted that in the sections of the novel in which she appears Lawrence is much less able to convey a sense of the richness and immediacy off life than elsewhere, which may well relate in some way to the fact that the Clara episode is not based exactly on anyone experience in Lawrence's own life. Slight though it is, there is an evident sense of contrivance in the character of Clara as Miriam's opposite, but at least the relationship between her and Paul does make clear the fact that Lawrence is not suggesting that any sexual relationship is enough in itself to provide a sense of purpose to life. Clara herself, in spite of her surface sophistication and hardness, leads an empty existence away from her husband, and from the first this sense of emptiness colours the affair with Paul. In the scene where they become lovers in Chapter XII, 'Passion', the description of the background evokes the true nature of their relationship magnificently in typical Lawrentian fashion:

'On either side stood the elm-trees like pillars along a great aisle, arching over and making high up a roof from which the dead leaves fell. All was empty and silent and wet.'

Lawrence's handling of pace and tempo in the novel is masterly, as we shall discuss later, but it is not out of place to notice here how the slowness of the action deliberately makes its own comment on the actions of the characters. Immediately after the sentences just quoted Clara 'stood on top of the stile, and he held both her hands. Laughing, she looked down into his eyes. Then she leaped. Her breast came against his; he held her, and covered her face with kisses', but the slow rhythm of the sentences and the natural description combine to prevent us reading the episode in terms of gay, young love. An air of melancholy is delicately but surely cast over the scene (the image - of the cathedral implicit in the description of the trees aids the impression that there is something not right about the relationship) and the reader can notice for himself how the loneliness of the scene is constantly interpolated ('All was silent and deserted') with the physical description of their actions. It can also be noted how Lawrence also evokes a sense of the limitations of the relationship again through use of flower-symbolism in the red carnations he gives Clara before the walk. Afterwards:

when she arose, he, looking on the ground all the time, saw suddenly sprinkled on the black wet beech-roots many scarlet carnation petals, like splashed drops of blood; and red, small splashes fell from her bosom, streaming down her dress to her feet.
'Your flowers are smashed', he said .p. 3 I I :

Paul and Clara fail to form any lasting meaning in their love, any lasting meaning in their love, and eventually Clara becomes reunited with her husband, Baxter Dawes, although the reconciliation itself is uncertainly handled by Lawrence and is the most contrived feature of the novel. In terms of the structure of the book, however, both Clara and Baxter Dawes have the effect of widening the action of the story and of suggesting certain parallels, particularly between the characters of Baxter and Paul's father. Clara had left her husband because of his insensitive and brutal treatment of her, but (somewhat artificially) Paul makes her aware of her own mistakes in the marriage, and his rather unlikely friendship with Baxter helps to bring them together and leaves Paul alone at the time of his mother's death.

[Virgil]

I never said that sexuality was not something spiritual for Lawrence. I may have looked upon the issue with modern eyes, because for me sexuality is freedom. Is not frankness related to freedom? What did I miss here?

All I'm saying is that the novels and stories of Lawrence I remember (I'll leave the possibility that I'm forgetting one or so) he does not challenge sexual mores or taboos in the story. The sexuality happens as if it's natural. No one is restricting them. The frankness i was refering to is the frankness for Lawrence to write about it. The freedom is with the author writing about sex, not that the stories contain themes of sexual repression. I don't see Miriam as repressed, but that is just the way her character is. She would not be shocked if she learned of others being sexually free. I see Miriam as obsessed with a sort of Platonic ideal, as if life were only ideal and not flesh and blood. If you think I'm wrong tell me. I haven't read the novel in a number of years, so perhaps I'm forgetting.

Virgil, Here's were it all seems to get confusing to me, with Lawrence and his sexual outlook. He was against Miriam and her religious sense of confiction and yet he is a 'prude' himself' or so you say. Maybe 'prude' is not the word we should be using. Afterall' he paved the way for the world in open attitudes towards sex within his writing so how can we truly say he is a prude? I think this idea of him being prudish actually is more the case in his younger years. But for heavens sake, he was out in the woods having sex, or trying to with a married woman (women he based Clara on) and then meeting Frieda, also married, it is of great conjecture as to whether he broke through his own prudishness and did indeed have sex with her very early on. I have read all manor of renditions and conjectures on that thought. Some biographers claim they have proof of it. At anyrate they were co-habiting 2 yrs before marriage, while she was still legally bound to her husband in England.

Well, prude might be too strong a word. He certainly would not suscribe to the rock and roll philosophy of the song that goes, "If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with." Open sexuality with anyone that comes along is definitely not Lawrence. Look at how critical he was with the free sex characters in Women In Love. True he does run off with another man's wife (he was definitely in love with her, it was not just for sex) and in Lady Chatterly's Lover, Lady Chatterly has an affair. But there too was a loss of love between husband and wife. Not sure what marriage actually meant to him, but two lovers going into the woods would be perfectly natural for him. And I bet it happened a lot more than was written about. The point is that that sort of sexuality was natural but just not openingly written about. The writing of it is the freedom I'm referring to. As to his marriage, except I think for one possible affair (and that may not be confirmed - you may know better than I), he was faithful to his wife. On the other hand I believe his wife cheated on him several times.

From the Michael Black book:

It is a mark of Lawrence's genius as a writer that even in this unsentimental age such writing does not seem false or over-emotional. The values which the mother feels here, and those which she gives to Paul as he grows up, are genuine ones in themselves, and it is the sincerity and the sanity of the portrait of Paul which prevent him from appearing as either a prig or a snob to the reader. Lawrence's ability in portraying Paul (largely as an autobiographical self-portrait) is all the more remarkable when we remember the failure of Thackeray in Pendennis and even of Dickens in David Copperfield to carry through the portraits of their central characters convincingly without making them appear stilted and priggish when they pass through adolescence and early manhood. Sons and Lovers achieves its success where these other novels fail largely because of Lawrence's genuine attempt to deal sincerely with the complex emotions his character experiences and not to be dissuaded from his task by any notions of what the reading public might or might not be expected to want his hero to be like.

I whole heartedly agree. Lawrence at his best is striving for authenticity. He is striving to be honest and natural.

[Janine]

Virgil, I agree with your previous post and the last one. Did you find the commentary helpful? I had scanned it prior to starting this S&L discussion. I thought I would be prepared this time ahead. I did a lot of homework for this thread this time. I feel Michael Black is a pretty good and particial commentator and I am glad I purchased that book. It has helped me with the short stories and to better understand L's first novel "The White Peacock". You really should read that book - it has some lovely passages and some good symbolism with flowers and images.

[amalia1985]

Janine, thank you for posting this extremely interesting commentary for us. I agree with the majority of Black's views on the novel, but I have some objections regarding the Morels' relationship.

He shows Mrs. Morel's attraction to Walter very poignantly-something we have already mentioned in previous posts- an attraction that, gradually, withered. But why? He seems to praise Walter's "warmth", and "delicacy", regarding the coconut incident. I believe that a woman who is both a mother and a wife would want something more helpful than his husband being a happy drunkard, at least this is how I would feel.

Then, he goes on claiming that she failed to adjust to the demands of the marriage. True enough, it was a mistake that she married someone who was of a lower class and, apparently, a lower upbringing in terms of behaviour, which is more important than all the income in the world. How could she possibly adjust living with such a man? I am not saying that she was "the angel of the house"- this Victorian phrase I, particularly, love-but why she should be even grateful to him? I have already stated that I deeply sympathise with Mrs.Morel, so I may be biased, and I admit I am.

I agree with Black's comments on class-consciousness and the way Lawrence deals with the sensitive issue. He retains a balanced view, Paul is open to the new ideas that are being communicated in the farm, mainly by Miriam, and makes obvious efforts to intergrate them with the teachings of his mother.

I think that this excellent commentary contains a lot of issues that could be linked to psychology, to remember an other previous discussion of ours, here. The attraction of Mrs. Morel to Paul when he was but an infant is very important. A very interesting fact that Black states is the way the theme of Conflict is used by Lawrence in both parts of the novel, as a vital factor to the characters'- mainly Paul's- development. I believe that Conflict is always very important in Literature, the opposite views and behavioural aspects among the characters make us understand them as best as we could.

Regarding Miriam, I agree with his view that Miriam is "afraid of life", and here, we can see Paul's-and by extention Lawrence's- love for life which I have already mentioned. Clara, on the other hand, is willing to enjoy her life- to say it in a simple way- and that is what I've always liked about her. I admit I am confused regarding the end, and I grasp the chance to ask a question. Do you think that Clara's reconciliation with Baxter was willing, and true? I think not.

I believe that-as I have already said, if I'm not mistaken- that it is an example of Lawrence being a genious that each character has some flaws, there is no perfection, Miriam is "spiritual", but not at all a damsel-in-distress, and this is what brings the readers closer. They are characters whose flaws may seem serious if isolated and examined closely, but on the whole, these flaws and faults make them more attractive in our eyes.