Sons and Lovers
by D. H. Lawrence
List Price:
Our Price: $5.28
You Save: $1.67 (24%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: D. H. LawrenceIntroduction: Benjamin DeMott
Edition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1985-01-02
ISBN: 0451518829
Number of pages: 416
Publisher: Signet Classics
Book Reviews of Sons and Lovers
Book Review: Autobiography Reigns Supreme
Summary: 5 Stars
Few novels by any author have ever been examined under the microscope of autobiography more thoroughly than SONS AND LOVERS. Nearly every character represents someone from the life of its author D. H. Lawrence, who clearly has used himself as a model for the protagonist, Paul Morel. To complicate matters there is a well-documented undercurrent of the Oedipal Complex between Paul and his mother Gertrude (also the name of Hamlet's mother who was linked to Hamlet in the same potentially incestuous way). Lawrence was later to deny ever having read Freud but his much older wife Frieda (a dead ringer for Gertrude) has written in her memoirs that she had several discussions with Lawrence about just that theory.
Gertrude, a pretty woman of twenty-three marries a handsome, virile, but loutish man named Walter. Their marriage is unhappy since he drinks, is abusive, and has nothing in common with his wife. They have four children of whom Paul is the focus of dramatic interest. He is artistic, sensitive, and hates how his father treats Gertrude. She in turn lavishes on him all the love that might otherwise have gone to Walter. As Paul matures, he meets two women of consequence: the virginal and puritanical Miriam and the earthy and sexually aggressive Clara. Gertrude approves of Clara but disapproves of Miriam. From an Oedipal perspective, Miriam is a threat to Gertrude's primacy over Paul while Miriam as a floozy is not. Paul has an extended affair with Clara that she breaks off when her husband re-enters the picture and beats the crap out of Paul. Paul has a single sexual contact with Miriam, knowing that she would find it most distasteful, so he breaks off this relationship. Gertrude dies of cancer with a push from Paul. Walter becomes a cripple and drifts out of Paul's life. Paul devotes his life to his art as the book ends. All of these characters relate to Paul in ways that are at best weird and at worst ugly to contemplate. As Gertrude smothers Paul with a misplaced affection, she makes sure, perhaps unknowingly--we are not sure, that he will have difficulty relating his own burgeoning sexuality with any other woman. Miriam, in her sexlessness, is a Gertrude surrogate that Paul can feel comfortable with so long as they do not achieve intimacy. Clara is the chippie that Paul can show physical affection toward only so long as he does not show emotional intimacy. It is no surprise that both relationships turn out badly. Walter, who starts out as the Bad Guy, slowly accrues the sympathy of the reader as he has a positive side that even the confused Paul can see.
SONS AND LOVERS may be full of a constant undercurrent of sexual energies running at cross purposes, but it is not necessary to see the book only or even mostly in terms of seeing a twisted Oedipus to enjoy reading it. There are other non-sexual themes at work that engage the reader. Lawrence was upset over the slow disintegration of English society caused by an encroaching industrialism that he saw as crushing the human spirit. Whether one chooses to see SONS AND LOVERS under a sociological or a sexual lens is a matter of personal taste. Lawrence, who was an advocate of freedom of choice, would certainly agree.
Summary of Sons and Lovers
Paul Morel is a young artist, and the second son of Gertrude Morel. When Paul falls in love with a local girl, Miriam, his mother disapproves, and Paul is forced to choose between them. ?Sons and Lovers? is an intense examination of family, class, and love, set in a small mining town in the early 1900?s.Sons and Lovers was the first modern portrayal of a phenomenon that later, thanks to Freud, became easily recognizable as the Oedipus complex. Never was a son more indentured to his mother's love and full of hatred for his father than Paul Morel, D.H. Lawrence's young protagonist. Never, that is, except perhaps Lawrence himself. In his 1913 novel he grappled with the discordant loves that haunted him all his life--for his spiritual childhood sweetheart, here called Miriam, and for his mother, whom he transformed into Mrs. Morel. It is, by Lawrence's own account, a book aimed at depicting this woman's grasp: "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."
Of course, Mrs. Morel takes neither of her two elder sons (the first of whom dies early, which further intensifies her grip on Paul) as a literal lover, but nonetheless her psychological snare is immense. She loathes Paul's Miriam from the start, understanding that the girl's deep love of her son will oust her: "She's not like an ordinary woman, who can leave me my share in him. She wants to absorb him." Meanwhile, Paul plays his part with equal fervor, incapable of committing himself in either direction: "Why did his mother sit at home and suffer?... And why did he hate Miriam, and feel so cruel towards her, at the thought of his mother. If Miriam caused his mother suffering, then he hated her--and he easily hated her." Soon thereafter he even confesses to his mother: "I really don't love her. I talk to her, but I want to come home to you."
The result of all this is that Paul throws Miriam over for a married suffragette, Clara Dawes, who fulfills the sexual component of his ascent to manhood but leaves him, as ever, without a complete relationship to challenge his love for his mother. As Paul voyages from the working-class mining world to the spheres of commerce and art (he has fair success as a painter), he accepts that his own achievements must be equally his mother's. "There was so much to come out of him. Life for her was rich with promise. She was to see herself fulfilled... All his work was hers."
The cycles of Paul's relationships with these three women are terrifying at times, and Lawrence does nothing to dim their intensity. Nor does he shirk in his vivid, sensuous descriptions of the landscape that offers up its blossoms and beasts and "shimmeriness" to Paul's sensitive spirit. Sons and Lovers lays fully bare the souls of men and earth. Few books tell such whole, complicated truths about the permutations of love as resolutely without resolution. It's nothing short of searing to be brushed by humanity in this manner. --Melanie Rehak
Classics Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Classics Books
Native sonby Richard Wright
Perennial Library; Published: 1987; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.75
Native Son: And How Bigger Was Bornby Richard Wright
Perennial; Published: 1993-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $60.00
Raphael and the Noble Taskby Catherine Salton
Harper; Published: 2000-10-24; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $5.49
Price in other shops:
Island (Perennial Classics)by Aldous Huxley
Harper Perennial Modern Classics; Published: 2002-07-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.00
Price in other shops:
A Tree Grows in Brooklynby Betty Smith
Harper; Published: 2001-11-13; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.77
Price in other shops:
The Great Divorce CDby C. S. Lewis
HarperAudio; Published: 2003-11-25; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $12.89
Price in other shops:
Great Expectationsby Charles Dickens
Macmillan Pub Co; Published: 1979-06; Paperback; Book
Price in other shops:
This Side of Paradiseby Fitzgerald
Scribner Paper Fiction; Published: 1988-09-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.95
Price in other shops:
Black Coffee (Poirot)by Agatha Christie
Harper Collins Pb; Published: 2002-12-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $68.32
Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1960s)by Joan Didion
Flamingo; Published: 2001-04-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $22.25
Similar Books and other products
Women In Love (Signet Classics)by D. H. Lawrence
Signet Classics; Published: 2008-08-05; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.67
Price in other shops:
And Then: Natsume Soseki's Novel Sorekara (Michigan Classics in Japanese Studies)by Norma Moore Field
Univ of Michigan Center for; Published: 1997-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $51.80
Howards End: Centennial Edition (Signet Classics)by E. M. Forster
Signet Classics; Published: 2007-11-06; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.18
Price in other shops:
The Secret Agent: Centennial Editon (Signet Classics)by Joseph Conrad
Signet Classics; Published: 2007-04-03; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.99
Price in other shops:
The Tale of Genjiby Shikibu Murasaki
Vintage; Published: 1990-06-16; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.65
Price in other shops:
The Sorrows of Young Werther and Selected Writings (Signet Classics)by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Signet Classics; Published: 2005-07-05; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.93
Price in other shops:
Chushingura (The Treasury of Loyal Retainers): A Puppet Playby Takeda Izumo, Miyoshi Shoraku, Namiki Senryu
Columbia University Press; Published: 1971; Paperback; Book
Best price: $20.96
Price in other shops:
La Vita Nuova (Penguin Classics)by Dante Alighieri
Penguin Books; Published: 2004-10-19; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.19
Price in other shops:
Seven Japanese Talesby Junichiro Tanizaki
Vintage; Published: 1996-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.96
Price in other shops:
Mrs. Dallowayby Virginia Woolf
Mariner Books; Published: 1990-09-24; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.48
Price in other shops: