CHAPTER III THE DESCRIPTION OF CHARACTER’S IN D.H
LAWRENCE’S NOVEL SONS AND LOVERS
3.1 Major Characters
3.1.1 PAUL MOREL
Paul Morel, the protagonist of Sons and Lovers, is based on the youthful D. H Lawrence. Paul is a young man in the painful process of growing up. He’s
also gradually discovering that he’s gifted artist. Most important to the story, Paul is torn between his passion for two young women, the mystical Miriam and
Sensual Clara, and his unyielding devotion to a possessive mother.
It can be seen quoted bellow:
‘I even Love Clara, and I did Miriam; but to give my self to them in marriage I couldn’t. I couldn’t belong to them.
They seem to want me,and I can’t ever give it them.’ D.H Lawrence,1913:427
“Paul was very ill. His mother lay in bed at nights with him; They could not afford a nurse, He grew worse, and the crisis
approached. One night he tossed into consciousness in the ghastly, sickly feeling of dissolution, when all the cell in the
body seem in intense irritability to be breaking down, and consciousness makes a last flare of struggle , like madness.”
‘ I s’ll die, mother he cried, heaving for breath on the pillow, She lifted him up, crying in small voice :
‘Oh, my son-my son That brought him to. He realized her. His whole will rose up
and arrested him. He put his head on her breast, and took ease of her for love.’ D.H Lawrene,1913:175
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Another Paul’s conflicts centers on his apparent hatred for his father. We can see Paul’s abhorrence of Walter Morel’s vulgarity and alcoholism, but his
imitation of Walter’s carefree spirit and lust for life. It can be seen quoted bellow:
Paul’s own brutality to Miriam derived from his father’s behavior. Paul is
a fascinating mixture of extremes: vitality and despondency, spirituality and sensuality, love and hate, sensitivity and cruelty.
It can be seen quoted bellow:
3.1.2 GERTRUDE MOREL
Gertrude Morel is Pauls mother. Intensely hates her role as Walter Morels wife and wishes that she were not the wife of a miner. Hates that her husband
drinks excessively and cannot control himself. She focuses all of her love and
attention from her husband to her two older sons. ‘Paul hates his father. As a boy he had a fervent private
religion. ‘Make him stop drinking,’ he prayed every night. ‘Lord my
father die,’ he prayed very often. ‘Let him not be killed at pit,’ he prayed when, after tea, the father did not come
home from work.D.H Lawrence,1913 :79
‘He spent the week with Miriam, and wore her out with his passion before it was gone. He had always, almost willfully,
to put her out of count, and act from the brute strength of his own feelings. And he could not do it often, and there
remained afterwards always the sense of failure and of death. If he were really with her, he had to put aside himself
and his desire. If he would have her, he had to put her aside.’D.H Lawrence’1913:354
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It can be seen quoted bellow
Mrs. Morel often seems to be doing wonderful things for her children, but the resulting impact on their lives cripples them. Mrs. Morel is so important to
William and Paul that all other women come up short when compared to her. First she devotes herself to William and is very jealous of Williams relationship
with his fiancee. She resents that William allows Lily to treat Annie like a servant. It can be seen quoted bellow:
After Williams death, she clings to Paul. She severely dislikes Miriam and believes that Clara is not good for Paul either. In the last few painful months of
her life, she struggles to live for Paul. It can be seen quoted bellow:
‘She exult-exults, she exults as she carries him from me,’ Mrs. Morel cried in her heart when Paul had gone. She’s
not like an ordinary woman, who can leave me my share in him. She wants to absorb him. She wants to draw him
out and absorb him till there is nothing left of him, even for himself. He will never be a man on his own feet – she
will suck him up.’ So the mother sat,and battled and brooded bitterly.’D.H Lawrence,1913:237
‘And Annie stood washing when William and Lily went out the next morning. Mrs. Morel was furious,
and sometimes the young catching a glimpse of his sweetheart’s attitude toward his sister, hated her.’D.H
Lawrence,1913:161
“Then Mrs. Morel loathed her husband, loathed him for days; and he went out and drank; and she cared
very little what he did. Only, on his return, she scathed him with her satire.” D.H Lawrence,1913:23
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Paul and Annie give her morphed to stop her pain and die. It can be seen quoted bellow:
3.1.3 WALTER MOREL
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