Sons and Lovers

By D.H. Lawrence

THE STORY

Strife in love
Mrs. Morel already has two children, Annie and William, when she becomes pregnant for a
third time. Her marriage to Walter has slowly deteriorated into an endless series of drunken
rows and she is less than happy at the prospect of having another baby, Paul, to bring up
However, when William dies she channels her emotional attention and needs into Paul to
such an extent that his relationship with other women is jeopardised. When Mrs. Morel
dies of cancer, Paul is tempted to commit suicide, but finds the strength to carry on living.

“I Will Call Him Paul”

Mrs. Morel is holding her newly-born third child in her arms in the company of a neighbour,
Mrs. Kirk, and is wondering what the future holds for both of them.

Chapter II -The Birth of Paul, and another Battle

The sun was going down. Every open evening, the hills of Derbyshire were blazed over
with red sunset. Mrs. Morel watched the sun sink from the glistening sky, leaving a soft
flower-blue overhead, while the western space went red, as if all the fire had swum down
there, leaving the bell cast flawless blue. The mountain-ash berries across the field stood
fierily out from the dark leaves, for a moment. A few shocks of corn in a comer of the
fallow stood up as if alive; she imagined them bowing; perhaps her son would be a
Joseph. In the east, a mirrored sunset floated pink opposite the west's scarlet. The big
haystacks on the hillside, that butted into the glare, went cold.
With Mrs. Morel it was one of those still moments when the small frets vanish, and the
beauty of things stands out, and she had the peace and the strength to see herself. Now
and again, a swallow¹¹ cut close to her. Now and again, Annie carne up with a handful of
alder-currants. The baby was restless on his mother's knee, clambering with his hands at
the light.
Mrs. Morel looked down at him. She had dreaded this baby like a catastrophe, because of
her feeling for her husband. And now she felt strangely towards the infant. Her heart was
heavy because of the child, almost as if it were unhealthy, or malformed. Yet it seemed
quite well. But she noticed the peculiar knitting of the baby's brows, and the peculiar
heaviness of its eyes, as if it were trying to understand something that was pain. She felt,
when she looked at her child's dark, brooding pupils as if a burden were on her heart.
He looks as if he was thinking about something- quite sorrowful, said Mrs. Kirk.
Suddenly, looking at him, the heavy feeling at the mother's heart melted into passionate
grief. She bowed over him, and a few tears shook swiftly out of her very heart. The baby
lifted his fingers.
“My lamb!” she cried softly.
And at that moment she felt, in some far inner place of her soul, that she and her husband
were guilty.
The baby was looking up at her. It had blue eyes like her own, but its look was heavy,
steady, as if it had realised something that had stunned¹ ⁷ some point of its soul.
In her arms lay the delicate baby. Its deep blue eyes, always looking up at her unblinking,
seemed to draw her innermost thoughts out of her. 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.
Once more she was aware of the sun lying red on the rim of the hill opposite. She
suddenly held up the child in her hands.
“Look!” she said. 'Look, my pretty!'
She thrust the infant forward to the crimson throbbing sun, almost with relief. She saw him
lift his little fist. Then she put him to her bosom again, ashamed almost of her impulse to
give him back again whence he came.

'You're Old, Mother'

Paul is planning to go to a local town, Selby, with his girlfriend, Miriam. His mother reveals
that she is jealous of the younger woman.

Paul sat pretending to read. He knew his mother wanted to upbraid him. He also wanted to
know what had made her ill, for he was troubled. So, instead of running away to bed, as he
would have liked to do, he sat and waited. There was a tense silence. The clock ticked
loudly.
'You´d better go to bed before your father comes in,' said the mother harshly. 'And if you're
going to have anything to eat, you'd better get it.' 'I don´t want anything.
It was his mother's custom to bring him some trifle for supper on Friday night, the night of
luxury for the colliers. He was too angry to go and find it in the pantry this night. This
insulted her.
'If I wanted you to go to Selby on Friday night, I can imagine the scene,' said Mrs. Morel.
'But you're never too tired to go if she will come for you.
Nay, you neither want to eat nor drink then.'
'I can´t let her go alone.'
'Can´t you? And why does she come?'
'Not because I ask her.'
'She doesn't come without you want her -'
'Well, what if I do want her-' he replied.
'Why, nothing, if it was sensible or reasonable. But to go trapseing up there miles and
miles in the mud, coming home at midnight, and got to go to Nottingham in the morning-' 'If
I hadn't, you'd be just the same.'
'Yes, I should, because there's no sense in it. Is she so fascinating that you must follow her
all that way?' Mrs. Morel was bitterly sarcastic. She sat still, with averted face, stroking with
a rhythmic, jerked movement, the black sateen of her apron. It was a movement that hurt
Paul to see.
'I do like her,' he said, 'but _____'

'Like her!' said Mrs. Morel, in the same biting tones. 'It seems to me you like nothing and
nobody else. There's neither Annie, nor me, nor anyone now for you.'
'What nonsense, mother- you know I don't love her - I - I tell you I don't love her –she
doesn't even walk with my arm, because I don't want her to.'
'Then why do you fly to her so often?'
'I do like to talk to her - I never said I didn’t. But I don't love her.'
'Is there nobody else to talk to?'
'Not about the things we talk of. There's a lot of things that you're not in, that -'
'What things?' -
Mrs. Morel was so intense that Paul began to pant.
'Why- painting - and books. You don't care about
Herbert Spencer.'
'No,' was the sad reply. 'And you won't at my age.'
'Well, but I do now - and Miriam does-'
'And how do you know,' Mrs. Morel flashed defiantly,
'that I shouldn't. Do you ever try me!'
'But you don't, mother, you know you don't care
whether a picture's decorative or not; you don't care
what manner it is in.'
'How do you know I don't care? Do you ever try me?
Do you ever talk to me about these things, to try?'
'But it's not that that matters to you, mother, you know it's not.'
'What is it, then - what is it, then, that matters to me?' she flashed.
He knitted his brows with pain.
'You're old, mother, and we're young.'
He only meant that the interests of her age were not the interests of his. But he realised
the moment he had spoken that he had said the wrong thing.
'Yes, I know it well- I am old. And therefore I may stand aside; I have nothing more to do
with you. You only want me to wait on you -the rest is for Miriam.'
He could not bear it. Instinctively he realised that he was life to her. And, after all, she was
the chief thing to him, the only supreme thing.
'You know it isn't, mother, you know it isn't!'
She was moved to pity by his cry.
'It looks a great deal like it,' she said, half putting aside her despair.
'No, mother- I really don't love her. I talk to her, but I want to come home to you.'
He had taken off his collar and tie, and rose, bare-throated, to go to bed. As he stooped to
kiss his mother, she threw her arms round his neck, hid her face on his shoulder, and
cried, in a whimpering¹² voice, so unlike her own that he writhed in agony:
'I can't bear it. I could let another woman- but not her. She'd leave me no room, not a bit of
room -'
And immediately he hated Miriam bitterly.
'And I've never- you know, Paul- I've never had a husband- not really-' He stroked his
mother's hair, and his mouth was on her throat.
'And she exults so in taking you from me- she's not like ordinary girls.'
'Well, I don't love her, mother,' he murmured, bowing his head and hiding his eyes on her
shoulder in misery. His mother kissed him a long, fervent kiss.
'My boy!' she said, in a voice trembling with passionate love. Without knowing, he gently
stroked her face.
'There,' said his mother, 'now go to bed. You'll be so tired in the morning.'
As she was speaking she heard her husband coming. 'There's your father now go'.