D.H. Lawrence’s Physiology Regarding Human Relationship In “Sons And Lovers”
Introduction
From one of the major novels of D. H. Lawrence “Sons and Lovers” is also one of them, published in 1913 just before the beginning of World War 1. In the novel “Sons and Lovers” Lawrence depicts the different types human relationships. Since he has understood human life deeply and experienced the world too much. He elaborated human relationship in three ways according to Prakash Chandra Pradhan “man-woman relationship, man-man relationship and man-nature or cosmos relationship”. These three relationships dependent on “communion of blood and truthfulness”. “The world is wonderful and beautiful and good beyond one’s wildest imagination”. Most of the novels of D. H. Lawrence are based on the understanding of human situations. As an artist he touches the “psyche and sensibility in spite of our extra ordinary progress in science and technology” Through the ideas and visions described in the novels we able to know the world deeper.
According to a critic Dorothy Van Ghent, structure of the novel is controlled by an idea: “An idea of organic disturbance in the relationships of men and women – a disturbance of sexual polarities that is first seen in the disaffection of mother and father, then in the mother’s attempt to substitute her sons for her husband, finally in sons unsuccessful struggle of establishing natural manhood”.
By analyzing the whole text, we can say that in novel relationship between man and woman are so disturbing. There is no harmony and cooperation between them. There was always clash of ideas between them and unable to understand each other. Firstly Mr. and Mrs. Morel fitted into this context. Walter Morel is a collier who used to fight and quarreled with his wife Gertrude Morel, she is sensible, educated and rather proud woman who belongs to middle class background on the other hand Mr. Morel belongs to working class background. Her efforts to make Mr. Morel a sensible gentleman become the ground of their martial quarrel. Mrs. Morel started hating her husband. Mr. Morel being present in the family yet absent. He became an object in the family. The “Fearful bloody battle” started between them and last till Mrs. Morel’s death.
“There began a battle between the husband and wife – a fearful bloody battle that ended only with the death of one. She fought to make him fulfill his obligations. But he was too different from her – his nature was purely sensous and she strove to make him moral, religious. She tried to force him to face things. He could not endure it – it drove him out of his mind. A drastic change in the life of Mr. and Mrs. Morel as after the birth of Paul , Mrs. Morel “no longer loved her husband”. She loved the child fully: “ 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”. Many critics including Keith Sagar views that “there is a destructive element in Mrs. Morel relations with both husband and sons; but the overriding impression is of a normality and strength of character which serves a standard against which the other women in novel are judged and found wanting”.
Second relationship in which we can lack of intensity and understanding is of William and Lily. The actual reason behind it also Mrs. Morel who made her “Sons as Lovers” due to which they unable to see any women behind them in spite of her mother. He truly loved her mother. William used to work in London there he met a girl Lily, the relationship is not successful because “William could not develop himself as an independent man. His half – hazard involvement with Lily brought out a spilt in his soul”. Before the death of William Mrs. Morel remarked “I ashamed of you William! Why don’t you be more manly. To do nothing but find fault with the girl, and then pretend you’re engaged to her”.
Mrs. Morel didn’t like the Girl Lily and yet happy that William could not have enough money to marry the girl because she thought Lily don’t deserve her son for getting married when she met William again she surprised to see her son’s health he was too weak and pale when she asked him about this he explained that he was doing extra work in order save enough money for his marriage. Even he disturbed and hurt due to “lack of warmth and depth” in relationship. The relationship of Lily and William have pathetic ending as William died due to pneumonia.
Third and most important relationship of the text is Paul with Clara Dawes and Miriam as well. In Paul’s relationship with Miriam, his mother has a significant role. Paul’s relation and contact with Miriam make her uneasy and can be understood that she felt jealousy. Mrs. Morel was unhappy and disturbed she thought Miriam as the reason of creating problems in the life of Paul: “Mrs. Morel hated her for making her son like this. She watched Paul for growing irritable, priggish and melancholic. For this she put the blame on Miriam…. And Paul hated her because, somehow, she spoilt his ease and naturalness. And he writhed himself with a feeling of humiliation”. The relationship between Paul and Miriam could not last long due to ‘Miriam’s nun – like mystic instinct’. The relationship was based on spiritual essence rather than own senses. He didn’t like her because of intensely included in spiritually Paul was in dilemma regarding his marriage with Miriam. He knows that Miriam is in love with him but he cannot sacrifice himself unless and until he saw any joy in getting married with her. “It seemed to him that to sacrifice himself in a marriage, he did not want, would be degrading and undo all his life, make it a nullity”.
When Paul met with Miriam at Willey farm made him realize that marriage between him and Miriam is impossible as their relationship is “empty and false”. In their next meeting they were separated. Miriam asked him in surprise “Then, What do you want?” Paul said “ Why, I want us to separate we have lived on each other all these three years, Now let us stop, I will go my own way without you, you will go your way without me. You will have an independent life of your own”. His mother felt happy to hear that he was separated from Miriam and she advised him to leave her alone. Miriam therefore “remained alone with herself, waiting”.
After breaking up with Miriam he developed a relationship with Mrs. Clara Dawes who is married to Mr. Baxter Dawes and yet live alone and single. Paul was passionately in love with Clara and yet he is in conflict thinking about Clara and Miriam. He was always in dilemma. His mother was always behind him in order to advise him. Paul was unable to understand why he not married to any of the women. “But no, mother, I even love Clara, and I did Miriam but to give myself 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” “You haven’t met right woman” “And I never shall meet the right woman while you live”. Paul’s dilemma is clear to the Clara. Despite her intense and loving relationship with Paul. She realized that she can’t get him fully. “Some part, big and vital in him, she had no hold over, nor did she ever try to get it or even to realize what it was”. Clara thinks that she is dependent on Mr. Dawes hence she know Paul can’t give his wholly to her. “Her life belonged to Paul Morel, nor his to her. They would separate in the end and the rest of her life would be an ache after him”. In the whole text Mr. Morel role as a father described irrelevant. Whole novel revolves around the mother’s son relationship. In the family he became an object to whom none is beside him. In critical situations during the death of William he was there and shows uncommon feeling to his character that of sensitivity and gentleness and even he brings the coffin with a sense of melancholy and grief. “Paul saw drops of sweat fall from his father’s brow. Six men were in the room – six coatless men, with yielding struggling limbs, filling the room and knocking against the furniture. The coffin veered, and was gently lowered on to the chairs. The sweat fell from Morel’s face on its boards”. On the previous day of Mrs. Morel death; Morel was quite silent and disturbed too. While going to the work he asked many times whether he should go or not. “Morel is silent, frightened and obliterated himself sometimes he would go to the sick room and look at her. Then he backed out, bewildered”. Mr. Morel goes to work but before he returns Mrs. Morel was no more. Prakash Pradhan comments “Mr. Morel has actually a tragic touch in his life. Despite of ugly scenes he created he is more human, energetic and sympathetic. He is not demonic or malicious”.
Paul’s relationship with his mother is intense. Mrs. Morel is disturbed with the fact of contact of Paul with Miriam. She created jealousy and thinks she is only who creates problem in the life of her son. She thought the Miriam is so possessive and absorb all of him and sucks of his manliness. “She is 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 of his feet – she will suck him up”. In Paul’s life his mother have a great significance due to great and intense attachment with his mother he unable to see any other women in her life. Even after having relationships with two women he again back to his mother. He was always in dilemma regarding whom to marry and he even said that he can’t give them wholly. “And I never shall meet the right woman while you live”. This comment depicts that in his life he can give his heart to one woman and she is her mother to whom he is intensely attached. According to Geoffrey Harvey: “It is clear from Lawrence’s letters as well as novel itself that Oedipal element is there from the beginning and is worked through in the text with great consistency”. According to Sigmund Freud “Oedipus complex as constituting the relations essential to our development into social beings but he also employed it to explain breakdowns in the normal pattern of sexual and emotional development. This mechanism for effecting the transition from childhood to mature independence”. Lawrence in one of his letters to Edward Garnett described Mrs. Morel as a mother in a different way as she chooses her sons as her lovers due to which they unable to love other women and hatred for their father. In the novel Lawrence first showed how Paul is unwanted child and yet Mrs. Morel gave birth to him and their bond become so intense and when Paul make contact with Miriam, she depicts as a ‘jealous vampire figure clinging to Paul as her substitute husband’ Paul first made relationship with Miriam spiritually and came back to his mother. This shows the childlike attitude of Paul. In order to get eternal bliss and solitude, he remains with his mother after two breakups.
Conclusion
In novel “Sons and Lovers” We saw different types of relationships man- woman relationship in which there was always disturbance. No relationship has harmony and understanding. Fiona Becket rightly comments on the ‘nerve-worn relations between man and woman’ “This oppositionality is disastrous. It is not the positive foundation for necessary self-sufficiency that was beginning to characterize Lawrence’s thought about relationships. Throughout their marriage, Mrs. Morel attempts to offset her rapid disillusion with her husband by living through her sons in whom; in the absence of other possibilities [of education, of employment] she find herself. Father-child relationship in novel was also vulnerable. Paul and William have hatred towards his father and extreme love towards their mother. This leads to stoppage in the growth of both the character. Paul showed childlike attitude as unable to decide himself and took his life decision on his own. Alfred Kuttner comments that novel offers both normal as well as abnormal aspects. He said we all have some Paul thing within us. We can clearly see in him: “The tremendous role that the abnormal fixation upon the parent plays in the psychic development of the individual”. Geoffrey Harvey points out that in his psycoanalytical criticism “In Paul’s case it is conditioned by his father’s unnatural position in the family and by his mother’s intense love for him” It can be concluded with the fact that the novel gives the ‘scientific study of human motives’.
