Christianity, Propriety, and Physicality Theme Analysis

Christianity was an important aspect of life in Britain in the early 1900s, when Sons and Lovers is set, and Lawrence uses frequent references to Biblical stories to underpin much of the action of the novel. However, when paired with social notions of propriety (which were standard in this period in Britain and which encouraged celibacy outside of marriage), Christian beliefs disrupt the lives of the characters by discouraging them from exploring their physical urges and desires. Lawrence believed that physical sensation was a manifestation of the divine, and that through bodily experiences human beings could achieve spiritual transcendence which united them with God. Accordingly, the novel argues that Christian belief, when it discounts the importance of the physical world in favor of the purely spiritual, is a source of confusion and emotional pain rather than fulfillment.

Although Christianity might seem like a source of insight, in the novel it is symbolic of false revelation and confusion rather than guidance. Paul, Mrs. Morel’s second son and the main protagonist of the novel, is associated with the Biblical figure of St. Paul. This association begins when Paul is a baby and Mrs. Morel lifts him up to show him the sun. This parallels St. Paul’s revelation on the way to Damascus, when he was struck temporarily blind and received a revelation from God. However, while in the biblical episode St. Paul’s blinding leads to religious understanding, Mrs. Morel holds baby Paul up to the sun because she is worried that he understands too much–specifically, that he already understands the pain of life, which she feels he has learned because of her unhappiness while pregnant. As she looks into the baby’s eyes, she feels that he has learned something which “stunned” a part of his soul and she holds him to the light to dazzle this revelation away. This moment reverses the meaning of the biblical episode and signifies the beginning of emotional confusion, or blindness, in Paul’s life. The image of the blinding light is repeated later in the novel, when Paul sees the orange moon when he is at the beach with Miriam, his lover, whom he is striving unsuccessfully for sexual connection with. He knows that Miriam, who is very religious and averse to sex and physical sensation, expects him to feel a moment of spiritual connection with her at the sight of the moon. Paul, again, is “struck” by the image but cannot understand the emotion he feels – his desire is sexual, and therefore Miriam rejects it. Paul cannot connect with Miriam through spirituality alone and yearns for physical connection. Therefore, the restrictions of religion obstruct Paul’s attempt to form a bond with Miriam and takes him further away from emotional and spiritual clarity, rather than towards it.

In contrast to Christian ideals, physical connection is a source of clarity and relief; it often provides spiritual meaning within the novel. While Paul has the capacity to be a deep thinker and has spiritual tendencies which come out in his art, he is acutely aware that “painting is not living,” and he often finds comfort in the material world rather than in the nuances of abstract thought. Paul enjoys his intellectual discussions about books and art with Miriam, but his relationship with her always leaves him unfulfilled because he cannot share a mutual enjoyment of physical life with her. Miriam admires Paul’s physicality – his ability to completely “lose himself” to the motion of the swing in her yard, as well as his physical grace and quickness – but she cannot enjoy physical activity herself because she is naturally cerebral and can never let herself go. In contrast, Paul finds that he is physically satisfied with Clara, although their relationship leaves him intellectually unfulfilled. Clara, unlike Miriam, is robust and strong and enjoys the sensation of sport and vigorous activity. When Clara and Paul have sex on the canal bank, Paul feels that he “almost worships” Clara, as though she extends beyond herself into something abstract and spiritual. He feels that their passion is not separate from, but rather “encompasses” the grass they lie on and the birds they hear overhead. This moment frames sexual contact as something spiritual and physical.

Lawrence is antagonistic to social conventions that reject the possibility of physical connection outside of marriage for the sake of propriety and Christian convention; through the novel’s events, he shows how the repression of physical urges does more harm than good. It was considered improper for people to have sex outside of marriage in this period, as shown when Mrs. Radford determinedly sits up half the night with Paul and Clara to prevent Clara sneaking into Paul’s room. Mrs. Radford tries to prevent this because Clara is married to Baxter Dawes and to have sex with a man who is not her husband would be considered improper and shameful. Similarly, Miriam’s aversion to sex is not driven purely by her religious tendencies, but also by her belief that sex is sinful outside of marriage. At the end of the novel, when Paul refuses to marry her, Miriam firmly tells him that there “can be nothing between them” if they are not married, even though they love each other. Paul, however, in another discussion with Miriam, suggests that to be so pure and averse to physical sensation may be more offensive to God than impurity itself. He suggests that purity is a rejection of the world that God has created—a world which is not entirely composed of the spiritual plane but is also material and tangible. Through scenes like these, Lawrence implies that it is not spirituality, or Christianity, which conflicts with physical pleasure, but rather social convention. As something man-made, this convention is not a true reflection of the divine; rather, it often obstructs genuine religious transcendence


Nature and Industrialism
Lawrence uses nature and the natural world to represent the inner lives of the characters throughout Sons and Lovers, suggesting that human beings are not separate from the natural world but rather extensions of it. Lawrence indicates that the closer and more harmonious the relationship between humans and the natural world, the happier and more fulfilling human lives will be. The further the characters travel from the natural world, the more unstable and unhappy their lives become, as the links between humans and their environment are weakened by processes such as industrialism, mass production, and the materialism of modernity.

Nature is a source of beauty, inspiration, hope, and human connection in the novel. The characters in Sons and Lovers are depicted as being at their best when they are surrounded by nature which has not been interfered with by the modern world. For example, after Mrs. Morel has a huge fight with her husband and has been locked out of the house, she comforts herself by looking at the moon and by smelling the flowers that are growing nearby. This suggests that harmony with nature brings harmony within oneself and, after this moment of calm, Mrs. Morel is able to return to her house and persuade her husband to let her back in, thereby making an attempt to heal the rift between them. Another example of nature’s role in human connection shows up in Paul’s sexual relationships with Miriam and with Clara. Both begin in nature: in the woods with Miriam, and on the riverbank with Clara. What’s more, Paul grows up surrounded by nature and is very sensitive and attuned to his environment. This leads him to his career as a painter, as he draws inspiration from the beauty of the natural world. Nature, therefore, is associated with self-expression. The fact that Paul’s self-expression as a painter comes in the form of pictures of natural scenes suggests that to express oneself is also to express the natural world, again emphasizing that humans are part of nature and the environment.

Some industrial practices, such as mining, are still closely linked to nature in the novel, even though they represent human interference with the natural world. Although mining is an industrial process and relies on technology and machines, mining is still associated with nature because it is a process which extracts natural resources, and which relies on the land rather than producing something external to the natural world. The mining communities which the Morels are part of, and which are similar to the one that Lawrence himself grew up in, are totally reliant on natural resources for their own survival. For the miners and mining communities, life is dependent on nature and on natural ecosystems, even if the result of this process is ugliness and pollution.  The miners, like Mr. Morel, are also shaped by their environment, in the same way that Paul is shaped into an artist by his contact with nature. Mr. Morel prefers to sit in darkness even in the daytime because he is so used to operating in the natural darkness of the mine. Similarly, the bodies of the miners, which grow gradually hunched over time from crouching in the pits, reflect the idea that people’s external environments play large roles in their internal lives.

Finally, those furthest from nature in the novel are people who live in the cities and who work in manufacturing, and these people generally end up alienated and unhappy. For example, Paul and William both leave the mining town and get jobs in the city. William takes a job in London, and Paul gets a job closer to home, in Nottingham. Both contract pneumonia because of the long hours, pollution, and poor working conditions in the cities, and William’s death is ultimately associated with his rejection of nature in favor of a materialistic and modern lifestyle. Paul, in contrast, maintains his connection to the natural world and the beautiful countryside he grew up around. Therefore, he recovers from his illness and is eventually able to cut down his hours spent in the city.

The contrasting fates of William and Paul reflect both Lawrence’s philosophy—that connection with the natural world is the healthiest and most fulfilling way for people to live—and the real-life conditions in cities in the early twentieth century, in which air pollution, overcrowding, and poor sanitation made for unhygienic and hazardous places to live and work. The novel’s argument about the ills of cities is also reflected in the type of work that Paul does at the factory. Although Paul quite enjoys his job in Nottingham, his life at the factory is described as though he is a cog in a machine, and the manufacture of garments (which he oversees in the factory) is broken down into separate parts undertaken by different individuals. The literal nature of Paul’s work mirrors Lawrence’s belief that modernity and manufacturing jobs alienated people from each other and from their work, unlike the miners who are so defined by their work that they almost become part of the rural landscape. This modern isolation is taken to its logical conclusion through Clara: after she loses her job, she must produce lace alone in her house and is miserable as a result of this alienation from society. Lawrence was deeply opposed to modernity’s interest in materialism and the manufacture of consumer goods, which only increased throughout the twentieth century. He favored a more natural lifestyle in which people had a closer bond with the environment and with natural sources of production. Throughout, the novel argues for Lawrence’s belief that the further humans travel from their connection with nature, the more essentially alienated they become from each other and themselves.