Death, Grief, and Self-Destruction Analysis

Life and death are closely interlinked throughout Sons and Lovers, and grief has a palpable and lasting impact on the lives of the characters. Sons and Lovers was concluded in the aftermath of the death of Lawrence’s own mother, and his experiences with grief shape the events of the novel. Death is portrayed as an ever-present force in the novel, something which is both terrifying and, at times, terribly seductive. Throughout the novel, Lawrence demonstrates the ways that people often walk the tenuous line between life and death, and the novel argues that fixating on the past (particularly through grief) can turn this constant threat of death into full-fledged self-destruction.

Danger of death was a perpetual threat in mining communities where the book is set, and Lawrence’s own experiences inform his portrayal of day-to-day life in this setting. Mining was an extremely dangerous profession in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Although conditions did gradually improve, the risk of death or serious injury meant that mines suffered many fatalities and that early death or widowhood was a common concern in mining communities like “The Bottoms.” Mrs. Morel often worries about her husband’s safety when he is at work or does not return at the usual time. Although she generally assumes that he is out drinking, she worries about what will happen to herself and the children if her husband is killed, since he supports the family financially. This was a typical worry for wives in mining communities. Since industrial mining towns were built for the explicit purpose of housing miners and their families, there was little alternative work nearby, and Paul and William, who do not grow up to be miners, must travel to the nearby cities to find paid work. The dangerous working conditions in the mines therefore caused many potential problems for miners and their families and meant that, even when the coal industry was thriving, death was an ever-present factor in these communities.

Due to the constant proximity of death within the novel, grief also has a large impact on the progression of the characters’ lives. William’s death nearly kills Mrs. Morel, because her grief destroys her will to live. It is also insinuated that her health problems begin after William’s death, because of the physical toll that grief takes on her. In turn, Mrs. Morel’s grief impacts the direction Paul’s life takes. Shortly after William’s death, Paul is struck down by pneumonia and is close to death himself. During his illness, Mrs. Morel regrets that her grief for William has caused her to neglect Paul; she feels she should have “watched the living rather than the dead.” Although this is, of course, a harsh judgement she makes about herself (her extreme grief over her child’s death is completely understandable), the guilt she feels causes her to transfer her love for William, whom she loved excessively to compensate for the fact that she does not love her husband, over to Paul. In turn, this transference leads to the development of her close relationship with Paul which, despite Mrs. Morel’s good intentions, contributes to his inability to love other women and to find fulfilling relationships. William’s death sets off a chain of grief that reverberates for years. Then, just as Mrs. Morel was almost destroyed by William’s death, the end of the novel finds Paul reeling from Mrs. Morel’s own demise and he ends the novel in darkness, walking across a field at night. This image potently conveys the emotional experience of grief and underscores the ways in which grief has altered the course of Paul’s life and made it difficult for him to leave the past behind.

Despite—or perhaps because of—the devastating effects of loss and grief, many of the characters are drawn towards death and self-destructive behavior throughout the novel. For example, when William moves to London, he sacrifices his health to pursue a shallow, hedonistic lifestyle which he does not even really enjoy. This suggests that William is compelled to ruin his life by self-destructive, almost suicidal tendencies. William’s carelessness with his own life, which leads him to squander his money and ruin his health, also impacts the course of Mrs. Morel’s life and contributes to her own untimely death. This chain reaction demonstrates that self-destructive tendencies often have destructive consequences for others, as well as for oneself.

Paul also demonstrates self-destructive tendencies and, at several points throughout the novel, feels that he wishes to die. When he leaves Miriam one evening after they have fought, he hopes that he will fall off his bike and be killed. Although in this case, Paul wishes to die to spite Miriam, he frequently feels drawn towards the idea of death and self-obliteration; he feels that such experiences may mirror the loss of self he feels during sex. He also becomes suicidal after Mrs. Morel’s death and feels that he wants to join his mother. What’s more, Paul’s and William’s unconscious attraction to death is also reflective of their relationship with their mother. By focusing on their love for their mother, rather than moving on emotionally to new relationships, the young men reject the possibility for new life (through reproduction and child rearing). That is, their futures contains the inevitable loss of their mother, and Paul and William are so fixated on the past and their mother that they reject this future—creating a kind of symbolic death for themselves by refusing to move on. An unhealthy fixation on the past, the novel suggests, leads to a lack of hope for the future, which can cause individuals to be self-destructive and careless with their own lives.



Women’s Work and Women’s Rights



Throughout the novel, Paul’s attitude towards women is defined by his love for his mother, Mrs. Morel, which leads him to compare his female lovers with her. Since Paul’s love for his mother is rooted in idealism and not in reality, the other women in his life, Clara and Miriam, cannot compare with Paul’s romantic idea of how women should be, and they find themselves cast aside by Paul as they fail to live up to his impossible expectations. The story is set in the early twentieth century, during a period in which rights for women and societal expectations placed on women were gradually changing. Paul’s inability to understand the women in his life mirrors society’s failure to respect women during this period. Through Paul and his relationships with women, the novel suggests that social attitudes need to change so that women can find fulfillment in life and equality in society and relationships.

Paul believes that his mother has lived a fulfilling life and that, because she has dedicated her life to the domestic sphere of childrearing, she has been happy. Paul’s experience of his mother is defined by her devotion to him. Mrs. Morel “casts off” her husband, Mr. Morel, early in their marriage, when he cuts her older son William’s hair without her permission. After this event, Mrs. Morel turns her affections solely onto her children, and almost exclusively onto Paul when William dies in his twenties. Since Mrs. Morel shows such affection towards Paul and such investment in the pursuits of his life, he believes that she lives happily through him. This belief mirrors social attitudes towards women at the time, which insisted that, rather than cultivating interests or passions of their own, women should be happy to live through their male family members—their husbands and sons—to achieve society’s standard of ideal womanhood. While Paul knows that Mrs. Morel does not love her husband, he believes that she has known “passion” with Paul himself and that this has brought her fulfilment. However, although Mrs. Morel does love her children, the consequence of her lack of passion for her husband is a life of hardship with a man who is abusive and whom she does not respect. The harsh reality of Mrs. Morel’s life suggests that Paul’s attitude towards his mother, and by extension all women, reflects society’s idealized, unrealistic belief that women should be completely satisfied by domestic life.

When Paul does encounter women who differ from this ideal, he is unable to understand them and compares them unfavourably with his mother. Miriam and Clara, Paul’s two lovers, are younger than Mrs. Morel and enter society under a different set of social conditions. Although it would be a long time before progress was made in gaining equal rights for women, the early 1900s saw the rise of women’s suffrage (women campaigning for the right to vote) and an increase in women entering the workplace and education. This new trend is demonstrated in Miriam and Clara; Miriam is highly intellectual and interested in books, and Clara is a working woman, a member of the suffragettes, and has separated from her husband, Baxter Dawes, because he has been abusive towards her. Although Clara and Baxter do not officially divorce, separation was unconventional and looked down upon in this period. Paul also looks down on Clara because of her interest in the suffragettes. Although he becomes her lover, he blames her for her husband’s abuse and, despite their mutual passion, he never fully understands Clara because she refuses to conform to feminine stereotypes. Instead, she asserts her own independence and demands respect from her husband, leaving him after he “bullies” her. Paul’s inability to comprehend Clara’s behavior suggests that Paul, and society in general, has a misogynistic outlook on women and views those who rebel against gender conventions as unfeminine and unnatural—even when, like Clara, their behavior is totally rational.

Paul’s longstanding belief that his mother’s life has been happy is challenged by the events at the novel’s end: his mother’s death and the breakdown of both his romantic relationships. Although Mrs. Morel dislikes  Miriam because Miriam is intellectual, Mrs. Morel is highly intelligent herself. She “reads a great deal” and helps the minister, Mr. Heaton, compose his sermons. Mrs. Morel might have wished to pursue a career or education, but she has been denied these opportunities because of her gender; societal pressures stated that men must work, and women must take care of the home. The parallel between Miriam and Mrs. Morel suggests that Paul’s rejection of Miriam because of her intellect is a misogynistic convention which his mother has encouraged; this convention is what she has learned and experienced herself, and she feels she has no choice but to perpetuate it.

Mrs. Morel’s death causes a crisis of faith in Paul because he sees, for the first time, that his mother has not been happy. While Paul expects her to die gracefully, as someone who has lived a fulfilling and meaningful life, Mrs. Morel’s death is actually drawn out, bitter, and brooding, and Paul begins to see that she considers her life a waste. As her life has been so closely bound up with his, this realization shatters Paul’s sense of self and his sense of his own importance as reflected through his mother. Lawrence’s sympathetic portrayal of Mrs. Morel, as a woman who is left miserable after sacrificing her life for the sake of convention and domesticity, reveals that the reality of women’s work and women’s rights is far different than social norms suggest. Meanwhile, his depiction of Paul as a confused and disillusioned young man at the novel’s close suggests that old-fashioned and idealized depictions of women are not in the best interests of either women or of men. Paul’s story demonstrates how men who expect women to be fulfilled by living vicariously through them, rather than having ambitions and passions of their own, will be left behind by the social changes beginning in this period.