Everyone was miserable in Sons and Lovers

Mr. and Mrs. Morel met at a ball. Walter was fresh and humor towards Gertrude, who was a young lady. They fell in love with each other at first sight. After they got married, there was a short period of happy life. However, because of the giant gap between their background and personality, they started quelling. Walter even beaten Gertrude, and locked the pregnant woman out of he house one day.

In the novel, the couple had only flesh connections but they were never soul mates. The father was a miner. He was always a mean drunker and cared nothing of the family, the kids or the wife. Gertrude was from a middle class family. After passion and excitement in their marriage which died away quickly, she found herself desperately regretting for the decision to marry an average miner. Thus she concentrated totally on to her elder son William and the younger one Paul. She tried hard to prevent her children from going on the mining career as their father. She came up with sorts of ideas to make her boys pursue a promising life. She wanted her two sons to make their fortune and live up to her expectations.   

All what she was doing and saying not only widened the gap between her and her husband, but also the kids’ relationship with their father. The children developed a kind of hatred towards Walter, and united closely with Gertrude. They “fought” together with Walter, who was still physically strong but could not avoid mentally declines.

Isolation tortured Walter and brought him disaster. Walter was paralyzed after an accident. After Walter fell down, similar clashes between Walter and Gertrude began to appear between the mother and her boys. In fact, Gertrude didn’t feel that depressed after Walter was paralyzed, because she had long ago lost her confidence in him. It was her connection with her Paul that made her suffer. It was incurable. However, she could do nothing with that, until she passed away in the end.

After the death of William, the elder son who did not live up to Mrs. Morel’s hope, Paul became the only treasure that Gertrude had. What was more, he became a means for Gertrude to let out her depression and anger. She so much loved Paul and hoped that he would be successful and make her proud; she wanted to possess him emotionally, and prevent him from leaving her and approach other women. Mrs. Morel made Paul suffer. He wanted to escape. However, in his temporary breaks, Paul painfully felt his close connection with his mother. Paul was unable to love any other woman as long as he had his mother in his life. Whenever Gertrude desperately screamed out that she had never really had a husband, Paul couldn’t help kissing her. He lost his reasoning. Paul could not find a balance between his family role and his identity as a young man in society. He could not develop a healthy personality under such circumstances. He was doomed to suffer mentally for his life.

The time spent with his girlfriend Miriam was bitter and sweet. They fell in love after quite a lot of joyful time spent together. They were attracted to each other for they shared the same interests. They meant to be a perfect match. However, Miriam laid great importance onto spiritual fulfillment. She wanted absolute possession of Paul, which inevitably caused problems with Gertrude. Her failure was doomed. Unable to let her mother down, Paul had to give up Miriam.

Paul was numb emotionally. He loved Miriam, but could not express his love in a normal way. He was in a dilemma, and the same was Miriam. He was upset when Miriam was absent; however, when she was his companion, they would quarrel a lot. Paul felt his mother in Miriam. Paul slept with Miriam, and got her to some extent; he still spiritually belonged to his mother. What Miriam had done was from some kind of religious sacrifice for the man who she loved. They could not experience real happiness but only tragedy.

Paul’s relationship with Clara was a freak one. There was only flesh but not a little bit of love. Clara lived a lower-class life. Paul got satisfied physically though it was written in water. Disappointed by pure and lofty Miriam, Paul wanted to prove himself sexually; depressed by her husband, Clara wanted to find ways to display her charm. It seemed a mutual-benefiting solution. Not surprisingly, their unsteady relationship ended up without any fruits. They seemed a couple of floating duckweed who met and stayed together casually. After short acquaintance, they went separate ways.

The main characters in the novel were all suffering and ended up with respective tragedy mentally and physically. Walter was an alien in front of his family. Gertrude thought herself as a woman who had never had a real husband. She sought comfort form her sons, and was often confronted by other women. She died with cancer, and passed away early with great disappointment, I think, for all she hadn’t achieve upon her sons. Miriam suffered. She gave her body but did not get Paul’s heart. When Paul wanted to make up with her in the end, she denied with great effort and determination. She would rather stay alone and bear the pain after so many events. Clara ended up returning to her husband who was mean and a nebbish. She had no way out of her previous life; Paul’s short existence only seemed a break for her. Paul went to the bright to find his future. Maybe he would psychologically grow up finally, and do what a young man was supposed to do at his time without such disturbance from his women.

People lived in a net. They were connected with each other. Life was a cruel fight. Humanity was sometimes twisted. No one was the winner. It was filled with blood and pain. Reading this novel made me feel depressed. I was always wondering why Paul didn’t run away from home to a different city and live a brand new life. He was not a man who could burden his own fate. Later, when I reckoned on it further, I found out if I were Paul, probably I would remained the same as how Paul handled it. He was born that way. With family influence as that and so many pressure to confront, he was destined to walk back and forth, not knowing what to do. Anyway, tomorrow is another day. Paul could make a difference, making himself less miserable.

                                                                                    -MWZ-XISU-