Summary of Sons and Lovers by

Summary of Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence Summary 1 Clara goes back to Sheffield with her husband, and Paul is left alone with his father. There is no point in keeping their house any longer, so they each take lodgings nearby. Paul is lost without his mother. He can no longer paint, and he puts all of his energy into his work at the factory. He has debates within himself, telling himself that he must stay alive for his mother’s sake. However, he wants to give up. One Sunday evening, however, he sees Miriam at the Unitarian Church. He asks her to have supper with him quickly and she agrees. She tells him that she has been going to a farming college and will probably be kept on as a teacher there. She says that she thinks they should be married, and he says he’s not sure that would be much good. He says he does not want it very much, and so she gives up. That is the end between them. She leaves him, realizing that “his soul could not leave her, wherever she was.” Paul, alone, yearns for his mother and considers following her into death. However, he decides to leave off thinking about suicide, and instead walks toward the town. Commentary This chapter is Miriam’s last attempt finally to possess Paul, now that the obstacle of his mother is out of the way. However, by the end she sees the futility of her efforts and realizes that, even in death, Mrs. Morel still owns Paul and he can never be hers. Paul says of his mother that, “She was the only thing that held him up, himself, amid all this. And she was gone, intermingled herself. He wanted her to touch him, have him alongside with her.” This completes the book’s treatment of the relationship between Paul and Mrs. Morel and illustrates the way that his love for her has remained constant throughout. Summary 2 The first chapter begins with a description of the neighborhood of “The Bottoms,” the miners’ dwellings in which the Morels live. We get a small amount of description of Mrs. Morel and learn that her husband is a miner. At this point in the story, the Morel family consists of Mr. Morel and Mrs. Morel (expecting her third child), William (age seven), and Annie (age five). The first action of the novel begins three weeks after the Morels have moved into their new home, on the day of the wakes (a kind of fair). William goes off to the wakes in the morning and comes back at mid-day for dinner, telling his mother to hurry so that he can return by the time the wakes begin again. He runs off quickly when he hears the music of the merry-go-round, and Mrs. Morel takes Annie later in the afternoon. They run into William and he shows his mother two egg-cups he has won as a present for her. The three of them spend some time together at the fair, and William decides to stay after his mother and sister leave. However, we learn later that he does not enjoy himself after his mother has gone. After the children go to bed, Mrs. Morel waits for her husband to return from the bar where he is working and reflects on her situation. She cannot afford and does not want her coming child, and she “despises” her husband because of his drinking. Her only solace is in her two children. She wonders if her life will ever change, and reflects that the events in her life seem to take place without her approval. She cleans the house and sits down to sew, and her husband finally comes home. They argue about whether or not he is drunk, he shows her that he has brought gingerbread and a coconut for the children, and she goes to bed. The next part of the chapter fills in the background to the Morels’ marriage. It begins by describing Mrs. Morel, previously Gertrude Coppard, her upbringing in a poor family, and her friendship with a man named John Field, who gave her a Bible when she was nineteen, which she still keeps. The flashback shows her encouraging John Field to stand up for himself and go into the ministry, even though his father wants him to continue the family business. She claims that if she were a man, she would do as she liked. He tells her that being a man isn’t everything, and she has finally learned that lesson. The next part of the flashback describes the meeting between Gertrude Coppard and Walter Morel at a Christmas party when she was twenty-three and he was twenty-seven. It seems the main attraction he holds for her is that he is different from her father. At the party he asks her to dance, she refuses, and he sits down and talks with her instead. The next Christmas they marry, and their early married life seems very happy. However, after they have been married for seven months, Gertrude finds the unpaid bills for the household furniture in her husband’s coat pocket. She confronts him to ask about the bills and he brushes her off, so the next day she goes to see his mother. She tells Gertrude that her husband still owes a good deal of money, and that the house they live in belongs to her. This information changes the way Gertrude feels toward her husband: she becomes colder and more condescending toward him. She begins to feel isolated from her husband, and this causes her to turn toward her child instead. A key incident happens when Morel cuts William’s hair while Mrs. Morel is sleeping. This is one of the major factors in her estrangement from her husband, as the betrayal she feels when she discovers William’s haircut remains with her throughout the coming years. Summary 3 Morel feels ashamed for bullying his wife. He also realizes her difficulties and begins to be somewhat more helpful. One morning Mrs. Morel summons her neighbor, Mrs. Kirk, by banging on the back of the fireplace with the poker, and tells her to fetch Mrs. Bower, the midwife. She gives birth to a boy and is very ill. Her husband comes home and is told by Mrs. Bower that he has a son. He asks her for a drink and then, after he has had his dinner, goes up to see his wife and son. We are then introduced to Mr. Heaton, the Congregational clergyman, who comes to visit Mrs. Morel every day. One day Morel comes home while he is still visiting and begins to make a scene by enumerating the difficulties of working in the mine. Mrs. Morel feels disgusted by her husband’s tendency to play for sympathy with those around him. One evening after a quarrel with her husband, Mrs. Morel takes Annie and the baby and goes for a walk near the cricket fields. She seems at peace and feels strongly for her baby son; she has a sudden instinct to call him Paul. The next major battle between the Morels begins when Walter comes home late and drunk again and accidentally pulls out a kitchen drawer in his haste to get something to eat. When his wife tells him she will not wait on him, he becomes enraged and flings the drawer at her, cutting her forehead on the corner of the drawer. For the few days after this incident, Morel refuses to get out of bed. When he finally gets up, he immediately goes to the Palmerston, one of his favorite bars, and this is where he spends the next several nights. One night, however, he finds himself out of money, and therefore takes a sixpence from his wife’s purse. She notices that it is missing and confronts him, upon which he becomes very indignant. He then goes upstairs and returns with a bundle and says he is leaving. Mrs. Morel feels sure that he will return that night, but she begins to get worried when he has not returned by dark. However, she finds his bundle hidden behind the door of the coal-shed and begins to laugh. Morel sulkily returns later that evening and his wife tells him to fetch his bundle before going to bed. Commentary This chapter mainly serves the purpose of providing more examples of the battles between Mr. and Mrs. Morel. It also contains a few examples of the themes that have already been noted. Summary 4 Morel begins to fall ill, despite all of his requests for medicine. His illness is attributed to the time he fell asleep on the ground when he went with Jerry to Nottingham. He falls seriously ill and his wife has to nurse him. She gets some help from the neighbors, but not every day. Eventually, Morel grows better, but he has been spoiled during his illness and at first wants more attention from his wife. However, she has begun to cast him off and to turn completely to her children to find a sense of meaning in her life. During the period of peace following Morel’s illness, another baby is conceived, and this child, Arthur, is born when Paul is seventeen months old. Arthur is very fond of his father, and this makes Mrs. Morel happy. Meanwhile, time is passing, William is growing bigger, and Paul begins to have fits of depression in which he cries for no reason. One day, one of the other women of the neighborhood, Mrs. Anthony, confronts Mrs. Morel because William has ripped her son Alfred’s collar. Mrs. Morel asks William about it, he gives her his side of the story, and she reprimands him. However, Mrs. Anthony also tells Morel about the incident and he comes home very angry with William. This provokes yet another battle between Mr. and Mrs. Morel, as it is only her intervention that prevents him from beating William. Mrs. Morel joins the Women’s Guild, a club of women attached to the Cooperative Wholesale Society, who meet and discuss social questions. When William is thirteen, she gets him a job at the Co-op office. This provokes another argument with her husband, who would have preferred his son to become a miner like himself. However, William does well in his job as he does well in everything. He wins a running race and brings his mother home the prize, an inkstand shaped like an anvil. However, William clashes with his mother when he begins to dance. Mrs. Morel turns away girls who come to call, much to William’s dismay. At nineteen, William gets a new job in Nottingham and also begins to study very hard. Then he is offered a job in London at a hundred and twenty pounds a year and is ecstatic, failing to see his mother’s dismay at his departure. William and his mother have one final shared moment as they burn his love letters, and then he goes to London to start his new life. Summary 5 This chapter begins by describing the way that Paul, in the absence of William, bonded most closely with his sister Annie. She was a tomboy, who played games with the other neighborhood children, and Paul would quietly tag along behind her. One day, while Annie’s favorite doll is lying covered up on the sofa, Paul jumps off the sofa arm and lands on the doll. Annie is very upset, but her brother is perhaps more upset at her grief. A few days later, Paul suggests that they make a sacrifice of the doll, and they burn and smash its remains. One evening when Paul comes home, he finds his father and older brother in the midst of an argument, which only fails to come to blows because of Mrs. Morel’s intervention. The family moves out of the Bottoms into a house with an ash-tree, which makes noise when the wind blows through it. Morel likes it, but the children hate it. Morel still comes home late and drunk most nights, and Paul begins to worry because his mother is worrying about his father. One night he goes out to play, then at night anxiously runs into the kitchen to check on his mother. When he finds that his father has not come, he goes to visit Mrs. Inger, who lives two doors down and has no children of her own. He talks to her for a while, then goes home. When Morel finally does come home, he is usually rude and irritable. During this time period he becomes more and more shut out from the family affairs, as the children begin to tell their mother everything and their father nothing. This is illustrated by the example of Paul’s prize, which his mother convinces him to tell his father about. During their conversation, it becomes apparent that Morel is an outsider in his own family. The next part of the narration, however, describes the times of happiness between Morel and his children. When he is happily engrossed in his work, he gets along well with his children. He tells stories, like the ones about Taffy the horse. On these nights, when Morel has some job to do, he goes to bed early and the children feel secure when he is in bed. Summary 6 Morel is injured at work when a piece of rock falls on his leg. When Mrs. Morel gets the news, she is very flustered while she is preparing to go to the hospital to see him. Paul calms her down and gives her some tea, and she leaves for the hospital. When she returns, she tells the children that their father’s leg is injured rather badly. They all feel anxious, but are comforted by the fact that her father is a strong healer. Mrs. Morel feels somewhat guilty because she no longer loves her husband; while she is sorry for his pain and his injury, she still feels an emotional emptiness. She is somewhat comforted by talking to Paul, who is able to share her troubles. True to his nature, Morel does recover, and the family is very happy and peaceful while he is still in the hospital, almost to the point of regretting that he will soon return. Paul is now fourteen, and it is time for him to find a job. Everyday, his mother sends him to the Co-op reading room to read the job advertisements in the paper. This makes him miserable, but he dutifully writes down a few offers and brings them home. He makes applications for several jobs using a variation on a letter that William had written. He is summoned to call on Thomas Jordan, a manufacturer of surgical appliances, and his mother is overjoyed. Paul and Mrs. Morel travel to Nottingham one Tuesday morning to respond to the invitation. Paul suffers the whole way there, dreading the interview and the necessity of being scrutinized by strangers. During the actual interview, Mr. Jordan asks Paul to read a letter in French and he has trouble reading the handwriting, becomes flustered, and continually insists that doigts means fingers, although in this case it refers to the toes of a pair of stockings. Nevertheless, he is hired as junior spiral clerk. After the interview, Paul and his mother have dinner in an eating-house, where it turns out that the food is more expensive than they realized; they order the cheapest dish possible. After dinner they wander around the town, look at some shops, and buy a few things. Paul is happy with his mother. The next day he applies for a season ticket for the train. When he returns and tells his mother how much it will cost, she says that she wishes William would send them some money to help pay for things like the ticket. Meanwhile, William is becoming a gentleman in London and is beginning to see a girl, Louisa Lily Denys Western, whom he calls Gipsy. He asks her for a photograph to send to his mother, and when the photo comes it shows her with bare shoulders. Mrs. Morel comments to William that she does not think the photo is appropriate, and the girl sends another one in which she is wearing an evening gown. Mrs. Morel is still not impressed. Summary 7 This chapter begins with a description of Arthur, and tells how, as he grows older, he comes to detest his father. All of the children follow this same trend until they all loathe him. Arthur wins a scholarship to the school in Nottingham, and his mother decides to let him live in town with one of her sisters because of his adversarial relationship with his father. Annie is a teacher in the Board-school, and Mrs. Morel clings to Paul. William becomes engaged to the girl he has been seeing, and decides to bring her home at Christmas. She comes home with him and puts on airs of high station, treating Annie like a servant. William begins to be annoyed with the way that she acts much grander than his family, and he tells his mother that he only feels fond of the girl when he is around her in the evenings; otherwise, he has no feelings for her. Paul has Monday afternoons off from work, and one Monday his mother tells him that they have been invited to see Mr. Leivers on his new farm. They decide to go that afternoon. They have a nice walk through the countryside on the way there, and then are welcomed and given a tour of the farm when they arrive. The Leivers boys show Paul how to make the chicken eat out of his hand, and they tease their sister Miriam because she is afraid to try. Paul later finds her shyly reaching her hand toward the chicken and helps her to let it eat out of her hand. The next time William brings his fiancee home, she once again annoys him and the rest of his family with her attitude toward his sister. He begins to ridicule her in front of others, and discusses with his mother that he no longer really wants to marry her, but feels that he has gone on too long to break it off now. He comes home again, alone, the first weekend in October, and his mother notices that he has not been well. The Tuesday morning after his return, Mrs. Morel gets a telegram saying that he is ill. She takes the train to London, arrives at William’s lodging, and stays with him until he dies late that night. She sends a telegram for Morel to come to London, and when it arrives Paul has to go to the mine to fetch his father. Morel goes to London, and Mr. and Mrs. Morel return on Saturday night. After William’s death, Mrs. Morel becomes shut off until one day Paul falls ill with pneumonia. She almost loses him as well, but he somehow pulls through and “Mrs. Morel’s life now rooted itself in Paul.” Commentary 8 The title of the chapter foreshadows what will happen in the end of the chapter; however, the reader wonders throughout the chapter which member of the family will die. Since the first sentence of the chapter begins with Arthur, the reader might begin by suspecting that Arthur will die. It isn’t until William alludes to his death by saying that his fiancee would forget about him three months after he died that we begin to suspect that William will die. He makes many allusions to his death so that, by the time his mother gets the telegram from London that he is ill, the reader is hardly surprised. After William dies, Mrs. Morel remains closed off from the world until Paul also falls ill. Lawrence uses an image of tulips to illustrate the bond forged between Paul and his mother as a result of his illness. Mr. Morel buys Paul a pot of tulips, and they flame in the window where Paul and his mother sit closely and contentedly. Summary 9 This chapter describes the growing intimacy between Paul and Miriam. It begins from Miriam’s perspective and describes the way that she aspires to learning, since she cannot have pride in her social status. She is interested in Paul, but scorns him because he only sees the swine-girl side of her and not the princess she believes she is inside. When he falls ill, she feels like he would be weaker than she and that is she could take care of him, she would love him deeply. Paul enjoys visiting the Leivers’ farm because it is so different from his own home. Miriam and her mother both have very strong religious and spiritual convictions, and this strikes Paul as enormously different from his own mother’s logical manner. One evening when he is there for dinner, the boys all become very upset with Miriam because the potatoes are burned. Her mother reprimands her for answering them instead of turning the other cheek, and Paul is puzzled why an insignificant matter like potatoes would cause such conflict. Miriam and Paul make their connection through nature, as they share the experience of looking at a birds’ nest. The narrator tells us, though, that it is a long time before Paul really notices Miriam. He first becomes friends with the boys, most of all Edgar. Then one day Miriam shows him the swing they have in the cowshed, and they slowly grow closer. Paul is troubled by her “intensity, which would leave no emotion on a normal plane” (153). She tells him of her desire to learn, and he agrees to teach her algebra. They are both frustrated by the effort, and Paul finds her simultaneously infuriating and attractive. One evening when Paul and Miriam are walking home, she brings him into the woods to see a particular bush because she wants to share it with him. This excursion causes him to be late coming home, and his mother is unhappy with him, partly because she is not fond of Miriam. They argue about his relationship with the girl and he insists that they are not courting. Paul organizes a walk to the Hemlock Stone on Good Friday. During this walk, Miriam notices that Paul is different when she is alone with him. On the way back, she comes upon him alone in the road, trying to fix his umbrella so his mother will not be upset, and she realizes that she loves him. Miriam and Paul get along well during another excursion to Wingfield Manor on Easter Monday. However, after this she begins to feel tormented about whether she should be ashamed of loving him, and she decides she will no longer call at his house on Thursday nights. One evening she does call, and Paul picks some flowers to pin on her dress. Paul still refuses to define his and Miriam’s relationship as that of lovers, and he forces his family to accept her as his friend. When Paul is twenty, he has saved enough money to take his family away for a holiday for two weeks at a cottage called Mablethorpe. The night before they leave, Miriam stays at the house so she doesn’t have to walk in the morning. One evening, she and Paul are walking on the beach and see a beautiful view of the moon, and Paul is confused by his instincts: he feels powerful feelings toward Miriam, but does not know how to interpret them. So they return to the cottage, Mrs. Morel admonishes him once more for being late, and the chapter ends with Paul feeling irritated at Miriam because she has made him feel unnatural. This chapter presents the conflict between logic, represented by Mrs. Morel, and religion, represented by the Leivers. Paul feels simultaneously attracted and repelled by the fascinating and different tone of life at the Leivers’ farm, Miriam’s unpleasant relationship with her brothers causes her to speculate on the fundamental differences between women and men. This may be an indication of the cruelty of her brothers or of Miriam’s sensitivity, rather than of some actual difference between all men and women. This chapter begins to suggest that Paul needs some connection beyond what he shares with his mother. In his free time, Paul is a painter, and he still needs his mother to do his best work, as he tells her. But Miriam allows him to take his work to another level; she makes him feel an intensity he has never before experienced. Miriam also seems to have some sense of this connection. She feels that, until she shows him the rose bush, she will not fully have experienced it herself. The connection between Paul and Miriam may be one reason that Mrs. Morel dislikes Miriam. “She could feel Paul being drawn away by the girl.” She seems to view Miriam as direct competition for her son’s love and attention. Summary 10 Arthur enlists in the army on a whim, and then writes a letter to his mother to try to get out of it. She is very upset and goes to the sergeant, but is not able to get him out of it. He does not like the discipline of the army, but he has no choice. Paul wins two first-prize awards in an exhibition for students’ work in the Castle, which makes his mother very proud of him, and she goes to the Castle to see his work on display. One day Paul meets Miriam in town with Clara Dawes, the daughter of an old friend of Mrs. Leivers. The next time Paul sees Miriam, she asks him what he thinks of Clara. He tells her that he likes her somewhat, and she sulks. He tells her that she is always too intense, and he longs to kiss her but cannot. When he leaves, he invites her and Edgar to tea the next day and she is happy. However, when he gets home and tells his mother, she is not pleased, and they argue. Paul feels torn between Miriam and his mother, and resents Miriam because she makes his mother suffer. She feels hurt one day when he tells her he will not meet her before a party at his house because “you know it’s only friendship.” One Friday night while Paul is doing the baking, Miriam comes to call and, when she hangs up her coat, he feels as though they live in the house together. He shows her a curtain he has made for his mother, and gives her a cushion-cover in the same design that he has made for her. They begin to talk about his work, and this is the time that Paul is happiest with Miriam. They are then interrupted by Beatrice, a friend of the family, who makes fun of Miriam and flirts with Paul until Miriam reminds him that he is supposed to be watching the bread. He has burned one of the loaves, and then begins to feel somewhat guilty for ignoring Miriam. On some level, though, he feels that she deserves it. They go over her French notebook, they read a little bit, and he walks her home. When he returns, his mother and sister are waiting for him and they have found the burnt loaf of bread. They are angry that he has been with Miriam and his mother is ill. He reconciles with his mother and realizes that he loves her more. His father comes home, and they fight, stopping only after Mrs. Morel faints, and Paul takes care of her. Paul continues to be Mrs. Morel’s favorite son, and he is the one she believes will be successful. We see finally in this chapter the way that this close relationship finally leads Paul to abandon Miriam because he loves his mother best: “She was the chief thing to him, the only supreme being.” Paul suggests that perhaps Miriam likes Clara because of her apparent grudge against men. The narrator writes that Clara’s grudge might be one of the reasons Paul himself likes her; this seems to suggest that Paul would appreciate a grudge against men, which is a somewhat puzzling idea. Paul begins to echo the actions of his father, after he argues with his mother. He flings off his boots before going to bed, just as Mr. Morel had done several chapters earlier. In addition, Paul is happiest with Miriam while they are discussing his work, just as Morel is happiest with his children while he is engaged with some work. In this chapter we see Miriam’s objectification of Paul. She thinks of him as an object weaker than herself, and never considers him as an individual or as a man. Summary 11 Paul realizes that he loves his mother more than Miriam, and Miriam seems also to realize that their relationship will never deepen. One day Paul comes to call and is unusually irritable. When Miriam begs him to tell her what is the matter, he tells her that they had better break off. She does not understand why, and he tries to tell her that, even though they have agreed that they are to be friends, “it neither stops there, nor gets anywhere else.” She finally understands that he is telling her that he does not love her and wants to leave her free for another man. Miriam feels that he is mistaken and that deep in his soul he loves her, and she is angry with him for listening to his mother, who has told him that he cannot go on in the same way unless he means to become engaged. She is angry that he lets his mother and his family tell him what he should do, thinking that she wishes the outside world would let the two of them alone. Paul misses Willey Farm when he does not go there to call on Miriam, so he continues to go there to be with Edgar and the rest of the family. He no longer spends much time alone with Miriam, but one night he ends up alone with her when Edgar stays for Communion with Mrs. Morel. They are discussing the sermon and he reads to her from the Bible, and they almost attain their previous level of harmony—until Paul begins to feel uncomfortable. Miriam invites Paul to come to the farm one day to meet Clara Dawes. He accepts and is excited to meet her. He arrives, meets her in the parlor, talks to her and Miriam for a short time, and quickly decides that he does not like her. He goes to meet Edgar on his way back from getting coal. He tells Edgar that Clara should be called ‘Nevermore’ because she is so disagreeable. Later, Miriam asks Paul to accompany the two women on a walk. They meet Miss Limb and her horse, and Clara especially is very fond of the horse. After they leave, Paul and Miriam mention that they both feel there is something strange about Miss Limb, and Clara suggests that she wants a man. Clara walks a little ahead, and Miriam asks Paul if he still finds her disagreeable. He replies that something is the matter with her, and she agrees. They arrive at a field of wildflowers, and enjoy it together. Paul and Miriam pick flowers, and Clara says she doesn’t like to pick them because she doesn’t want the corpses around her. Paul argues that it is sufficient reason that he likes and wants the flowers and that there are plenty of them, and Miriam says that the spirit in which the flowers are picked is what matters. When Clara bends forward to smell the flowers, Paul scatters cowslips over her hair and neck. Paul takes his mother to Lincoln to see the cathedral, and he becomes worried about her when she cannot climb the hill because of her heart. He laments the fact that his mother is old and ill and that he was not the eldest son, and his mother tells him that she is only a bit old and not really ill. At this time Annie is engaged to Leonard, who has a talk with Mrs. Morel because he wants to get married right away. She cautions him that neither he nor Annie has much money, and he tells her that he realizes that, but he still wants to marry Annie right away. She trusts him, as she tells Paul, and so the wedding takes place immediately. Mrs. Morel decides to buy Arthur out of the army, at which he is overjoyed. He comes home and takes up with Beatrice Wyld. Paul writes Miriam a letter attempting to explain what has happened in their love, and we are told that this is the end of the first phase of Paul’s romantic endeavors. The main significant event in this chapter is that Paul returns to his mother’s love, re-asserting her place as his closest loved one. He decides to abandon his affair with Miriam because his mother is more important, and he also strongly insists that he will not marry and leave his mother. It is also significant because it contains the first real meeting between Paul and Clara. Although their friendship does not really begin until later, this is their first important point of contact. Clara, who is portrayed as a feminist and a man-hater, makes a surprising remark that Miss Limb wants a man. This suggests that she might not be as feminist as she thinks she is, something that Paul also observes. Summary 12 Paul sends a painting to an exhibition at Nottingham Castle, and one morning Mrs. Morel gets very excited upon reading a letter. It turns out that he has won first prize and that the painting has been sold for twenty guineas to Major Moreton. Paul and his mother rejoice at his success, and he tells her that she can use the money to buy Arthur out of the army. Paul is invited to some dinner parties and tells his mother he needs an evening suit. She gives him a suit that was William’s. Paul’s newfound success prompts discussions with his mother about class and happiness. She wants her son to ascend into the middle class, but he says that he feels closest to the common people. Mrs. Morel wants her son to be happy, which seems mostly to mean finding a good woman and beginning to settle down. Paul argues that he worries a normal life might bore him. Paul maintains his connection with Miriam, able neither to break it off entirely nor to go the full way to engagement. He feels that he owes himself to her, but he begins to drift slightly away from her. Arthur is married to Beatrice, and she has a child. At first he is irritable and unhappy, but eventually he begins to accept his responsibilities and care for his wife and child. One day a mutual friend asks Paul to take a message to Clara Dawes. He goes to her house, meets her mother, and observes them working on making lace. He delivers his message, has a pleasant conversation with Clara and her mother, and leaves, having gotten a humbling view of Clara, whom he had previously believed to be so high and mighty. Paul finds out that Susan, one of the girls at Jordan’s, is leaving to get married, and so he gets Clara her job. The other girls do not like Clara because she acts like she is above them; they call her the Queen of Sheba. One day Paul is rude to Clara; later, he regrets his rudeness and brings her chocolates as an apology. On his birthday Fanny surprises him with a gift of paints that all the girls except Clara, who they do not include in their planning, have chipped in to buy him. Paul goes out walking at dinnertime with Clara, and she complains that the girls have some secret from her. Paul tells her that the secret was the planning for his birthday present, and, that evening, she sends him a book of verse and a note. This incident brings Paul and Clara closer together. They discuss what happened between Clara and her husband, and somehow the subject of Miriam comes up. Paul says that Miriam wants his soul, which he cannot give her. Clara, however, informs him that Miriam does not want his soul, only Paul himself. Paul maintains his close relationship with his mother, allowing her to live vicariously through his experiences. He tells her everything that happens in his life, and she feels as though she is a participant. William is mentioned and reflected on several times in this chapter. First of all, when they are discussing Paul’s success, Morel says that William might have been as successful as Paul, had he only lived. This statement affects Mrs. Morel deeply, and makes her feel strangely tired. When Paul tries on William’s suit, she thinks again of William but is comforted by the thought of Paul. The notion that Mrs. Morel possesses Paul is particularly strong here, and this concept, which is constant throughout the novel, may account for Paul’s failure to develop a strong relationship with another woman. In the very end of this chapter, Clara provides the motivation for Paul to go back to Miriam. It is interesting that this motivation comes from Clara, since Miriam is her chief rival (besides Mrs. Morel) for Paul’s affection. Summary 13 Inspired by Clara’s advice, Paul realizes that he must go back to Miriam. He reflects that the problems between the two of them may have been caused by the lack of sexuality in their relationship. He feels no aversion to her; rather, he feels that his desire for her has been overwhelmed by his stronger shyness and virginity. He begins to spend more time with Miriam again, much to the dismay of his mother. One day he begins a serious discussion with her about marriage, and asks her if she thinks they have been “too fierce” in their purity toward each other. He tells her that he loves her, that he has been obstinate, and he kisses her. On their way home, he asks her (not in so many words) if she will sleep with him, and she tells him that she will, but not now. Miriam feels that her submission to Paul will be a sacrifice, and it is a sacrifice she is willing to make for him. He begins to treat his relationship with her as a romantic relationship. One evening they go into the woods and “she relinquished herself to him,” but with some horror and with her soul somewhat apart. Miriam goes to stay at her grandmother’s cottage, and Paul visits her often. One holiday he goes to spend the whole day with her. She prepares dinner, for that day they feel as though they live together in that cottage. They take a walk outside after dinner, and then come back inside and make love. Paul feels that he is sacrificing Miriam and that she is allowing herself to be sacrificed because she loves him so much. During the next week, he asks her why she is so hesitant toward him, and she replies that she feels it is not quite right because they are not married. He tells her that he would like to marry her, but she feels they are too young. He begins to feel a sense of failure and to draw somewhat away from Miriam again. He begins to spend more time with his men friends and also once again with Clara. Paul tells his mother that he will break off with Miriam, because he does not love her and does not want to marry her. She is somewhat surprised, and encourages him to do whatever he thinks is best. He goes to Miriam and tells her they should break off because he does not want to marry. She is upset, tells him he is a child of four, and tells him that she knew all along that it would not work out between them. This upsets Paul and he begins to feel that she has deceived him, she had only pretended to love him. They part, each full of bitternes. Partly because of Paul’s more frequent visits to Miriam, Mrs. Morel begins to give up on him. She feels that his mind is made up, and that nothing would persuade him to change his mind and restore his loyalties to her. Lawrence’s language seems to be deliberately vague on the subject of sex; it seems that Paul and Miriam sleep together in the woods when the narrator says “she relinquished herself to him.” However, when they are in her grandmother’s cottage, it seems that he makes love to her for the first time. Paul feels as he rides home that night that he had finally moved past his youth. This vagueness of language is largely due to the strict public morality that characterized society when the novel was written. Lawrence’s books, despite his efforts at vagueness, often produced horror—many of them were even banned because of their sexual content. Summary 14 Paul begins to spend much of his time with his mother again. They go to the Isle of Wight for a holiday, and Mrs. Morel has a bad fainting fit caused by too much walking. She recovers, but Paul still feels anxious about her condition. Paul also returns to spending a great deal of time with Clara. He tells her that he has broken off with Miriam. One Saturday evening Paul and Clara go for a walk and he kisses her, then, upon leaving, he is suddenly consumed by passion for her and cannot wait for Monday to come so that he can see her again. On Monday they go walking in the afternoon and take a tram out to the country. They walk near a river and decide to go down to the bank, but because of the rain, the path is gone. They encounter two fishermen while walking along the riverbank and keep walking until they find a secluded clearing slightly above the river level. After they leave, they climb up to the top again and they stop while Paul cleans off Clara’s boots. She distracts him with kisses, but he finally finishes. They stop for tea at the house of an old woman, who gives Clara some flowers. Paul returns home and tells his mother that he has been with Clara. She cautions him because Clara is a married woman, and he tells her not to worry. He asks if she would like to meet Clara, and decides to invite her to tea at their house one Sunday afternoon. He still sees Miriam occasionally, and they talk about Clara and why she left her husband. Miriam tries to compare them to Mr. and Mrs. Morel, but Paul disagrees; he says that his mother felt passionately toward his father and that’s why she stayed with him. He feels that Clara never had this type of passion for Baxter. Miriam understands that he is trying to initiate himself into passion. He tells her that Clara is coming to tea at his house on Sunday to meet his mother, and she understands that this is an indication of his seriousness. When Clara comes to tea, she gets along well with his mother. Morel also meets her and impresses her with his politeness. Clara and Paul are in the garden looking at the flowers when Miriam arrives to say hello to Clara. She sees them together, and feels as though they are married. Mrs. Morel is not pleased to see Miriam, whom she still dislikes. All three go to chapel and, afterward, when Paul and Clara are walking home, she asks him if he will give Miriam up. He tells her that he thinks he will always be friends with Miriam, and she draws away from him slightly and mocks him, telling him to run after Miriam. He gets angry with her and kisses her in rage. They go off into the fields, where they look at the lights of the town until Clara realizes she must go to make her train. They run and she just makes the train. The next week Paul takes Clara to the theatre. She tells him to wear his evening suit, and she arrives dressed in a green evening dress. After the play, Paul realizes that he has missed his train, and Clara tells him to come home with her instead of walking. They arrive, and Clara’s mother, Mrs. Radford, makes fun of their fancy clothes. Paul and Clara sit up playing cribbage, and Mrs. Radford waits up for them. Finally Paul goes to bed, but he cannot sleep for want of Clara. After he hears Mrs. Radford go to sleep and realizes that Clara is waiting downstairs, he goes down to her and asks her to come to his bed instead of going to sleep with her mother. She refuses, and he goes back to bed. Summary 15 Paul is in a bar with some friends when Baxter Dawes enters, Clara’s husband from whom she has been separated for years. Paul offers him a drink, since he is the superior at Jordan’s, but Dawes refuses. Dawes begins to talk about Paul being at the theatre with a ‘tart,’ and Paul is about to leave when Dawes says something that causes Paul to throw a glass of beer in his face. Dawes rushes at Paul but is held back, and he is thrown out of the bar. Paul’s friends at the bar tell him that he should learn to box, so that he can take care of Dawes. When he leaves, one of the men walks with him. He tells Clara what has happened, and she does not seem surprised, saying that Baxter is a low sort of person. She wants Paul to carry a gun or a knife for protection and is angry when he refuses. One day at the factory, Paul runs into Dawes. Dawes threatens him while he carries on with his work. Finally Dawes grabs Paul’s arm, and Thomas Jordan comes out of his office to see what is happening. He tells Dawes to leave and, when he does not, grabs his arm. Dawes jerks his elbow and sends Jordan flying backward through a spring-door and down half a flight of steps. Jordan is not hurt, but he dismisses Dawes. Paul discusses love with his mother and says that perhaps something is the matter with him and that he can’t love. She says that he has not met the right woman, and he replies that he will never meet the right woman while she is alive. Clara asks him about the future, and he tells her he will go abroad and then come back to be with his mother. He tells her not to ask about the future but just to be with him now, and they surrender to their passion. She does not want a divorce from Baxter and therefore cannot belong to him completely. They both realize that they will go separate ways. One evening they pass Dawes as they are walking, and Paul does not realize who it is until after they have passed him, and Clara says it was Baxter. Another night some time later, Paul is walking alone and encounters Dawes waiting for him. They fight and Paul is hurt. He struggles to get himself home and goes to sleep, and his mother is there to take care of him when he awakes. While he is ill, Clara and then Miriam come to visit him, and he tells his mother that he doesn’t care about them. After he is better, he goes on a holiday with his friend Newton and arranges to meet his mother at Annie’s house in Sheffield. When he arrives there, Annie opens the door and he realizes that his mother is ill. They discover that she has a tumor, and Paul goes to see her doctor in Nottingham. He agrees to come to Sheffield, looks at the tumor, and says that he may be able to cure it. Mrs. Morel stays in Sheffield for two months, and then the family hires a motor-car to drive her home, at which she is very glad. Summary 16 Dr. Ansell tells Paul that Baxter Dawes is in the fever hospital in Sheffield, and Paul decides to visit him. Paul tells Dawes that he can recommend him a convalescent home in Seathorpe. He tells Clara that he has been to visit Dawes in the hospital, and she becomes upset and realizes that she has treated her husband badly. She goes to see him to try to make amends, but at first they do not get on well. Paul also visits Dawes a few times, and the two men begin to develop a sort of friendship. Paul does not spend much time with Clara now, because he is occupied with his mother’s illness. Mrs. Morel gets gradually worse, and Paul spends much time caring for her. When Clara reminds him that it is her birthday, he takes her to the seashore, but spends most of the time talking about his mother and how he wishes that she would die. The next time he sees Dawes, Paul mentions that he has been with Clara, and this is the first mention the two men make of Clara. He tells Dawes that he will go abroad after his mother dies. Time passes, and Mrs. Morel stays the same. Miriam writes to Paul and he visits her. She kisses him, believing he will be comforted, but he does not want that kind of comfort from her and finally manages to get away. Paul and Annie share the nursing of their mother. They begin to feel as if they can no longer go on, and Paul decides to give her an overdose of morphia to put an end to all their suffering. He crushes all the pills they have into his mother’ milk, and she drinks it obediently, believing it to be a new sleeping draught. She lasts through the night and finally dies the next morning. Dawes is now in a convalescent home, and Paul goes to see him again and suggests that he has plenty of life left in him and that he should try to get Clara back so that he can regain something of his former life. The next day, he and Clara bring Dawes to his lodging and Paul leaves them together. Commentary This chapter is an excellent example of the way that the novel is not always narrated in chronological order, since the first episode in which Paul visits Baxter Dawes in the hospital actually occurs before Mrs. Morel is taken home, an episode which is included in the previous chapter. Summary Clara goes back to Sheffield with her husband, and Paul is left alone with his father. There is no point in keeping their house any longer, so they each take lodgings nearby. Paul is lost without his mother. He can no longer paint, and he puts all of his energy into his work at the factory. He has debates within himself, telling himself that he must stay alive for his mother’s sake. However, he wants to give up. One Sunday evening, however, he sees Miriam at the Unitarian Church. He asks her to have supper with him quickly and she agrees. She tells him that she has been going to a farming college and will probably be kept on as a teacher there. She says that she thinks they should be married, and he says he’s not sure that would be much good. He says he does not want it very much, and so she gives up. That is the end between them. She leaves him, realizing that “his soul could not leave her, wherever she was.” Paul, alone, yearns for his mother and considers following her into death. However, he decides to leave off thinking about suicide, and instead walks toward the town. Commentary This chapter is Miriam’s last attempt finally to possess Paul, now that the obstacle of his mother is out of the way. However, by the end she sees the futility of her efforts and realizes that, even in death, Mrs. Morel still owns Paul and he can never be hers. Paul says of his mother that, “She was the only thing that held him up, himself, amid all this. And she was gone, intermingled herself. He wanted her to touch him, have him alongside with her.” This completes the book’s treatment of the relationship between Paul and Mrs. Morel and illustrates the way that his love for her has remained constant throughout.