Sons and Lovers

About the book

The Morel household begins with the troubled marriage of Gertrude and Walter, a miner whose habits and circumstances increasingly estrange his wife. Her intense investment in her children shapes the world in which Paul grows towards work, artistic aspiration, and adult attachment. Relationships with Miriam and Clara offer different forms of connection, yet neither can be understood apart from the bond with his mother. Lawrence gives domestic argument, industrial labour, landscape, bodily sensation, and changing moods an unusually immediate presence. The novel does not reduce its conflicts to a single declared motive: affection can sustain a person while also making separation difficult. Its account of growing up asks how a life can become independent when the feelings that nourish it also establish the terms on which other relationships are judged.

• Family attachment
• Independence
• Desire and conflict

Why read it

For an emotionally detailed account of formation in which family intimacy shapes the possibilities and limits of adult love.

Novel · English text