This is for students studying Sons and Lovers by David Herbert Lawrence and may want a pre- introduction to the book before they actually begin studying the novel for analysis. It contains vocabulary used in the book you may need to know, his biography and a brief synopsis of the book. It is tailored for students writing CAPE literature exams. a thorough analysis of the book will be coming in the future.

1. D.H LAWRENCE
Sons and Lovers
THE INTRODUCTION: THINGS YOU NEED TO
KNOW BEFORE YOU STUDY THE BOOK
PART ONE

2. BIOGRAPHY
Lawrence was born in 1885 in Eastwood (the ‘Bestwood’ of the novel) to a mining
family living in a large village near Nottingham. His mother, Lydia was a educated
refined women who came from a background somewhat superior to the mining
community she married into. She was not happy in her marriage and found life with
him very limited and unsatisfying. Though Lawrence’s father was perhaps not as rough
as Morel in the novel, there is no doubt that Lydia Lawrence was disappointed in her
marriage and they frequently had loud noisy arguments which frightened her children.
Later in life, Lawrence thought perhaps he had misjudged his father for the living and
the warm is better than the cold and the dead.
Due to Lawrence’s mother who exerted a great influence on him he went to the High
School in Nottingham where he stayed till he was sixteen. In that year he meet the
original ‘ Miriam’ of the novel, a girl called Jessie Chambers. Jessie lived with her
brothers and parents on a farm, read romantic literature, attended chapel and had an
idealized intellectual affair with the young Lawrence. After school, he worked for a
while in Haywood’s surgical goods factory on which Jordon’s is based and then decided
to become a schoolmaster. He spent four years (1902-1906) as a trainee teacher and
then two years (1906- 1908) at Nottingham University College where he finally qualified
as a teacher.

3. BIOGRAPHY
His early interests were drawings and music, botany and French. Both Mrs Morel’s
pride in her garden and the French literature with Paul and Miriam study attest to
that. In 1908, he got accepted at a school in London and left his home for almost
the first time. The long period of close attachment to his mother, to his home and
to the Eastwood mining community was crucial to Lawrence’s development.
He went on to write novels of all sorts namely:
• Kangaroo (Australia)
• The Plumed Serpent (Mexico)
• Women in Love
• The Rainbow
• Lady Chatterley’s Lover
• Sons and Lovers
• The White Peacock

4. BIOGRAPHY
David Herbert Lawrence (1885- 1930), the latter part of the 17th century. . .
Is remembered as a pioneer of sexual and psychological description as his
reputation as a writer and the notoriety of his books cannot be clearly separated.
Like Thomas Hardy, he saw the last of rural England disappearing before the final
onslaught of industrialization and felt that mechanization of the world also implied
a corroding of human relationships. Lawrence believed that most people are only
alive half of the time but his attempt at an honest description of human sexual
relations was at the time labeled as pornography by some and indecent by others.
Unlike so many of his contempories, he did not come from a background of
privilege and wealth. He was born the fourth child of an illiterate coal miner. The
death of his mother to whom he was very attached in 1910 provided material for
his third novel Sons and Lovers (1913) which established his reputation as a writer.
The book is largely autobiographical and shows the sensitive Paul Morel to be
attracted to his mother and afraid of his brutal and drunken father.

5. D.H LAWRENCE QUOTES
 “A great deal of the meaning of life and of art lies in the apparently dull places, the
pauses, the unimportant passages. . .”
 “Never trust the story- teller, trust the tale.”

6. Vocabulary for Sons and Lovers
• Bildungsroman
• Mid-century literature
• The Oedipus Complex
• Herbert Spencer
• Bourgeiosie literature

7. VOCABULARY EXPLAINED
Bildungsroman
(German for: "formation novel") is a genre of the novel which focuses on the
psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood.
Change is thus extremely important.]The genre is further characterized by a
number of formal, topical and thematic features. The term coming-of-age novel is
sometimes used interchangeably with Bildungsroman.
A Bildungsroman tells about the growing up or coming of age of a sensitive person
who is looking for answers and experience. The genre evolved from folklore tales
of a dunce or youngest son going out in the world to seek his fortune. Usually in
the beginning of the story there is an emotional loss which makes the protagonist
leave on his journey. In a Bildungsroman, the goal is maturity, and the protagonist
achieves it gradually and with difficulty. The genre often features a main conflict
between the main character and society. Typically, the values of society are
gradually accepted by the protagonist and he is ultimately accepted into society –
the protagonist's mistakes and disappointments are over. In some works, the
protagonist is able to reach out and help others after having achieved maturity.

8. VOCABULARY EXPLAINED
The Oedipus complex is a term used by Sigmund Freud in his
theory of psychosexual stages of development to describe a
boy's feelings of desire for his mother and jealously and anger
towards his father. Essentially, a boy feels like he is in
competition with his father for possession of his mother. He
views his father as a rival for her attentions and affections.
Sigmund Freud is the father of modern psychology. It refers to
Sigmund’s theory that all children are more or less affected
by the sexually based feelings about their parents, particularly
that boys will always have some sort of desire for the mother
and jealousy for the father.

9. Vocabulary explained
Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an
English philosopher, biologist, anthropologist, sociologist, and
prominent classical liberal political theorist of the Victorian
era.

10. SYNOPSIS OF SONS AND LOVERS
The first part of the novel focuses on Mrs. Morel and her unhappy marriage to a
drinking miner. She has many arguments with her husband, some of which have
painful results: on separate occasions, she is locked out of the house and hit in the
head with a drawer. Estranged from her husband, Mrs. Morel takes comfort in her
four children, especially her sons. Her oldest son, William, is her favorite, and she
is very upset when he takes a job in London and moves away from the family.
When William sickens and dies a few years later, she is crushed, not even noticing
the rest of her children until she almost loses Paul, her second son, as well. From
that point on, Paul becomes the focus of her life, and the two seem to live for each
other.
Paul falls in love with Miriam Leivers, who lives on a farm not too far from the
Morel family. They carry on a very intimate, but purely platonic, relationship for
many years. Mrs. Morel does not approve of Miriam, and this may be the main
reason that Paul does not marry her. He constantly wavers in his feelings toward
her.

11. SYNOPSIS OF SONS AND LOVERS
Paul meets Clara Dawes, a suffragette who is separated from her husband,
through Miriam. As he becomes closer with Clara and they begin to
discuss his relationship with Miriam, she tells him that he should consider
consummating their love and he returns to Miriam to see how she feels.
Paul and Miriam sleep together and are briefly happy, but shortly
afterward Paul decides that he does not want to marry Miriam, and so he
breaks off with her. She still feels that his soul belongs to her, and, in part
agrees reluctantly. He realizes that he loves his mother most, however.
After breaking off his relationship with Miriam, Paul begins to spend more
time with Clara and they begin an extremely passionate affair. However,
she does not want to divorce her husband Baxter, and so they can never
be married. Paul’s mother falls ill and he devotes much of his time to
caring for her. When she finally dies, he is broken-hearted and, after a final
plea from Miriam, goes off alone at the end of the novel.