r H Lawrence's Work of Feeling and Perception

David Herbert (1885-1930), born at Eastwood, Nottinghamshire was

e fourth of the five children. His father was .a miner, his mother was
ir. ex-schoolteach H tter, e aended Nottingham High School for three
years. He abandoned education temporarily, aged 15. He won a
scholarship to Nottingham University to study for a teacher's ertificate.. He
taught for two years, but a serious illness forced him to
ve up teaching in 1910. He eloped with Frieda, the wife of his former professor at
Nottingham and they had a stormy marriage.
is major works include short stories, poems, plays, critical and. philosophical essays as
follows:
4:. The White Peacock (1911)
The Trespasser (1912)
Sons and Lovers (1913).
The 'Rainbow (1915)
Women in Love (1920)
Kangaroo (1923)
The Plumed Serpent (1925)
Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)
Lawrence as a 'rebellious spirit decided to disregard moral taboos andt not to hesitate to
speak about anything that is human. Lawrence wanted to make people confront
their hidden selves. Thus, they would get rid of their complexes and pain. By this
outspokenness or sincerity, he shocked the public.

Lawrence was to be acknowledged and appreciated much later, after

his death. Also, his social origin (belonging to the working class) had a
great importance in his intensity of vision. He was spontaneous, ' self-
educated, and sensitive to beauty. He was ready to accept with dignity the flows of human
nature. There is a lot of sincerity and spontaneity in his work. There is also a need for
human relationship and an intense dynamic self-analysis.
He opposes to the pastoral rural world of stable values and personal
fulfillment the modern world of shaken values and artificial principles.
As a result, Lawrence's world is one constantly dichotomized between
positive and negative values. The writer does not propose the
annihilation of the dark forces within but he does-propose a balance

He wants to make his readers aware of these conflicts and

.consequences but he wants to help the readers to have new feelings. Social reality and
social relations are an important background against which the personality of his
characters is projected. His protagonists
are defined in terms of social context. Their major conflicts derive
from the clash between personal needs and impingements.

Sons and Lovers is the first novel, which made Lawrence unanimously
accepted as a talented- and original writer. It is marked by an
:'
important turning point' in his career because it reveals Lawrence's
capacity to integrate narrative complexity and the analysis of the
consciousness of his main characters.
In a letter dating back to 19xo, D. H. Lawrence confessed that this
novel was to be a considerable neltl+ 'etnent: `a novel, not a florid
prose poem'. Thus, he acknowledged the weakness of his first two
novels.
In Sons and Lovers, Lawrence combines the artistic description o
working class, life with the suggestions of the individual's dilem_,
and his inner torments. It is very interesting as an autobiography
a real psychological casebook. It.combines facts with psycholo,;i,
analysis.

Its real value is the fact that is part of an imaginative literature. It has.;
the form of. a. which centers on a growing personality
of Paul Morel from early childhood to young maturity. Lawrence relied
on self-experience.

The depiction of the working class background is deprived of idealism. Lawrence is

a realist., The family relationships in the novel reflect real situations,.in., Lawrence's
biography. and they rest upon the classical Freudian Oedipus complex of love and
domination of the mother and
hatred of the father.

The novel is social, psychological and poetic.. The plot is very simple and straightforward
and it closely watches the chronological evolution of events. It starts with the description of
Morel (father)'s married life, then the children's growth, especially Paul's adolescence
(2nd son), Paul Morel's relationship to two girls: Miriam and Clara.

The book is more, than just a simple family chronicle. It centers on Paul Morel's
emotional development Bildungsroman. It focuses on a gradualemancipation;
,mother and the two girls.
tragedy of their marital life results from each one's failure to adept
the different temper and education of the partner. Consequently,
s. Morel turned to her sons trying to influence them, to feel as she
Gradually she comes to possess their personalities. Later on, the
real conflict between the Morels springs from the mother's
lationship to the two sons and it ends in the two sons unsuccessful,
scatggle to establish their own independent manhood.
"Mrs. Morel turns away from her husband and takes possession of her
rsohs' personality and soul. They cannot become men. This exaggerated
feeling of possession reccurs in Paul's relation to Miriam and its aim is
:o emphasize the major offence against life: the failure to respect the
omplete personality of a person.
1his domineering love, first from Mrs. Morel, destroys first William
ho can never, achieve spiritual communion with any woman. He is
of able to stand the inner strain and dies under his mother's care.
he same motif is repeated in the case of Paul who is stronger and
 awl's relationship to Miriam fails because she is another version of
?vlrs. Morel, she takes possession of her lover. In a sense, Paul needs
Miriam although she stirs in him contradictory feelings: `She was his
onscience'. But, gradually, Paul realizes that this 'conscience is too Much for him.
The result is that Paul is constantly torn between love and hatred
towards Miriam; this is a mixed feeling, which leads to a break of their
relationship. Paul falls into the clutches of Possession.

As opposed to Miriam, the cerebral girl, Clara, ' is passionate. The

relationship between Paul and Clara is, however,, unilateral and Paul
fails to discover 'true fulfillment in his second love as well. The. suggestion of the
novelist is Paul's 'quitting the darkness of his home'
and his walking `to the phosphorescence of the city'.

The main idea of the novel is the personal disintegration of the

individual caught in the traps of modern civilization. The human
personality in the novel is permanently torn between. passion and .
intellect, it also fails to achieve psychological balance, it is finally
crushed. But this personality is constantly at odds with social reality. Paul is not able to
function as an integrated character.

8.1.3 Poetic and Artistic Imagery in Sons and Iovers

The most frequent symbolism is the flower symbolism. Its importance

is not just pictorial. It helps to define the character's inner drives and
specific behaviour. Paul and Miriam very often meet in a garden and
respond to the beauty of the picture, to the fascinating aspect of
lfowers.
Moreover, Miriam's attitude to flowers suggests to Paul that she is too
possessive and seeking to absorb and to annihilate. By contrast, one
can witness Clara's reluctance to pick flowers because she is aware
that after she picked them they become corpses. She is not possessive.
 sely associated with the flower symbolism is the image of the
jonlight of torrential force and the magnificent and the inhuman.
moon is a symbolical perman nte, an image that always suggests
'terious relationships between light and darkness. We find these
)positions on a parallel way on the human existence on the social
,el implying the contrast between the work in the mines and the life
tside and secondly on the psychological level in the form of a light of (nscious
experience and the darkness of instincts.
he images of the coalpits are important, too, as well as their
arkness. They are associated with Mr. Morel primitive inclination.
,, hey also stand for a kind of virility and powerful life ambivalent

` symbol.
The Rainbow).Tn
there is a symbolism of arches, too (also in Sons
ind Lovers, Paul favours the horizontal Norman arches because to
oim they mean `the dogged leaping forward of the persistent human
soul', while Miriam likes the Gothic arch because it `leaps up at heaven
ind touches
ecstasy'.
The Rainbow and Women in Love developed the artistic devices and made him into' one of the major contributors to

modern

experimentalism.

The Rainbow gives the impression of a family ehrrniicle along three generations of the
Brangwens. ARJthough 'constructed 'upon the principle of chronological evolution. it
focuses on a cycle of
overlapping generations and the history of relationships within the
cycle.

The novel enacts the rhythms of time. The main motif in doing so is the movement from
one generation to another, and. the dialectal relationship between change and
continuity. These two aspects define the historical evolution of the social
environment and, a. corresponding
change in the individual.
This novel shows the relationship between two spheres: the collision between the
individual, a changing man, with the rapidly changing
world. It starts with the description, a pastoral description, of the Brangwens' farm,
which emphasizes a characteristic: the Brang-wens' capacity to establish intimacy
with nature and the rhythms of life. These people have passion for work; they establish
intercourse with nature. Here we find a search for completion, which is important for
all Lawrence's protagonists.

The transition from one generation to another is marked by decay in

the. nature of human relationships. It ends with the individual's
gradual denial of modern civilization, only a serious warning against the crippling effects
of modern civilization - the symbol of the
rainbow!