D.H Lawrence and Marrige

The novels of D.H.Lawrence characteristically examine changing human relationships. How is Marriage viewed and developed through these changing relationships?

Lawrence came from a working class family. His novels are poignant to the Nineteenth Century because of his background, giving a greater sense of realism to his work. In this examination I am particularly interested in Sons and Lovers, The Rainbow and Women in Love. These novels examine Changing Human relationships at a deep level, making them works of interest in accordance to my study. Lawrence based his work on wholeness which is the unity of being and experience. I particularly want to examine how Marriage is viewed and developed though the changing relationships in the characters in three of his novels. In the time of Lawrence the world was male dominated. The husband was the breadwinner and the wife stayed at home,

Miriam is the woman who causes Paul’s mother so much stress. Mrs Morel is cold towards her, as she knows that she is danger of losing Paul to this girl. Miriam is unhappy with her suffocating life because of her reading and education, Paul elieviates this feeling from her as they share common interests and think similarly. The mother’s manipulation is clearly stated when she tells Paul ‘I can’t bear it. I could let another woman –but not her. She’d leave me no room, not a bit of room’ quote. In fact all the women are presented as emotionally frustrated in one sense or another but the main character of interest is Mrs Morel. Once Paul has abandoned Clara and Miriam he returns to his mother for safety but it is too late and we find she is dying. Clara realises too that she is not fulfilled emotionally in her relationship with Paul and they part amiably. Paul in meeting with her at the hospital suggests that she treated her husband badly and re-unites them.

Another important change in relationship occurs when William gets a job in London and Mrs Morel felt ‘as if he were going out of her heart’ p67. William now becomes the breadwinner in the family, further alienating the father. Although William becomes more like his father whilst in London, going to dances. He is fond of women that his mother strongly disapproves of because of her suffocating love for him. She realises now that William is grown up and away from home and she no longer has any control over what he does. He no longer is dependable for sending money and eventually becomes ill and dies. Had this not happened Mrs Morel would have failed in her moulding of William and suffered more painfully as he became more and more like his father. When he dies something dies in Mrs Morel, she feels guilty because she pushed him away and filled him with her desires and now she can ‘only brood on her dead son’ p168. Mrs Morel physically raises herself above the mundane things of life and becomes mortal rather than physical in her need to love and possess. She tries to get to the roots and delve onto its sub-conscious. Now that William was dead she had become a widow, mourning for the loss of her lover. Paul was rejected for a while until he became sick also and Mrs Morel poured all her life into his care, not wanting to make the same mistake as before. Paul is a great success compared to her failure with William.

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