[Music] you welcome to EPG parcel up I am dr. P P I J gamma roster of English school of distance education University of Kerala today we will discuss the novel Sons and Lovers by D H Lawrence and this is part of the paper twentieth century English literature a writer is part of his Society and the particular age in which he lives influences the writer very much D H Lawrence was influenced by the age in which he lived and it was an age which was chaotic full of confusions and chaos Wars and the novels of D H Lawrence present in a clear fashion the confusions and chaos of that particular age so in that sense we can say that D H Lawrence imbibed with the spirit of the age he was born in a middle-class family his father was a miner and he was illiterate he did not know even to write his name whereas his mother was an educated lady she was the daughter of an engineer and the kind of relation between his father and mother was tense and the problems within the family affected the children very much and these problems to a certain extent are the cause of the creative tension in D H Lawrence the normal son San Luis is considered to be semi-autobiographical and it presents several experiences in the life of the order and we find that his mother and his father also appear in the novel in the novel Lawrence actually he is represented through the character Paul Morel and his relationship with his father and mother and with his ladylove are all very much connected with his with his personal life now let us look at the major works of D H Lawrence he has written several novels like the white peacock the trespasser Sons and Lovers the rainbow women in love and in all these novels what we find is a novelist who tries to trace the kind of moral confusion and the experiences of his time the spirit of the age we can say he is imbibed by him and he was successful in presenting that spirit through his novels some send ours is a novel which is very close to D H Lawrence is hard because it presents the real experiences of Lawrence as a child and as a grown up man we find that he tries to analyze his relationships through this novel his relationship with his mother and his relationship with other women as well as his relationship with his father so it is to a certain extent a journey into his own self and attempt to understand his own experiences and to place him at the right position here it is to be noted that D H Lawrence was also a point he has written several poems and most of his poems are about plants animals nature etc some of the titles of his voice poems fish snake mountain lion bavarian gentian look we have come through all these suggests his interest in nature so as a writer we can say D H Lawrence was much interested in his own society and his nature and he was a very good observer of life Lawrence's interest in nature actually led him to the primitive religion which focused on the mystical understanding of nature so his understanding of nature is to a certain extent we can say influenced by the approach of these primitive religions he was also interested in the psychoanalytic theory of Freud and it was alleged that son st. Louis is a novel were the theory of Oedipus complex was used it may not be right to say that he wrote this novel to present the theory of Oedipus complex but at the same time critics often read such a kind of relationship between the hero of the novel and his mother it is true that the psychoanalytic theory can be used to read this novel and that many readings of the sword has come up so far another important idea that the novel puts forward is the kind of discussion on sexuality and sexual freedom the novel presents the young man Pole having relationships with other women whereas we find that because of mother fixation he was not able to come to terms with his ladylove he could not love these ladies mainly because of the possessive nature of his mother and that creates a kind of psychological block for him and the novel actually puts forward the idea of the conflicts that happened within the mind of the character and the kind of pools opposing pools that happen in his mind between his mother and his ladylove so in that sense we can say that it is also a psychological novel we know that psychological novel is often associated with Fyodor Dostoevsky in Russian novel dostoyevsky's novels are good examples of psychological realism but D H Lawrence to a certain extent develops this style of writing and tries to present the confrontation that happens within the mind as well as outside side by side and forces several questions about the contemporary morality it is true that he argues for a kind of sexual freedom and we can say that his writing is against the kind of control and the possessiveness that is often associated with sexuality now we will come to the theme of the novel the actual content of the novel the novel actually deals with the story of a family the first part of the novel focuses on mrs. Morel and her unhappy marriage to a drinking minor she has many arguments with her husband some of which have painful results sometimes she's 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 William her oldest son is her favorite 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 poll becomes the focus of her life and the two seem to live for each other so here the mother's love for the children is so intense and a certain extent it is because of the fact that her relationship with her husband is not so normal poor falls in love with Miriam who lives on a farm not too far from the moral 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 towards her Paul meets Clara Dawes a suffragette who is separated from harassment through Miriam as he becomes closer with Clara and they begin to discuss his relationship with Miriam she tells him that he should consider consume ating their love and he returns to Miriam to see how she feels Paul and Miriam sleep together and are briefly happy but shortly afterward for 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 how so here we find that the inability of poll to develop a strong relationship with a girlfriend is mainly because of his affection for his mother and also because of the fact that his mother never wanted him to have such a love relationship as she is afraid of the fact that she will lose him after breaking of 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 die who's her husband Baxter and so they can never be married poles mother falls ill and he devotes much of his time to caring for her when she finally dies he is brokenhearted and after a final plea from Miriam goes off alone at the end of the novel all the novels of Lawrence are more or less autobiographical in Asia but sunset lovers is almost a carbon copy of his life the principal characters of the novel and the central situations are drawn from Lawrence's early life like poor morals father Laurence's father was also a minor uncultured and drunk like Paul's mother Lawrence's mother was her husband's direct opposite from this we understand that the novel has a very strong connection with Lawrence's life Lawrence himself had a very strained relationship with his father he was much repelled by the coarseness and the brutality of his behavior and he developed a strong attachment to his mother his mother too was very much affectionate to him to a certain extent because of her lack of affection for her husband who was different in nature as said before the mother belongs to a middle-class family and she was educated and her prejudice towards an illiterate husband might have resulted in her resentment towards him so in the absence of a healthy relationship with her husband she fell back upon her children and this affection was interpreted by critics as the OD people complex the title of the novel actually refers to this or deep-well complex sons and lovers the title refers to the idea that for the mother the sons are also lovers the term Oedipus complex refers to the mythical story of King Oedipus who mistakenly married his mother killing his father so Sigmund Freud the psychoanalyst actually developed a theory out of it which tries to argue that the mother always will have such a an affection for her children male children the female child will have a similar affection for her father so here whatever may be the theory that is applied to read the novel it is true that the novel attempts to present the complex relationship between the mother and her sons and the kind of conflict that was presented within the family with the father on one side and the mother and the sons on the other it is true that mother's influence was very strong in the character of the novelist as well it was his mother who gave him the love and affection in his childhood days and his orientation in life was to a certain extent shaped by his mother his love of literature and his interest in his studies were all developed and inspired by his mother so in the sense the autobiographical element in the novel is very strong we find that light pole Lawrence was also unable to develop a strong relationship with his ladylove Jessie even though he had a very long relationship or most for ten years with her and the reason for the same was the kind of mother fixation that he suffered from and through this novel son Salah was we can say that Lawrence was reliving his own experience in artistic terms or in another since the novel can be seen as a response to his complex relationships with women so when we look at the novel from different angles we find that apart from these social and personal references another important theme in this novel is man's relationship with nature as we have seen earlier Lawrence was a person who adored nature he has strong association with the early philosophies or primitive religions which adored nature he was to a certain extent and advocate of that kind of relationship with nature we find that the civilization and the so-called development has destroyed nature and Lawrence's reaction like the that of the romantics we can say is a reaction against the destruction of nature as a result of the so called development and the civilization according to him we can derive a kind of energy and power from nature Nature has its own energy within it and getting into contact with nature will naturally help man in imbibing that energy so he advocates a harmonious relationship with nature and his novel some Sun lovers present that attitude in a very clear fashion it is also true that his poems are very good examples of his love of nature so far we have discussed some of the important ways in which the novel can be understood how we can say that the major theme of the novel is human relationship we find that the novelist presents the story of the family and the happenings within the family as well as within the mind of the characters and it is the complex relationships between the mother and the sons and the father and the mother and the father and the sons that become the central concern of the novel the novelist actually attempts and analysis of these relationships and he would like to present the idea that the relationships shall be healthy and human so the novel in essence presents the necessity for such a proper understanding between individuals the narrative style of the novel is also very DHC Lawrence is well-known for his style of writing and more than that he uses symbols especially color symbolism in his novels he presents bright colors like red scarlet gold to indicate love emotion life and its intensity and he uses dark colors like grey etc to suggest the lack of vigor and lack of passion and emotion or Lao so the narrative is full of such images and symbols which enriches the novel as far as the reader is concerned it is a real treat for him when we look at the style of the novel we find that it is to a certain extent realistic as far as the form is concerned it follows the pattern of a realistic novel but at the same time we find that the focus of the novel is on the psychic experiences and not on what happens outside the mind so we find a kind of innovative style combining the realism and the modernist techniques there is rich symbolism also we find that the author's commentary is another important aspect of the narrative style and the novel presents reality from different angles so consciously the writer tries to build different levels of experience and enables the readers to look at the novel from different angles so we can say that being a modernist writer D H Lawrence succeeds in presenting the complex experiences that happen within the mind of the characters through the innovative technique that he has adopted so now I think we can look at the whole structure of the novel love is one of the important themes in this novel love as well as absence of love pervades the novel and at the same time we find that different aspects of love are also touched upon now can be very creative it can be spiritual it can be physical physical it can be destructive as well so these various manifestations of love are presented in this novel because we find that there is a kind of physical love between poor and Clara which does not last long which creates problems for poor and the kind of love between them can be termed as destructive because it does not give them happiness and OD Palau between Paul and his mother is also to a certain extent destructive because it prevents him from entering into a normal law the girl and we find that the same love between his mother and pole which is spiritual in nature helps him to develop as an individual helps him in developing interest in art literature etc and in that sense it is creative so we find the novel depicting the various manifestations of love it is not necessary to make a comparative analysis of different types of now because we find that the novel doesn't find an answer to the questions it poses questions and doesn't stand for an answer sunset lovers is a novel that presents the complex relationship between human beings and which looks into the various dimensions of love and we find that the novel innocence attempts to present these questions these problems before the reader without waiting for an answer it is the duty of the reader to analyze it and to ponder over it so far we have discussed some of the important dimensions of this novel we had a discussion on the author D H Lawrence and the novel and the various themes interpretations of the novel and I think you have got a general idea about the novel assets you can go through the section further reading for more details and it will be good if you go through the different interpretations of the novel we find that Sons and Lovers has been discussed widely by critics from different parts of the world and more interpretations are still to come so try to develop your own view about the novel thank you