Sons and Lovers Summary and Suggestion

Sons and Lovers Summary and Suggestion

Honours 4th year
20th Century Novel
Sons and Lovers - D.H. Lawrence

 

Part A : Brief Questions with Answers

Sons and Lovers Summary

1. When and where was D. H. Lawrence born?

Ans. David Herbert Lawrence was born on September 11, 1885, in the mining village of Eastwood, Nottinghamshire in England.

2. What do you know of Lawrence’s parents?

 

Ans. Lawrence e was the fourth child and the third son of John Arthur Lawrence, a coal miner, and Lydia Beardsall, a daughter of a respectable lower middle class family.

3. What was the social standing of Lawrence’s mother?

Ans. Lydia Beardsall, Lawrence’s mother was a school teacher and superior to her husband in both social standing and culture. She could speak the king’s English well and never spoke the dialect of his father and other miners.

4. What do you know of Lawrence’s early life?

 

Ans. Lawrence grew up in the harsh, degrading atmosphere of poverty and drink, and at an early age he succumbed to pneumonia which weakened his resistance and paved the way for an incipient tuberculosis.

5. What do you know of Lawrence’s education?

Ans. Physically weak, but intensely studious, Lawrence was encouraged by his mother in his desire for knowledge, and when he was thirteen, he won a scholarship from his council School to Nottingham High School, where he remained for three years.

6. When did Lawrence take a job?

 

Ans. On leaving school at sixteen Lawrence took a job of a clerk in a firm of surgical goods manufacturers, but finding this dull and wholly unsatisfying, he soon gave it up to become a pupil-teacher at Eastwood.

7. Wherefrom did Lawrence obtain his certificate in teaching?

Ans. In 1903 at the age of eighteen, Lawrence entered the training department of University college, Nottingham and on obtaining his teacher’s certificate two years later, he was for a short time a teacher in a school at Croydone, near London.

8. What is the name of Lawrence’s first novel and when published?

 

Ans. The name of Lawrence’s first novel is The White Peacock. It was published in both England and America in 1911, when he was twenty five.

9. When was the novel, Sons and Lovers written and published?

Ans. The writing of the novel Sons and Lovers was completed before the end of November, 1912 and published in 1913.

Sons and Lovers Summary

10. What kind of novel is Sons and Lovers?

Ans. Sons and Lovers is a semi-autobiographical novel. Paul Morel, the hero of the novel is Lawrence himself but the resemblance between the two does not occur in every detail.

11. In what sense is Sons and Lovers a psychological novel?

 

Ans. Sons and Lovers is the first psychological novel in English. It deeply examines the Freudian theory of the Oedipus complex.

12. What is the setting of Lawrence’s novel Sons and Lovers?

Ans. The setting of the novel, Sons and Lovers is in the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire area of England, an area of about 125 miles northwest of London. The small town of Eastwood, called Bestwood in the novel, is Lawrence’s birthplace. It is a mining village about 8 miles away from Nottingham.

13. What do you mean by “Hell Row”?

 

Ans. “Hell Row” refers to the kind of dwellings which were inhabited by the miners in Eastwood (called Bestwood in the novel Sons and Lovers). Originally, there was a group of buildings which were nicknamed “Hell Row”. This was a block of thatched cottages which stood by the brook-side on Greenhill Lane.

 

14. How was the village Bestwood constituted?

Ans. The cottages, some in blocks and some in pairs, together with few farms and few homes of the stockings, constituted the village of Bestwood.

15. What does “Bottoms” mean?

 

Ans. “Hell Row”, the dwellings of the colliers was burned down because of its filthiness and the company owning the coal mines in Nottinghamshire area, built a large quadrangle of dwellings on the site of “Hell Row”. These dwellings were known as the “Bottoms”.

16. How many blocks did the “Bottoms” consist of?

Ans. The “Bottoms” consisted of six blocks of miners’ dwellings, in two rows of three blocks each.

17. What were the living conditions of the miners in the Bottoms?

 

Ans. The dwellings of the Bottoms had front gardens, and between the rows, went the alley where the children played, the women gossiped, and the men smoked. But the actual conditions of living in the Bottoms, which looked so decent, were unpleasant because the kitchens were opened to the nasty Cash-pits.

18. How does Gertrude fall in love with Walter Morel at first sight?

Ans. Gertrude Coppard meets Mr. Walter Morel at a Christmas party at the age of 23. She is at once fascinated with his smartness, sense of humour, good manners and manliness.

19. When are Gertrude and Walter Morel married?

 

Ans. Gertrude Coppard and Walter Morel are married the next Christmas after their first meeting at the previous Christmas party.

20. What is the first shock that splits the conjugal life of the Morels?

Ans. The split in the conjugal life occurs in the 7th month when Mrs Morel discovers that the house they live in belongs to Mr. Morel’s mother. Mr. Morel conceals from his wife that he has been running a dancing class in the Miners’ Arms clubroom for over five years.

Part B : Short Questions

Sons and Lovers Summary

 

1. What do you know about the setting of Sons and Lovers?
2. How dose Nottinghamshire provide Paul with the industrial and the natural sides of his fascination?
3. Do you find any resemblance between D.H. Lawrence and Paul Morel?
4. What use does Sons and Lover make of the ‘Oedipus complx’?

 

Or,

What is ‘Oedipus complex’? How is it treated in the novel, Sons and Lovers?

5. Write a short note on the Stream of Consciousness technique.
6. What is Lawrence’s attitude to sex?
7. What do you understand by the law of polarity (or polarization)?
8. In what sense is Sons and Lovers a novel about class?
9. Discuss in brief Lawrence’s mysticism.
10. How does Lawrence apply ‘impressionism’ or impressionistic technique in Sons and Lovers?
11. Do you find any moral lesson/ moral vision in Sons and Lovers?
12. What do you mean by the Bottoms?
13. What is Lawrence’s idea about the battle of sexes or the man-woman conflict in Sons and Lovers?

 

Or,

What is Lawrence’s idea about the man-woman conflict in Sons and Lovers?

14. What, according to Lawrence, are the consequences of over-possessiveness in married life?
15. What is the significance of Paul-Miriam episode?

 

Or,

Why did Paul’s relationship with Miriam fail?

Or,

 

Do you find alternation between love and hate in Paul-Miriam relationship?

16. Bring out the significance of Paul-Clara relationship in Sons and Lovers?
17. Discuss the symbolic use of ‘coal-pits’ in ‘Sons and Lovers’.
18. What does the swing at Willey Farm signify?
19. Discuss in brief the symbol of Ash-tree in Sons and Lovers.
20. What impression of Baxter Dawes have you formed from your reading of Sons and Lovers?
21. Briefly describe the last day in Gertrude Morel’s life.

Explanations

Sons and Lovers Summary

1.”The pity was, she was too much his apposite. She could not be content with the little he might be; she would have him the much that he ought to be. So, in seeking to make him nobler than he could be, she destroyed him”.

2. “She had felt that, more or less, what he did to himself, he did to her. Her living depended on him. There were many stages in the ebbing of her love for him, but it was always ebbing.”

 

Or,

During his recuperation, when it was really over between them, both made an effort to come back somewhere to the old relationship of the first months of their marriage”.

3.”She saw him saddled with an elegant and expensive wife, earning little money, dragging along and getting draggled in some small ugly house in a suburb”

4. “She is one of those who will want to suck a man’s soul out till he had none of his own left,” she said to herself.
5. “But, Lord, if it is Thy will that I should love him, make me love him-as Christ would, who died for the souls of men. Make me love him splendidly, because he is Thy son”.
6. “If she put her arm in his, it caused him almost torture. His consciousness seemed to split. The place where she was touching him ran hot with friction. He was one internecine battle, and he became cruel to her because of it”.
7. “She wants to draw him out and absorb him till there is nothing left of him, even for himself. He will never be a man on his own feet-she will suck him up.”
8. “I can’t hear it. I could let another woman-but not her. She’d leave me no room, not a bit of room…”
9. “You absorb, absorb, as if you must fill yourself up with love, because you’ve got a shortage somewhere”.
10. “See, you are a nun, I have given you what I would give a holy nun-as a mystic monk to a mystic nun”.
11. “She brooded and brooded and brooded herself towards accepting him”.
12. “You can’t come out of yourself, you can’t. Baxter could do that better than you.”
13. “But-you love me so much, you want to put me in your pocket. And I should die there smothered”
14. “Turning sharply, he walked towards the city’s gold phosphorescence. His fists were shut, his mouth set fast. He would not take that direction to the darkness, to follow her. He walked towards the faintly humming, glowing town quickly”.

 

Short Notes

1. Modern Nobel
2. Autobiography
3. Ocdipus Complex
4. Stream of Consciousness Technique
5. The Lawrence hero
6. The Bottoms
7. Coal Pits
8. Ash-Tree
9. Willey Farm
10. Arthur Morel
11. Lily Western
12. Annie
13. Willam Morel
14. The Leiverses
15. Nottinghamshire

 

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Part C : Broad Questions

Sons and Lovers Summary

1. Show how Lawrence points to the damaging influence of the mother upon the life of her sons in Sons and Lovers.
2. Comment on the father-son relationship in Sons and Lovers.
3. Why does Paul fail to achieve meaningful relationship with either Miriam or Clara in Sons and Lovers?

 

Or,

Write a note on the man-woman conflict in Sons and Lovers.

4. What influence of modern psychology do you notice in Sons and Lovers?

Or,

What elements of modern psychology have been incorporated in Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers?

 

Or,

How far is Lawrence a novelist of psychoanalysis?

Or,

To what extent does Lawrence apply the technique of the stream of consciousness in Sons and Lovers?

5. In Lawrence’s novels there is a relationship between man and nature. Discuss.

 

Or,

Discuss Lawrence’s use and treatment of Nature in Sons and Lovers.

Or,

Comment on Lawrence’s treatment of Nature in Sons and Lovers.

6. How does Lawrence portray the agricultural and industrial England in Sons and Lovers?

 

Or,

How does Lawrence portray the working class life in Sons and Lovers?

7. Can you trace ‘Oedipus complex’ in Sons and Lovers?

Or,

Show how mother-fixation exercises a negative influence on the future lives of the sons in Sons and Lovers.

 

Or,

Comment Oedipus Complex as reflected in Sons and Lovers.

8. To what extent is Sons and Lovers an autobiographical novel?

Or,

Bring out comment on the autobiographical elements in Sons and Lovers.

9. Comment on the treatment of family life in Sons and Lovers.

Or,

Sons and Lovers Summary

Comment on the relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Morel and show its impact on the lives of their sons in Sons and Lovers?

11. Is Gertrude Morel a tragic character? Give reasons for your answer.
12. Do you consider Walter Morel a tragic character? Justify your answer.

Or,

Examine and estimate Walter Morel as a tragic character.

 

Or,

In Sons and Lovers, Walter Morel has been depicted as a pathetic figure who fails to command the respect of his family. How far is this statement true?

12. What is the significance of the Paul-Miriam episode in Sons and Lovers?

 

Or,

How do you account for the failure of the Paul-Miriam love relation in Sons and Lovers?

13. Discuss the significance of Paul-Clara episode in Sons and Lovers.

Or,

What are the reasons for the failure of Paul-Clara bin relationship in Sons and Lovers?

14. Discuss Lawrence’s treatment of love and marriage in Sons and Lovers.

 

Or,

Comment on the themes of love, sex and marriage in Sons and Lovers.

15. Comment on Lawrence’s use of symbols in Sons and Lovers.
16. Write a note on traditional and modern element in Sons and Lovers.
17. Justify the title of the novel, Sons and Lovers.
18. State, briefly, the difference you notice in the art of characterization as found in Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers and Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.
19. How did the difference in class-basis between Mr. and Mrs. Morel impact in Sons and Lovers?
20. Discuss the failure of human relationship in Sons and Lovers.
21. Show how D.H. Lawrence has portrayed the then social relationship in Sons and Lover.

 

Sons and Lovers Summery – If you have any question on this topic than you also give your feedback using comment section.

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