为莫瑞尔夫人一辩-试评D.H.劳伦斯的《儿子与情人》

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Chapter One

Introduction

Chapter One

Introduction

David Herbert Lawrence (1885-1930) was born on September 11, 1885, in

Eastwood, Nottingham, a small mining town in the Midlands. He was the fourth child of

a poor miner’s family. Arthur and Lydia Lawrence, his parents, had a troublesome

marriage from the start for their different social background and different values. His

father was a coal miner, who was also a heavy drinker, scarcely able to read or write,

while his mother was a former schoolteacher from the lower bourgeoisie. His mother

was greatly superior in education and social status to his father, and she also differs

greatly from him in outlook and expectations. His father was content to stay on the

mining grounds while his mother yearned to leave the mining area and to lead a middle

class life. Lawrence's childhood was dominated by poverty and friction between his

parents. All his family life experience provided spacious materials for his writing career.

Born and brought up in the working class, he lived in poverty and friction between

his parents when he was young. In the deep of his heart, he is sympathetic of the

working class, but he was unable to get out of influence of his mother. Also, her mother

hindered his growing into adulthood before she was dead. He had an extramarital affair

with Frieda, and eloped with her long before. Their marriage lasted with ups and downs

with the war and various kinds of rumors in their long term endless journey from one

place to another place. He died of tuberculosis on March 2, 1930.

Nevertheless, he had never ceased writing through his relatively short and unhappy

life. He was a prolific writer of poetry, novels, short stories, plays, essays, travel books

and criticism. Among his numerous literary productions, he is best known as a novelist,

writer of Sons and Lovers,The Rainbow,Women in Love and Lady Chatterley's Lover.

However, he was not accepted in his early years and met with different critical

responses, as a critic observes:

To some of his immediate contemporaries he was a madman or degenerate. In the middle

years of 20th century, he was praised as a highly moral wrier, unrivalled in his ability to

explore man’s relationship with nature, his fellow beings, and his own inner life. He was

regarded as a sexist writer by feminists in recent days. (Nigel Messenger, 2) 1

AnArgumentforMrs.Morel:

ACommentonD.H.Lawrence’sSonsandLovers

In spite of Lawrence’s great achievements as a writer, criticism on him is not all

praise. He was attacked for his attitudes towards human sexuality, social hierarchy,

Victorian morality, and the Industrial Revolution. He got involved in criticisms for

sensuality in his works. Erotic subject matter and language in his works met with harsh

criticism. As a result, his books and paintings were banned. It is only in the middle of

20th century that internationally renowned scholars signaled a turning point in D. H.

Lawrence studies and offered an opportunity for a critical and scholarly reconsideration

of Lawrence, who was one of the major writers of the modernist period.

Currently, Lawrence is regarded as one of the most versatile and influential figures

in the 20th-century English literature. Regardless of all these evaluation, in my opinion,

Lawrence was a writer who showed us the common experiences we all share: childhood,

adolescence, courtship, love relationships and marriage, family life and death. The only

difference is that he shows us all these common experiences in a certain social

background and in a unique way.

Lawrence’s works are heavily autobiographical, and the experiences of his early

years in Nottinghamshire continued to exert a profound influence throughout all his

works. One of his most famous novel Sons and Lovers was a mirror of their family life

and his early years as a young man in Nottinghamshire.

No matter what kind of praise or attack Lawrence received, the publication of Sons

and Lovers in 1913, which is generally regarded as Lawrence’s semi-autobiography,

brought him fame and influence and started his blossoming of literary career, and also

aroused fierce discussion in the field of literary criticism. It is not only a matter of his

new technique in writing, but more especially a matter of the themes he deals with and

in the philosophical concerns behind them. On the other hand, its popularity has a

strong connection with the Oedipus complex, which started to spread as a part of

Freud’s psychoanalysis among cultural and literary circles at that time in Europe. As a

result, a lot of criticism on this novel emerged，and the focus was on if Sons and Lovers

was an illustration of Oedipus complex. And also, the criticisms have extended to other

aspects, such as the relationship between two sexes, the conflict between nature and

industry, the religion consciousness, and so on. No matter what aspect did the criticism

refer to, most criticism on Sons and Lovers focused on Paul Morel: his problems, his

needs and his growth, his family context and in particular his relationship with his

mother. Few critics have paid much attention to the female characters in this novel,

Chapter One

Introduction

especially Mrs. Morel who is the real figure dominating and central thread linking this

novel. Despite for being handled on various occasions, she has been obviously

presented somewhat negatively.

It is undeniable that Paul Morel is the main protagonist of this novel. It depicts his

growth and development from infancy to young manhood. The whole novel is focused

more and more on him. However, it is undoubted that Paul is not the only focus of

Lawrence.

The title of this novel was called Paul Morel in early draft form. But finally,

Lawrence changed the title to Sons and Lovers. In the final title, Lawrence was shifting

the emphasis away from Paul. Instead, he was drawing more of our attention to other

characters, especially Mrs. Morel. From the chapter headings, we can get an overall

view and understanding of the structure of the novel. Part One is family-oriented, it

begins with the early marriage life of the Morels and ends with the death of William,

and we could only get some glimpses of Paul from the description of the family life. It

is in the second part that Paul’s concerns become dominant. In contrast, the novel

begins with the early married life of Mrs. Morel and ends with her death. In Part One,

the narration is from her point of view, and even in the second part, her influence never

fades. So, I would rather regard Sons and Lovers as a story of Mrs. Morel. We could get

some evidence from Lawrence’s own remark he made just before Mrs. Lawrence’s

death:

You see mother has had a devilish married life, for nearly forty years-and this is the

conclusion-no relief. What ever I wrote, it could not be so awful as to write a biography of

my mother. But after this-which is enough-I am going to write romance-when I have

finished Paul Morel, which belongs to this. (John Worthen, 28) 2

Also, if we regard it as a story of Paul, there is a serious fracture in the narrative

structure of this novel. Mrs. Morel’s and Paul’s point of view and voice dominates the

narration respectively in Part One and Part Two. Paul has nothing with her mother’s

early marriage life, but Mrs. Morel witnesses Paul’s growth and has great influence on

his growing into adulthood and his relationship with other women. If we only focus on

Paul, we could not get a whole grasp and understanding of the novel.

However, few critics have paid adequate attention to Mrs. Morel who is the real

AnArgumentforMrs.Morel:

ACommentonD.H.Lawrence’sSonsandLovers

figure dominating and central thread linking this novel. Despite for being handled on

various occasions, she has been obviously presented somewhat negatively. Most critics

thought Mrs. Morel should take full responsibility for the degeneration of Walter Morel,

death of William and Paul’s inability to love. These views are unilateral. Indeed, we

could not deny that her influence is an important factor in their tragedies. Mrs. Morel’s

stern religious and moral codes and her abnormal dependence on Paul ruined her

husband’s animation and caused Paul’s adherence on her spiritually, which partially

leads to his inability to found adult relationship with other women, but there are many

other factors, about which we will get a detailed explanation from the analysis and

exploration of complex relationships in this novel. On the other hand, as a member of

the society in that time, especially as a female, she is easy to be dominated by the main

stream of consciousness. She is also unhappy and has no relief through her life and the

only comfort and happy moment she gets is from others.

There can be no argument that D. H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers is a study of

human relationships. He seemed to concentrate in his novels on human relationships,

especially on those between men and women in connection with the themes of love and

marriage. But Lawrence did not only show us a story of a person or several persons. He

focused on much more deeper things-the social problems. His father was a miner and

his childhood and early youth were mostly spent in or near the mining districts.

Lawrence was aware of damage that industry brings to nature, and dissimilation that

civilization brings to human beings in the modern world. Also, as a writer who had an

origin of the working class, though he was more under the influence of his bourgeois

mother and rather contemptuous for the working class, he felt strongly against the

bourgeois civilization of the West.

Lawrence was a rebel, not only against the materialism of the modern Western society, but

also against conventional religion and morality. (Chen Jia, 240) 3

Lawrence shows us the family tragedy which is caused by bourgeois ideology and

gap between social classes. The destiny of every member of the Morels is caused by

social context after Industrial Revolution. The inequality of society causes the tragedy.

The only support of the family, Walter Morel, is in the lowest class. He struggles for

living. Though he works hard, he gets less and less money, which even could not meet

Chapter One

Introduction

the family demands. Mrs. Morel, who comes from middle class, could not understand

the social pressure Walter feels. For he could not reach her code of morality and meet

her middle class life standards, she loathes and despises him. Walter loses his leading

position as a husband and a father in the family. The exhaustion from work and the

ignorance from family force him to go to the pub to seek comfort and consolation. In

addition, the working conditions are very harsh. The estrangement from family

degenerate him spiritually, while the harsh work ruins him physically. Walter Morel, the

miner-father, loses his vigor and become a paltry ruin. From the ruin of Walter, we can

get a conclusion that he is basically destroyed by the abominable working conditions

and the gap of social classes, which is a result of industrial civilization. It is not only the

male loses his leading position, but also the female could not find her right position in

the family and society. Mrs. Morel is influenced by the religious and moral codes of her

middle class. She could not accept her social position as a miner’s wife, a member of

the lowest class of the society, and she wants to break away from the working class to

change her social status urgently. As Walter could not satisfy her aspiration for middle

class life, and she could not get herself out from the bondage of her fantasy, she rests all

hopes on her sons, first the eldest son, William, then Paul, to get comfort from their

success. She educates them per her outlook and moral codes. First, she urges William on

and on to move upward to middle class. Unluckily, William dies on his way to seek his

career. After the death of William, she turns to Paul, who achieves some social

recognition, but fails to form full relationships with other women. Her mother lives and

shades on him a behind-the-scene influence and dominance. Though influence from

outside is powerful, it is not the dominant factor. William, as a member of the society,

he also yearns for middle class life, which seems much superior to his “own people”, for

which he pays the cost. Paul would like to seek a union of spirit and body in the woman

he loves and who loves him. Miriam, who is Paul’s soul mate, and Clara, who brings

Paul passion and satisfies his sexual desire could not meet Paul’s demand. Also, Paul is

afraid of marriage from his parents’ failure.

Mrs. Morel, as a woman in that society, was educated, influenced and dominated by

the outlook and moral standards of middle class, which were dominant in the society of

that time, and as a woman in the male dominant society, she was much easier to be

influenced by these values. Also, as an exceptional miner’s wife, it is understandable

that she is not satisfied with the current life that she leads, and has great social ambition

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摘要：

ChapterOneIntroduction1ChapterOneIntroductionDavidHerbertLawrence(1885-1930)wasbornonSeptember11,1885,inEastwood,Nottingham,asmallminingtownintheMidlands.Hewasthefourthchildofapoorminer’sfamily.ArthurandLydiaLawrence,hisparents,hadatroublesomemarriagefromthestartfortheirdifferentsocialbackgroundandd...

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