Page 252 - DENG404_FICTION

Fiction

Notes a scene by enumerating the difficulties of working in the mine. Mrs. Morel feels disgusted by
her husband’s tendency to play for sympathy with those around him.
One evening after a quarrel with her husband, Mrs. Morel takes Annie and the baby and goes
for a walk near the cricket fields. She seems at peace and feels strongly for her baby son; she
has a sudden instinct to call him Paul.
The next major battle between the Morels begins when Walter comes home late and drunk
again and accidentally pulls out a kitchen drawer in his haste to get something to eat. When
his wife tells him she will not wait on him, he becomes enraged and flings the drawer at her,
cutting her forehead on the corner of the drawer. For the few days after this incident, Morel
refuses to get out of bed. When he finally gets up, he immediately goes to the Palmerston, one
of his favorite bars, and this is where he spends the next several nights.
One night, however, he finds himself out of money, and therefore takes a sixpence from his
wife’s purse. She notices that it is missing and confronts him, upon which he becomes very
indignant. He then goes upstairs and returns with a bundle and says he is leaving. Mrs. Morel
feels sure that he will return that night, but she begins to get worried when he has not
returned by dark. However, she finds his bundle hidden behind the door of the coal-shed and
begins to laugh.

Did u know? Morel sulkily returns later that evening and his wife tells him to fetch his
bundle before going to bed.

Analysis

This chapter mainly serves the purpose of providing more examples of the battles between Mr.
and Mrs. Morel. It also contains a few examples of the themes that have already been noted.

In this chapter, the way the narrative perspective shifts between characters is illustrated by a
brief shift to Morel’s perspective: he insists to himself that the quarrel is Mrs. Morel’s fault.
Morel also reflects that having his family around him at meals makes the meals less pleasant.
This suggests that Morel prefers to be separated from his family, in contrast to his wife, who
lives for her children.

Chapter 3: The Casting off of Morel – The taking on of William

Summary
Morel begins to fall ill, despite all of his requests for medicine. His illness is attributed to the
time he fell asleep on the ground when he went with Jerry to Nottingham. He falls seriously
ill and his wife has to nurse him. She gets some help from the neighbors, but not every day.
Eventually, Morel grows better, but he has been spoiled during his illness and at first wants
more attention from his wife. However, she has begun to cast him off and to turn completely
to her children to find a sense of meaning in her life.
During the period of peace following Morel’s illness, another baby is conceived, and this
child, Arthur, is born when Paul is seventeen months old. Arthur is very fond of his father,
and this makes Mrs. Morel happy.
Meanwhile, time is passing, William is growing bigger, and Paul begins to have fits of depression
in which he cries for no reason. One day, one of the other women of the neighborhood,

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