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Fiction

Notes 4. ......... is a facetious worker at Jordan’s.

5. Sons and Lovers is structured ......... .
6. Sons and Lovers has a great deal of description of the ......... .
Paul, now a young man, spends a great deal of time with Miriam Leiver, a chaste, religious
girl who lives on a nearby farm. Their Platonic relationship is intense and romantic, but they
never approach physical intimacy. Mrs. Morel bitterly dislikes Miriam, feeling she is trying to
take her son away from her. Paul grows attracted to Clara Dawes, an older, sensual woman
separated from her husband.

Did u know? Finally, Paul and Miriam have sex, but he soon loses interest in her, unwilling
to be bound to her in marriage or love.

Paul and Clara have sex and a romance blossoms, but her estranged husband, Baxter Dawes,
savagely beats Paul one night. Mrs. Morel develops a tumor and, after a long struggle, dies.
Paul arranges the reunion of Clara and Dawes, whom he has befriended since their fight. Paul
and Morel move out of the house to separate locations. Paul feels lost, unable to paint any
more. Miriam makes a last appeal to him for romance, but he rejects her. He feels suicidal one
night, but changes his mind and resolves not to “give into the darkness.”

23.3.2 Plot Summary

Chapter 1: The Early Married Life of the Morels

The first chapter of Sons and Lovers introduces the Morel family and describes the story’s
setting, a neighborhood called “The Bottoms,” where the miners live. Mrs. Morel is pregnant
with her third child, which she does not want because she has fallen out of love with her
husband and because the family is poor. When her husband comes home from working at a
bar, the two argue over his drinking.
This chapter also contains a flashback to the time when Mrs. Morel met Walter at a Christmas
party. She was twenty-three, reserved, and thoughtful; he was twenty-seven, good-looking,
and outgoing, and very different from Mrs. Morel’s father. They are married by the following
Christmas. Less than a year into their marriage, however, Mrs. Morel discovers that Walter is
not the man she thought he was. He does not own his house as he said he did, and he is in
considerable debt.

Two key events occur in this chapter. The first is when Walter cuts his son’s hair while his
wife is sleeping. Mrs. Morel views this as a betrayal, and the image of William, her favorite
child, standing in front of his father with shorn locks on the floor, stays with her. The second
event occurs when Walter come home drunk late one night and fights with his wife. Walter
locks his pregnant wife out of the house, letting her in later, after he has slept off part of his
alcohol.

Chapter 2: The Birth of Paul, and another Battle

With the help of Mrs. Bower, a midwife, Mrs. Morel gives birth to a son. Walter arrives home,
immediately asks Mrs. Bower for a drink, has his dinner, and then goes upstairs to see his
wife. The arrival of Paul increases the tension in the house, as the couple continues to bicker
and fight. Walter does not like to be around his family, and the estrangement between the two

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