Man and woman conflict in D.H. Lawrence’s “Sons and Lovers”

Abstract

1. H. Lawrence was one of the most important English writers of the 20th century. He wrote great works, one of his most popular novels; "Sons and Lovers", .The novel is an autobiographical sketch of his life. "Sons and Lovers", appears to be primarily directed to women, who form the focus of Lawrence’s writings. Moreover, through looking closely at his works one can see that his interests also included men who suffer from human frailty.

            The main idea  of this study is to examine the role of father and mother in D.H. Lawrence’s  "Sons and Lovers". In addition to the parents’ role, this paper seeks to assess how mother’s desires challenge her husband authority inside their home to change the life of her children. The paper will examine some questions .The first one the role of man and his behavior in this novel, the father. This study analyses the desire of keeping someone under his control, as the case with the mother here. The paper tries to prove this idea from the emotional and symbolical relationships inside the family. The paper is dedicated on deep psychological analysis of the mother’s custody of her two children, namely, William and Paul, as a source of  conflict with her husband. In the final part of this paper we shall review all the important aspects of these relationships. Lawrence was one of the modernist novelists whose characters were from the working class.

            In English literature, a working class novel portrays sympathetically the problems and the economic conditions of the workers. It also explained the struggle between these opposing classes. "Sons and Lovers" as a novel submitted the conflict between two contrasting social classes, the working class people who have less education than their morally conservative counterparts of middle class. Walter Morel and Gertrude Morel are considered as the key element for this story. The novel is set against       a working class society and it is supported by class-conflict. Walter morel incarnates the working class as he possesses a typical set of features such instinct, incorrupt, and good natured. While His wife, Gertrude, descends from the middle class, they believe in intellectual society that is full of ambitions. Gertrude and Walter, represent the conflict between the aforementioned classes, i.e. the lower and middle classes as they cannot get along. Thus, Mrs. Morel became stronger than her husband because, she fells and consider herself comes from the upper, superior class. She is highly educated and interested in philosophy and politics like all educated people.¹