Mrs. and Mr.Morel Relationship.
The Victorian novel was regarding love, its fulfilment and culmination, the modern novel, on the other hand spoke of love but the love was never realised leading to a breakdown of communication and hence a sense of alienation. In the Victorian novel, alienation was appropriated to highlight the importance of love and marriage but the modern novel merely confirmed it as a social condition. We see this pattern of the modern novel clearly followed in the Walter-Gertrude relationship as we see them fall in love, as well as witness the absence of the fulfilment of that love for either of them. The narrative of D.H. Lawrence’s “Sons and Lovers” is on one level a story of a marriage but at the same time it raises the question of whether it is really a marriage at all.
We are introduced to the Walter-Gertrude relationship years after they have been married and have even had two children. By now Gertrude has ceased to love her husband and what we see is a failed marriage- Gertrude has focused all her attention towards her children while Walter has neglected his family entirely.
We are then taken, through a flashback, to the time when Walter and Gertrude first met. We witness Gertrude with a need to escape from her father’s puritan way of life is attracted to the jubilant, lively Walter. The difference that Walter brings about in her life had a romantic lure at a distance but once they are married this exotic aura disappears and the same difference becomes an annoyance at this intimidating distance.
This marriage across class demarcations, that too a hyper-gamy undoubtedly disrupts the bourgeoisie structure when Gertrude lets in Walter to a place where he doesn’t belong. Gertrude is a deviant character who does not obey the rules of society and breaking these norms and social expectations can only lead her to embrace tragic consequences.
There is a strategic placement of the failed marriage in the narrative i.e. the introduction to the characters several years after the
We are introduced to the Walter-Gertrude relationship years after they have been married and have even had two children. By now Gertrude has ceased to love her husband and what we see is a failed marriage- Gertrude has focused all her attention towards her children while Walter has neglected his family entirely.
We are then taken, through a flashback, to the time when Walter and Gertrude first met. We witness Gertrude with a need to escape from her father’s puritan way of life is attracted to the jubilant, lively Walter. The difference that Walter brings about in her life had a romantic lure at a distance but once they are married this exotic aura disappears and the same difference becomes an annoyance at this intimidating distance.
This marriage across class demarcations, that too a hyper-gamy undoubtedly disrupts the bourgeoisie structure when Gertrude lets in Walter to a place where he doesn’t belong. Gertrude is a deviant character who does not obey the rules of society and breaking these norms and social expectations can only lead her to embrace tragic consequences.
There is a strategic placement of the failed marriage in the narrative i.e. the introduction to the characters several years after the
Bibliography: Frank Kermode : “The writing of Sons and Lovers” John Goode: “Individuality and Society in Sons and Lovers” Aruna Sitesh: “The women in Sons and Lovers” Ross C. Murfin “The wasteland according to D.H. Lawrence” www.essortment.com/all/dhlawrences_rguz.htm www.ruthnestvold.com/endcent.htm