Sons and Lovers

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1913

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapters 1-3

Part 1, Chapters 4-6

Part 2, Chapters 7-9

Part 2, Chapters 10-12

Part 2, Chapters 13-15

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

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Part 2, Chapters 13-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2, Chapter 13 Summary: “Baxter Dawes”

Paul goes out drinking with his friends. They are in a bar named the Punch Bowl when Clara’s husband, Baxter, enters. He has recently been left by his mistress, and he has spent time in jail after fighting in public. Paul works with Baxter, so he offers to buy Baxter a drink. Baxter refuses. When Paul attempts to return to his conversation, however, Baxter interrupts to quiz him about his experiences at the theatre recently. Paul was spotted in his formal attire, Baxter reveals, and the patrons in the bar mock Paul. When one asks for the identity of his companion, implying that she must have been a “tart” (314), Paul refuses to reveal that he was with Clara. When Baxter’s jokes go too far, however, Paul throws a drink in Baxter’s face. The two men fight until the bouncer intervenes, telling Baxter to leave. Paul returns home, hopeful that his mother will not discover what happened. He has developed a life that is separate from his mother, which he could never have envisioned happening when he was younger. This emergence of his “sexual life” has created a gulf of silence between them (316). Paul, feeling defensive, cannot help but hate his mother on these occasions. Clara is happy enough to be with Paul, but she is aware of his tendency to be cold or distant on occasion. She does not like this aspect of Paul’s character. Paul tells Clara about his fight with Baxter. She suggests that he should carry a “knife or a pistol or something” to protect himself (317).

At work, Paul sees Baxter again. Baxter threatens Paul, but Mr. Jordan appears before a fight can break out. Believing that Baxter has been drinking alcohol, Jordan tells him to leave the factory. Baxter hits Jordan, knocking him through a door, and then storms out. As well as firing Baxter, Jordan calls for him to be arrested. Baxter is charged with assault, and Paul is called as a witness. While on the stand, Paul admits that he took Clara to the theater and then scuffled with Baxter in the bar. The confession leads to the case being dismissed. Clara is cross that Paul brought up her name in court. When Paul tells his mother about the trial, she wants to know about Clara. Paul accepts that Clara loves him, but he does not believe that he can return her love. Though he loves Clara more than Miriam, he does not believe that he can ever truly love either woman. Gertrude assures her son that he simply has yet to meet the right woman. Paul believes that he will “never” meet the right woman while his mother is alive (322).

Although he feels passionately toward Clara, Paul rarely thinks about her during the day. Clara, meanwhile, constantly thinks about Paul. When they are alone together, she wants him to shower her in physical affection. During one of their conversations, Paul tells her that—one day in the future—he would like to travel abroad. However, he cannot bring himself to leave his mother behind. If he sold enough paintings, he says, he could live “in a pretty house near London with [his] mother” (323). Clara thinks about how much she loves Paul. She recognizes that he loves her too, in a way, but believes that she does not have his full love. This leaves her unsatisfied. Paul, meanwhile, suspects that his passion is not directed at Clara. He believes that his passion is something that arose because of Clara but that she is not his passion.

Paul and Clara take an extended vacation to a rented seaside cottage. They live together almost as “man and wife” (326), with Clara’s mother visiting them occasionally. They swim in the sea and take long walks along the coast, hand in hand. Paul makes sketches and spends time alone while Clara is with her mother. With Clara present, Paul feels constricted, as though he cannot breathe. Clara recognizes that Paul wishes to be alone. They argue, with Clara suggesting angrily that Paul only loves her at night. Paul does not disagree. During the day, he says, he would rather be alone. He feels as though she stifles him. Paul still believes that he could marry Clara, but Clara refuses to divorce Baxter. Paul believes that Clara still views marriage as something of a prison, so being with Paul allows Clara to feel free. He does not believe love should be like this.

One evening, they pass Baxter while together. On another evening, Paul is going to the station to return home from work. Baxter is waiting for him in the shadows and lunges at Paul, hitting him in the face. Baxter fights Paul, and Paul is knocked unconscious. When he comes to, he struggles home so that he can be with his mother. Paul is injured and sick. He has “acute bronchitis” as well as a broken shoulder (337), though he tells people that he crashed his bicycle. Clara and Miriam both visit Paul, though he struggles to show affection to either of them. In the meantime, Gertrude also becomes sick. She is racked with pain, so Paul tells her to stay with Annie while he recovers with a friend in Blackpool. When Paul reaches Annie’s house, Gertrude’s condition has worsened. There is a large tumor on her body, and Paul learns that she has been feeling terrible pain for months without telling anyone. Paul arranges for her medical care and then goes to tell his father about the matter.

The doctor tells Paul that the tumor is inoperable due to Gertrude’s heart condition. Paul needs to return to work, but he struggles to say goodbye. As he prepares to leave for the train, he kisses his mother and strokes her hair. On an afternoon walk, Clara tries to comfort Paul. She takes him in her arms “like a child” and rocks him back and forth (345). When Paul is alone, he breaks down in tears. Paul brings Walter to visit Gertrude, whose health continues to decline. Gertrude spends two months at Annie’s house and does not improve. Paul arranges to borrow a car to drive his mother home. When they arrive in the small town, people line the streets to welcome her home. They all see “death on her face” (346), but Gertrude is happy, at least, to be back at home.

Part 2, Chapter 14 Summary: “The Release”

Paul is told that Baxter is sick in the hospital. Paul visits Baxter and then speaks to Clara. Baxter has typhoid, Paul tells her, but he will likely recover. Clara feels bad for the way she treated her estranged husband. In a conversation with Paul, she admits that Baxter may not have been worth much, but he was “a thousand times better” at loving her than Paul (351). She makes amends with Baxter while visiting him, and Paul continues to visit Baxter. Meanwhile, his mother’s health is declining. Paul recognizes that she is in pain as she curls up in her bed. He brushes her hair and listens to her speak about Walter. She cannot forgive him, Paul believes. Paul spends so much time with his mother that he cannot focus on his work. Gertrude tries to put the pain aside and refuses to contemplate her own death. When Clara’s birthday comes, she visits the seaside with Paul. During this vacation, however, Paul’s distant manner makes her unhappy. He treats her as though she is nothing, all while talking about his mother’s indomitable spirit, believing that she will “never give in” (355).

As the cancer eats away at Gertrude, Paul begins to believe that death would be preferable to so much pain. During many sleepless nights, he stays up with her. He holds her hand, strokes her face, and assures her that he loves her. When he visits Miriam, she notices that Paul has become very pale. She tries to show affection to him by kissing him, but Paul cannot feel comforted. Her kisses feel like torture. Paul splits the care of his mother with Annie, who is now almost wasted away. As the months pass, however, Gertrude refuses to die. The nurse who cares for Gertrude takes a night off, so Paul takes his opportunity. He takes his mother’s morphine pills and crushes them all into a powder, which he then stirs into a glass of hot milk. He encourages his mother to drink the “sleeping draught” (360), which she does in spite of the bitter taste. The next morning, however, she is still alive. Paul and Annie listen to their mother struggling to breathe. The nurse sits at her bedside until—at noon—Gertrude dies. Walter is told about his wife’s death when he returns from work. He offers little response and then eats dinner. Paul visits his mother’s bedroom. He looks at her body, which seems almost “young again” (365). He kisses her with passion, and he does not know whether he will be able to let her go.

Gertrude’s funeral takes place during a storm. During the wake, Walter loudly tells everyone how he did his “best” for his wife (367). After the funeral, Paul and Clara both pay regular visits to the recovering Baxter. Eventually, he is released from the convalescent home. Paul invites Baxter to stay with him in a rented home and hints that Clara may be interested in trying to make their estranged marriage work. As Baxter’s time in the house comes to an end, Clara pays a visit. She thinks about Paul and Baxter. She has come to hate Paul, while she now sees the “manly dignity” that Baxter possesses (372). Clara hates Paul because he has left her with no option but to return to her husband. She feels as though he has used her to get what he wanted and is now handing her back to Baxter. Meanwhile, Paul feels despondent and lonely. When he leaves, Baxter and Clara share a cup of tea. They come to an agreement to return to one another.

Part 2, Chapter 15 Summary: “Derelict”

Baxter and Clara reunite and move to Sheffield. Now, they are no longer a part of Paul’s life. Paul moves to Nottingham, leaving his father behind in Bestwood. They are father and son, but they have “scarcely any bond” (375). Paul feels caught at a crossroads in his life, unsure of how to proceed. He cannot bring himself to paint anything, and he spends most nights drinking. Though he still works at the factory, he obsesses over his mother’s death. He understands that he is “destroying [himself]” through his obsession (376), but he continues anyway, feeling an urge to stay alive for the sake of his dead mother. He constantly thinks about life and death, unsure as to the point of his own existence.

Paul is reminded of Miriam. One Sunday afternoon, he attends his old church and sees Miriam. He invites her to supper, so Paul and Miriam sit together beside a fire. As they sit, Miriam suggests that they get married. She believes that she can save him from destroying himself or wasting away. Paul is reluctant. He does not understand how marriage will help him. Miriam wants to give herself to Paul again, but she dares not do so. When Paul looks in her eyes, he feels pity. He takes her hands in his and asks whether she will take him. Though Miriam knows that her heart belongs to Paul, she does not want to be the sole arbiter of the decision. When she asks him what he wants, he is non-committal. Their relationship ends at this point because he cannot bring himself to make her sacrifice her life on the altar of an unloving, non-committal relationship.

In turn, Miriam realizes how self-destructive Paul has become. She sees him like a “perverse child” (383), and she leaves. On the way out, she touches a bunch of flowers. When Paul gives her the flowers, Miriam listens to his words and feels dead inside. Without her, she knows, Paul will ruin his life and waste away. Paul watches Miriam leave, feeling the “last hold” he has on life slipping away with her. Paul stares around at the countryside and the night sky. He feels “the vastness and the terror of the immense night” (384), understanding that there is no such thing as time, only space. Calling out to his mother, Paul acknowledges that she was the most important figure in her life, and he wishes that she could be beside him. He feels overcome by the sheer empty nothingness of existence, but he refuses to give in. Paul turns away from his mother’s memory and away from the darkness, toward the lights of the city. He chooses the lights of the “glowing town” (384).

Part 2, Chapters 13-15 Analysis

Paul’s maturity inevitably includes a growing awareness of his sexual desires as he wrestles with The Immediacy of Emotion. After he loses his virginity, he can no longer claim that his romantic escapades are entirely innocent. He has sex with both Miriam and Clara, a fact he chooses to keep from his mother. Though he talks with his mother about everything, this is the one subject he cannot speak to her about. The result is that an invisible divide is created between Paul and Gertrude for the first time. Once one such barrier exists, others quickly emerge. By keeping his sexual life hidden from his mother, Paul is instituting an irreversible change in their relationship, and he begins to keep more and more secrets. When Baxter attacks Paul, for example, he refuses to admit to the outside world what really happened, claiming to have been hurt in a bicycle accident. Gertrude knows the truth, and because she knows that her son is lying, she becomes aware of his capacity to hide the truth. Gertrude recognizes that her son’s relationship with the married Clara is not as innocent as he claims. Paul does not like to hide anything from Gertrude, but the more he does so, the more he feels he needs to create a private part of his existence that is just for him.

Gertrude’s death dominates Chapter 14. Despite the importance of her death, however, the novel takes a non-linear approach to storytelling. The chapter begins with the meeting between Paul and Baxter, an event that occurs amid his mother’s sickness. The circumstances surrounding Gertrude’s death are pushed back, with the discovery of her tumor taking place after this meeting. The disruption of the linear narrative creates an empathetic situation in which the narrative mirrors Paul’s desire to ignore the painful subject. Meeting with Baxter may be painful, as it reminds Paul of his failing relationship with Clara as well as the physical beating he suffered, but Paul would much rather focus on this moderately painful encounter than dwell on the tragedy of Gertrude’s death.

Gertrude’s death also symbolizes a shift in the Relationship Dynamics Between Mothers and Sons. Gertrude and Paul are so in love that he feels a need to euthanize her at the end of her life. The sight of her suffering pains him so much; she does not resemble the mother of his youth, the woman he pictures in his mind when he thinks of his mother. Paul crushes up morphine and mixes it into his mother’s glass of milk. As well as the maternal connotations of milk, the act itself is symbolic. After Gertrude grieved over William’s fatal illness and nursed Paul back to health on numerous occasions, the roles have now reversed. Now, Paul is the caregiver, providing his mother with the ultimate relief. He hastens her death as an act of love, both for her and himself. When Gertrude dies, they are both liberated. Gertrude is freed from the physical form that has caused her so much pain, while Paul is freed from the emotional bond with his mother that has defined and limited his life. He may not end the novel with either Miriam or Clara, but—in the final sentence—he stands up with a new resolve, looking to the bright lights of the city with a hint of optimism that he has not felt for a long time.