Sons and Lovers

Topic Tracking: Mother-Son Relationship

Mother-Son Relationship 1: Her children, but more specifically
William, are the only bright spot in Mrs. Morel's frustrated,
disgusted life. She despises the life she has with her husband and
lavishes all of her love and attention to her son.
Mother-Son Relationship2: A worried Mrs. Morel notices that
William does not seem to be himself and tries to give him advice.
She is concerned that he may turn out to be like his father,
drinking and socializing too much. Mrs. Morel does not like the
attention William receives from all the girls who call on him.
Mother-Son Relationship3: Although Mrs. Morel is confident that
William will so well in London, she is greatly saddened by his
leaving. William's living in London depresses Mrs. Morel to
such a degree that he is all she thinks about when he is not with
her, but she consoles herself thinking that he is in Londonfor her
alone.
Mother-Son Relationship 4: When William leaves home
for London again, Mrs. Morel is depressed and sad again. She
misses her son so much that it hurts to see him leave. Both she
and William know that the love they have for one another is
strong to last their separation.
Mother-Son Relationship 5: When Mr. Morel becomes sick, Mrs.
Morel does not feel as badly as she should; she wants to feel bad
that he is in pain, but her love and affection for her husband is
replaced by her love for William.
Mother-Son Relationship 6: Paul imagines that he and his mother
will live together when he is old enough to earn money by himself
and when his father has died. Paul loves his mother so much that
he wants to be with her and spend all of his time with her. To live
with his mother by himself is his greatest desire.
Mother-Son Relationship 7: Mrs. Morel is greatly saddened by
William's engagement to Gipsy. She feels threatened and scared
that William's future wife will take her place as the woman he
loves most in his heart; she turns to Paul, her second son, for
comfort and support.
Mother-Son Relationship 8: Mrs. Morel cannot take William's
death well. She shuts out the rest of her family from her life
because she is in too much pain and hurt. Not only has she lost
William, she has lost a part of herself. She has loved William so
much, so passionately, that she has lost part of her soul when he
dies.
Mother-Son Relationship 9: Paul's nearly fatal illness makes Mrs.
Morel realize how much he means to her and how much she loves
him. After Paul recovers, she focuses all of her attention and love
on Paul. He is all she has now, now that William has died.
Mother-Son Relationship 10: Although Paul does not realize the
seriousness of his relationship with Miriam, his mother certainly
does, and she is jealous. As with William and his fiancee, Mrs.
Morel feels threatened by the presence of a girl whom her son is
very serious about. Paul, however, does notice that his mother is
hurt that he spends much of his time with Miriam.
Mother-Son Relationship 11: Mrs. Morel instinctively knows that
Paul will become famous and known. More importantly, she feels
that her destiny and her dreams will be carried out through Paul.
She knows that Paul is capable of accomplishing all of her goals
and her dreams.
Mother-Son Relationship 12: When Mrs. Morel states that Paul
does not seem to spend time with anybody but Miriam, Paul sees
that she is hurt that he is spending time with a woman other than
her. He feels bad that the time he spends with Miriam is making
his mother suffer, and he hates Miriam for making his mother
suffer so much. He attempts to convince his mother that she is the
one woman who he loves the most and wants to come home to,
but his mother is too hurt to believe him.
Mother-Son Relationship 13: When Paul talks with Miriam about
their relationship, he realizes that it is his mother whom he loves
the most. He knows that he is the most important person in her
life. He tells Miriam that he will never love her as much as she
loves him because he will always love his mother the most.
Mother-Son Relationship 14: During Paul and Mrs. Morel's trip to
the cathedral, Paul notices for the first time the temporality of
their lives and wishes that he could have had more time with his
mother. He berates the fact that he was the second-born son,
wishing that he were her first-born, so that he would have had
more time with her.
Mother-Son Relationship 15: Mrs. Morel hates Miriam even more
than she already does because of the way Paul is affected by her.
She hates that Miriam is changing his will, his passion, his
temperament. She can see that Paul will die of the excessive,
passionate temperament he fosters when he is with Miriam.
Mother-Son Relationship 16: Mrs. Morel is terribly tired of her
involvement in Paul and Miriam's relationship and decides to stop
intervening. She knows that Paul is an adult now and that there is
nothing she can do to stop Paul from seeing Miriam. She feels
that she can never forgive her son for sacrificing himself to love
Miriam.
Mother-Son Relationship 17: Paul tries persuading his mother that
Clara is a better match for him than Miriam ever was, but his
mother is deaf to his words. He tells his mother that her jealousy
of his relationship with Clara is the only thing that stops her from
liking Clara. Paul is too wrapped up in his involvement with Clara
and with his mother's dislike of Clara to notice that his mother
does not look well at all.
Mother-Son Relationship 18: Paul has begun to realize how much
his mother affects his life. Her deep love for him has made her a
part of himself that when he wants to break free from his mother,
he is unable to get away from her. His mother is ingrained into his
very soul.
Mother-Son Relationship 19: Paul declares that he will never
marry as long as he has his mother to love. He does not envision
himself marrying, despite his mother's assurances that he will
want to marry when he finds the right woman.
Mother-Son Relationship 20: Clara sees that Paul is distancing
himself from her because of his mother. She knows in her heart
that he will never sacrifice his mother for her. Paul tells her that it
seems that his mother will never die because she is stubborn and
relentless in heart, mind and soul.
Mother-Son Relationship 21: Paul suffers to see his mother in so
much pain. He cannot take watching his mother turn into a limp,
lifeless creature from a person of vitality and spirit. When he
looks into his mother's eyes, he can see that she agrees that she
wants to die to end all the pain she is in, yet her stubborn spirit
and body will not allow her.
Mother-Son Relationship 22: When Paul kisses his dead mother,
he feels emotions he has never experienced from her: cold and
harsh, unreceptive and loveless. He does not want to let his
mother go from his life.
Mother-Son Relationship 23: As much as Paul wants his mother
to be with him, he decides that he cannot follow his mother. Even
her spirit will guide him if he allows it to but he decides to break
away from her. He knows he must separate himself from her to
become a man of his own instinct and will.

Topic Tracking: Industrialism

Industrialism 1: The mining company has set up villages in the
valley for the miners and their families. The well-to-
do families andthe poor families each live in the
valley designated for them: Bestwood for the well-to-do, and
slums of "Hell Row" for the poor.
Industrialism 2: Mrs. Morel despises the dreary and monotonous
life she leads as a poor miner's wife. She wishes that she could
leave this littleprovincial town for something bigger and better.
Mrs. Morel cannot wait for her children to grow up so that she
can escape the slums of this town when they are older.
Industrialism 3: Mrs. Morel, confident that William will achieve a
better profession than mining, is adamant that he will not become
a miner like his father. She knows that William is capable of more
than her husband ever was, and wants William to pursue all that
he can achieve.
Industrialism 4: Now that Paul is of age to work, the valley he has
loved and cherished so much as a child has become a place of
work. He can no longer view the valley in the same way he once
did: the valley loses its appeal of freedom, independence, and
innocence.
Industrialism 5: Paul finds a job at a company that makes surgical
appliances. He is becoming part of the great industrial movement
of England. Paul can now finally earn money for his family, for
his mother especially. He feels proud that he can work and earn a
salary like an adult.
Industrialism 6: Paul enjoys himself at work. He finds
companionship in the factory girls and his boss. However, he
begins to witness a significant gender difference in men's and
women's work. He sees that the men represent the work ethic and
the women do not.
Industrialism 7: The trains that transport Paul to work every day,
along with many other people living in the countryside, symbolize
the industrialized and non-established parts of England. The
factory where Paul works is just one of the many places in
industrialized Nottingham that represents culture and
sophistication.
Industrialism 8: Paul likes the feeling of men working, especially
of men sitting on trucks. He feels that the physical work of men is
thrilling and impressive, and makes him feel more invigorated
and alive to see men at work.
Industrialism 9: Arthur, the youngest Morel child, gets a job at
Minton Pit, doing electrical work. He, as with Paul, enters the
work force, doing a profession that requires skill and technical
knowledge. That Arthur joins the industrial work force suggests
the intensity of work in the industrial field.
Topic Tracking: Religion
Religion 1: Paul prays for his mother's safety. In doing so, he
prays that his father might be hurt or even killed so that he might
never hurt his mother again. Yet guilt washes over him, and then
he prays for his father as well. Morel ultimately can never quite
get along with his family because he denies any single shred of
religion,stability, compassion and love in his soul.
Religion 2: Miriam, who possesses intense piety
and religion, believes that her brothers and father are too vulgar,
for they have no regard for church or God, whom she loves
passionately. She only admires and respects those who attend
church and therefore believe in the teachings of God.
Religion 3: Miriam feels so deeply about nature that she is in her
own little world of reality. To her, the natural world is a
wonderful paradise like the Garden of Eden, and knowledge of
the harsh, hateful things in life wrecks the beauty of nature.
Religion 4: Paul is frustrated and angered at the way Miriam
devotes herself so deeply and intensely to people, nature or ideas.
He asks her in frustration why she feels she has to devote herself
so much to whatever he says or does.
Religion 5: The rose-bush Miriam shows to Paul eerily signifies
their relationship. That Miriam is intensely loving and warm
toward the beautiful, white roses and that Paul feels strangely
"imprisoned" by them symbolize their feelings for each other and
toward sex with the other. Miriam would devote herself to Paul,
who would feel smothered by her intensity.
Religion 6: Miriam prays to God that if He wills her to love Paul,
she will undoubtedly follow his words and love Paul as much as
she can. She will love Paul if God means for them to love each
other. However, she feels ashamed that her feelings for Paul are
so open and ardent when her sister chastises her.
Religion 7: Paul declares to Miriam that she is a nun in every
sense of their relationship. He has given her everything he
possibly could in their relationship except passion. Paul feels that
he can never love her in a physical, sexual way because they love
each other in a spiritual way, not a passionate way.
Religion 8: Miriam fiercely tells herself that she will devote
herself to Paul if their wills wish them to have sex. She tells
herself firmly that she will give him the passion he wants and
needs, against her wishes. She will sacrifice her virginity for him.
Religion 9: When Miriam and Paul have sex, Paul notices that she
looks strangely calm. After they have sex, Miriam decides that
she is not ready to give herself sexually to him if he needs her.

Themes

Free Will

Lawrence addresses the issue of free will in his novel, asking to

what extent his characters' environment influences their
characters' choices. Lawrence makes this explicit in his
descriptions. For example, when Paul begins to look in the
newspapers for work, the narrator writes, "Already he was a
prisoner of industrialism … He was being taken into bondage. His
freedom in the beloved home valley was going now." The modern
industrial world, specifically as it manifests itself in the effect
mining culture has on the Morel family, shapes the characters'
desires. Mrs. Morel, who believes she is morally better than the
miners, is disgusted by what mining has made of her husband,
and she pushes her children away from that work. She finds jobs
for both Paul and William so that they will lead better lives than
their father. The sons have difficulty making choices of their own.
They are so driven to please their mother that they sacrifice their
own pleasure and needs to satisfy hers. Neither can develop
emotionally healthy relationships with women, and both struggle
to balance their own wants with those of their mother. Another
character who suppresses her will for the needs of another is
Miriam Leivers, who sleeps with Paul to please him, even though
she feels little sexual passion for him.
Sexuality

By explicitly depicting human sexuality in his novel, Lawrence

flouted the moral conventions of the genre and of society, and his
notoriety grew. At least one publisher refused Sons and
Lovers because of its sexual content. Lawrence's theories about
human behavior revolved around what he called "blood
consciousness," which he opposed to "mental and nerve
consciousness." Lawrence contended that "blood consciousness"
was the seat of the will and was passed on through the mother.
This is obvious in Paul and William's bond with their mother and
in Paul's tenacity and emotional volatility, which his mother also
shares.

Lawrence argued that modern society had somehow come to be

dominated by mental consciousness and so was largely
unconscious of its own desires. He wrote about his theories of
human behavior inPsychoanalysis and the Unconscious (1921)
and Fantasia of the Unconscious (1922), along with his theories
about male-female relationships. His controversial novel, Lady
Chatterly's Lover(1928), was accused of being obscene and
pornographic, and its publishers were taken to court. Lawrence
also flouted moral conventions in his personal life, eloping with
Frieda von Richthofen Weekley, the wife of a professor at the
University of Nottingham.

Some critics have argued that Paul's relationship to his mother

illustrates Freud's Oedipus complex and have characterized both
Paul and Lawrence as being sexually tortured and repressed by
the degree of their emotional intimacy with their mother.

Class

Lawrence's characters illustrate the class contradictions at the

heart of modern industrial society. Capitalism pits classes against
one another and even pits individuals of the same class against
one another.Lawrence develops this theme by depicting conflicts
among various groups and characters. For example, William
feverishly climbs the social ladder, only to discover that he is
more alienated from his family the further up he climbs. His
girlfriend, Lily, a pretentious and snobbish Londoner, holds
herself above the working class and condescends to the Morels,
treating them as "clownish" people and hicks. Even Mrs. Morel, a
former teacher, has contempt for the work of her own husband
and is disgusted by his miner friends, whom she considers lowly.
The starkest contrast between classes, however, is illustrated in
the relationship between Thomas Jordan, the capitalist factory
owner, and his workers, whom he patronizes and quarrels with.

Style

Episodes

Sons and Lovers is structured episodically. This means that the

novel consists of a series of episodes tied together thematically
and by subject matter. Structuring the novel in this manner allows
Lawrence to let meaning accumulate by showing how certain
actions and images repeat themselves and become patterns. This
repetition of actions and images is part of the iterative mode. By
using this mode, Lawrence can blend time periods, making it
sometimes difficult to know whether an event happened once or
many times. Lawrence is using the iterative mode when he uses
words such as "would" and "used to."

Point of View

Point of view refers to the perspective from which the narrative is

told.Sons and Lovers is told mostly from a third-person
omniscient point of view, as the narrator has access to the
thoughts of the characters and moves back and forth in time while
telling the story. The first half of the novel focuses on Gertrude
Morel and the second part focuses on Paul. However, although
Lawrence strives to create a narrator that is impartial and presents
material in an objective manner, the narrator occasionally makes
editorial comments on the action, as he does in the first part of the
novel after Mrs. Morel has been thinking that her life will be one
of continued drudgery. The narrator intrudes, saying, "Sometimes
life takes hold of one, carries the body along, accomplishes one's
history, and yet is not real, but leaves oneself as it were slurred
over." Lawrence alternates between showing and telling in the
novel. When he shows, he simply describes the characters' action
and lets them speak for themselves. When he tells, he summarizes
scenes and sometimes comments on them. The narrator's presence
is most evident in the latter instance.

Major Characters
Walter Morel: Father of Paul Morel, husband of Gertrude Morel.
Works as a miner. His temper is susceptible to quick anger and
emotion. When he was courting Gertrude, he was a handsome
man and a fine dancer. His wife hates him because he gets to
enjoy himself drinking while she stays home caring for the
children. Gertrude's hatred for her husband begins with his
excessive drunken fits and his temper. Morel does not have a
closerelationship to any of his children.
Gertrude Morel: Paul's mother. Intensely hates her role as
Walter Morel's wife and wishes that she were not the wife of a
miner. Hates that her husband drinks excessively and cannot
control himself. She focuses all of her loveand attention from her
husband to her two older sons. First she devotes herself
to William and is very jealous of William'srelationship with his
fiancee. She resents that William allows Lily to treat Annie like a
servant. After William's death, she clings to Paul. She severely
dislikes Miriam and believes that Clara is not good for Paul
either. In the last few painful months of her life, she struggles to
live for Paul. Paul and Annie give her morphia to stop her pain
and die.
William Morel: The first Morel child. Mrs. Morel transfers her
affections for her husband to William. She is horrified when her
husband cuts off William's blond curls. William is a gifted,
intelligent and handsome child and teenager, easily finding jobs
and earning a salary. Becomes involved with Bestwood and
London society and engaged to Louisa Lily Danys Western. Hates
the way Lily treats his family, especially Annie. William dies
before he can marry Lily, but he never truly loved her anyway.
Annie Morel: The only daughter of the Morel family. Paul is
very close and loving to Annie. Annie does not like Miriam; she
can see how much their mother suffers when Paul is with Miriam
and hates Miriam for that. Paul and Mrs. Morel are miserable
when she marries and leaves home. Later, Annie and Paul
conspire to give their mother morphia to help speed up her death.
Paul Morel: Protagonist of novel. Quiet, shy, reserved by nature
but intensely passionate and emotional. Knows French and enjoys
painting. Enjoys staying home with his mother during the
evenings rather than playing outside. When at work, Paul is
absorbed by the activities and the people, especially the factory
girls. Has an off-and-on relationship with Miriam Leivers for
seven years. Hates and loves her at the same time. Miriam expects
him to love her as passionately and deeply as she loves him, but
Paul does not feel any sexual attraction to her.
Ends relationship with Miriam and begins one with Clara Dawes,
a married woman separated from her husband. He and Clara have
a very sexual relationship. They end their involvement together
when Clara decides that she wants to return to her husband.
Miriam Leivers: The first girl Paul ever loved and had sex with.
She is a beautiful, deeply intense and devoted girl whose feelings
for Paul are as passionate as her love for God and church. She
loves him more than he loves her. Paul gets frustrated and furious
with the way she absorbs everything in her soul and cannot
fathom why she has to treat everything with so much depth and
intensity.
Clara Dawes: The older, defiant woman with whom Paul has a
sexual and passionate relationship. She is a married woman, but
she is separated from her husband. At first, Paul felt that Clara left
Dawes because she hated him, but he soon realizes that she does
care for Dawes a great deal. Clara can satisfy him sexually in
what Miriam could not. Yet Paul tires of Clara because he can see
that she does not belong to him. Not only does Paul know that she
still wants her husband, he notices that Clara does not want to be
with him when he is troubled or worried. Clara returns to her
husband after Paul tells her that Dawes has been ill for some time.
Baxter Dawes: Clara's husband. He also works at Thomas
Jordan's. He and Paul have a tense, hateful relationship, yet they
are bound to each other for some reason. After they fight each
other a couple of time, they manage to form a companionship.
Dawes and Paul are sympathetic to each other's suffering and
worries.
Minor Characters
Arthur Morel: The last of the Morel children. He is wildly
impulsive, antagonistic, emotional and temperamental. He
recklessly joins the army at the advice of his friend but begs his
mother to buy him out as soon as she can. The strict military
regime does not discipline him enough. He has sex with his girl,
Beatrice, before they marry. At first, Arthur distances himself
from his wife and baby, but he soon realizes his role and
responsibilities as a father.
Mrs. Leivers: Miriam's mother whose personality and
temperament is like Miriam's. Both feel deeply about nature and
religion, and are devotedly pious to church and religion. Takes a
liking to Paul.
Edgar Leivers: Miriam's elder brother whose companionship
Paul enjoys.
Thomas Jordan: The elderly manufacturer whose company,
Thomas Jordan & Sons, Surgical Appliances, Paul works at.
Mr. Pappleworth: Paul's boss at Thomas Jordan's.
Fanny and Polly: The factory girls at Thomas Jordan's. Paul
enjoys talking to them.
Louisa Lily Danys Western: The high-society, stupid fiancee of
William's. Lily is very shallow and insipid; William has to buy
her all of her necessities. The Morels treat her kindly, but she
treats Annie like a servant. William does not love her, but he feels
that he is stuck with her. He declares that if he died suddenly she
would not pine for him. After William dies, his declaration rings
true; the Morels never hear from Lily again.
Agatha Leivers: Miriam's elder sister who chastises Miriam for
being so free and open with her feelings for Paul.
Beatrice: Arthur's wife and mother of his child. Beatrice matches
Arthur's impulsive and reckless nature. They have sex before they
marry. Their child is born six months after their wedding.
Leonard: Annie's husband.

Characters

Baxter Dawes

Baxter Dawes is thirty-two years old and a big handsome man. He

is Clara Dawes's estranged husband. He is a smith at the same
factory as Paul, with whom he fights when Paul begins to spend
time with Clara. Dawes is moody, argumentative, and defiant and
is fired from his job after fighting with his boss, Thomas Jordan.
Later, Dawes fallsill with typhoid fever. Paul visits Dawes in the
convalescence home, and the two become friends. Later, Paul
tells Dawes that Clara has always loved him, and he helps Baxter
and Clara reconcile.

Clara Dawes

Clara Dawes, the estranged wife of Baxter Dawes, is a childless,

full-figured, blonde-haired, and sensuous woman, and a friend of
Miriam Leivers. She is proud and haughty, a supporter of
women's rights, and is attracted to Paul's animality. Clara and
Paul have a passionate love affair, but she eventually returns to
her husband, nursing him back to health after he falls sick with
typhoid fever. Although she was deeply attracted to Paul, she
never felt truly connected to him.
Mr. Heaton

Mr. Heaton is the Congregational clergyman who visits with

Gertrude Morel after Paul is born. He is Paul's godfather and
tutor.

Thomas Jordan

Thomas Jordan owns the factory where Paul and Clara and Baxter
Dawes work. A strong-willed capitalist, he fires Baxter Dawes
after fighting with him. He eventually takes Paul under his wing
and introduces him to middle-class social life.

Miriam Leivers

The daughter of the family at Willey Farm, Miriam meets Paul

when she is sixteen. She is serious, self-conscious, somewhat
spiritual, and does not like sex, though she sleeps with Paul,
hoping that it will make him love her. Miriam is like Paul's
mother in that both of them are morally prudish and strong-
willed. Even though Paul makes it clear he will not marry her,
Miriam believes that their souls will always be together.

Annie Morel

A bit of a tomboy, Annie is Paul's older sister, and the two spend
much time together in childhood. She becomes a junior teacher at
the Board School in Nottingham, and marries her childhood
friend, Leonard. When their mother lies dying, she helps Paul
give her an overdose of morphine.

Arthur Morel

Arthur is Paul's younger brother and the favorite of Walter Morel,

whom he resembles both physically and temperamentally. He
joins the army but hates it. After his mother buys him out of the
army, he returns home and marries Beatrice.
Gertrude Morel

Gertrude Coppard Morel is the first protagonist of Lawrence's

novel. Refined, intellectual, and deeply moral, she comes from a
family of professionals. Her father was an engineer and her family
long-time Congregationalists. She marries Walter Morel when she
is twenty-three years old, attracted to his swarthy good looks,
humility, and animated personality. After the birth of her first
child, she falls out of love with her husband and begins to actively
despise him, looking for fulfillment in her relationships with her
children, particularly her sons, William and Paul. The intensity of
her emotional bond with these two makes it difficult for them to
develop romantic relationships. She dislikes William's girlfriend,
Lily Weston, and is jealous of Paul's friend, Miriam Leivers.
After William dies, she pins her hopes for the future on Paul. She
wants him to be successful and to escape a working-class miner's
life. Though she is deathly ill, she hangs onto life, because she
cannot bear to part from her son. Paul eventually helps her die by
giving her an overdose of morphine.

Paul Morel

Paul Morel is the protagonist in the second half of the novel.

Although his mother regrets being pregnant with him because she
does not believe the family can afford another child, she grows to
love and protect him after he is born. Paul is frail, sensitive, and
artistic and develops a very close bond with his mother, hating to
disappoint her. The women he courts, Miriam and Clara, can
never replace the bond he feels with his mother, and when she
dies, Paul feels their souls will be forever bonded. Paul's search
for identity is tied up in his capacity to separate himself from his
mother, and to understand the extent with which he is shaped by
his family and community life.

Walter Morel

Walter Morel is Gertrude's husband and a coal miner. He is

rugged, handsome, sensuous, and very practical, deriving much of
his joy in life from working and being with his fellow miners.
Although he pledges not to drink, he begins to after the birth of
their first child. The Morels quarrel regularly, often over Walter's
drinking. Gertrude grows to loathe not only Walter's drinking but
his crude and unsophisticated behavior as well, and she enlists her
children in hating their father. After his wife dies, he becomes a
broken man, full of regret and fear.

William Morel

William Morel is the first son, and Gertrude Morel's favorite

child. He is smart, beautiful, and popular with other children.
When he turns 13, his father suggests that he work in the mines,
but his mother finds an office job for him. Later, he moves to
London, where he finds a good job with a good salary. Like Paul,
he cannot develop a satisfying relationship with a woman because
he is so close to his mother. He dates and then breaks up with Lily
Weston, a pretentious and helpless woman. When William dies,
in his early twenties, his mother becomes withdrawn and
reclusive.

Jerry Purdy

Jerry Purdy is Walter Morel's best friend and drinking buddy and
is very much disliked by Mrs. Morel.

Mrs. Radford

Mrs. Radford is Clara Dawes's mother. She is refined and stately-

looking, yet pushy. She convinces Paul to find a job for Clara at
Jordan's.

Louisa Lily Denys Weston

Lily is an attractive yet intellectually-limited girl whom William

courts in London. She acts helpless and makes many demands on
William, but she behaves as if she were royalty. Williams grows
to dislike her, and she forgets all about him shortly after he dies.
Beatrice Wyld

Beatrice is a flirtatious girl who marries Arthur when he returns

from the army.

Objects/Places
The ash-tree: The ash-tree is located outside the Morels' second
home. The children come to associate the ash-tree with the dark,
forbidding footsteps of their father coming home in a drunken fit.
The children hate the tree; Morel loves it. Paul is frightened by
the shrieking noises the tree makes at night.
Mrs. Morel's umbrella:William gives his mother an umbrella
for Christmas the first year he is in London. Mrs. Morel cherishes
the umbrella deeply. Later, Paul and his friends go for a walk
when one of his friends breaks the umbrella.
Bird's nest: Mrs. Leivers insists that Paul see this nest made by a
jenny wren. Mrs. Leivers is intensely fascinated by this nest, but
Miriam loves it all the more when Paul admits that the nest is
striking.
Miriam's swing: Miriam finally faces her fear of Paul's rejection
and asks him if he wants to see the swing on her family's farm.
When Paul rides it happily, Miriam sees how his face is flushed
and his eyes are sparkling. She offers to let him ride again- it is
the first time she gets to spoil a man.
Miriam's rose-bush: Miriam shows Paul the beautiful rose-bush
she finds in the woods. She becomes so absorbed in the beauty
and the fragrance of the roses that Paul cannot stand to see her so
emotional and passionate.
Clara's wedding ring: Clara absentmindedly takes her ring off
and spins it. Paul watches her spin the ring with fascination.