Sons
and Lovers has a great deal of
description of the natural environment. Nature-pictures constitute one of the
most conspicuous features of Sons and
Lovers. Often, the weather and environment reflect the characters' emotions
through the literary technique of pathetic fallacy. The description is
frequently eroticized; both to indicate sexual energy and to slip pass the
censors in Lawrence's
repressive time. Lawrence's
characters also experience moments of transcendence while alone in nature, much
as the Romantics did. More frequently, characters bond deeply while in nature. Moreover,
we have a sense in Sons and Lovers
that modern industrial life perverts people. They're cut off from nature and
their own instinctive sexuality. Industrialism and its rigid moral code enslave
nature and discount the sensual and aesthetic needs of humans.
D.H. Lawrence gives evidence of a painter’s eye for
detail in his descriptions of Natural scenes. His observation of Nature was
always minute and accurate; and his descriptions of Nature are always graphic.
His love for Nature shows a deep security, and his pictures of nature are
always concrete and vivid. He may appropriately be called a poet in his
attitude to Nature, and a painter in his technique in dealing with it. Romantic
in nature, Lawrence
saw a curious kinship of man with nature. The emotional life of his characters
is much influenced by the active participation of Nature, and technically
Nature represents human emotions.
The Nature-descriptions in Sons and Lovers impart a
rare freshness and charm to it. In the novel we find vivid pictures of
individual objects of Nature such as the flowers, the birds, the beasts, the
sky, the moon, the sun, the trees, the hedges, the creepers, the buds, the
blossoms, the meadows, the grass, the thickets, the river and its flow. And all
these pictures seem integral to the story.. Furthermore, nature is presented to
us in all its hues, colours and tints. We have all the shades: luminous, bright,
dim, dark and so on. It is also to be noted that Lawrence’s love of Nature is Keatsian in
quality. His love for Nature is deep and sensuous like that of Keats.
In the novel we find beautiful pictures of Nature.
When Paul started going to his office in Nottingham by an early morning train, Lawrence gives us a
beautiful Nature-picture. Later, when Paul and his mother are going to Willey
Farm, we have another brief Nature-picture.
Here we are told that mother and son soon found themselves in a broad
green alley of the wood, with a new thicket of fir and pine on one hand, and an
old oak glade dipping down on the other hand. Among the oaks, the bluebells
stood in pools of azure, under the new green hazels, upon a pale fawn floor of
oak-leaves. Paul found flowers to offer to his mother.
Lawrence tends mostly to trace and express human
feelings in terms of natural objects. Many a time, it also affects the action,
as we are told that Paul and Miriam’s common feeling for Nature was the
starting point of their love-affair. We might recall the rose-bush episode
where the two are walking together:
“There was a coolness in the wood, a scent of
leaves, of honey
Suckle, and a twilight. The two walked in silence.
Night came
Wonderfully there, among the throng of dark trunks.”
Often the objects of Nature are used as symbols in
novel. The most important symbol is a huge ash-tree that grows outside the
Morel residence. Producing shrieking sounds with the west wind, the tree is
symbolic of the dark, mysterious forces of Nature which are the forebodes of
tragedy in human life. It is a symbolic of the disharmony that exists between
the husband and the wife in the Morel family. The tree becomes a symbol of the
inner terror of children who shriek and moan inwardly. It also prophesies the
future doom which is to beset the Morel family.
Generally Lawrence
depicts Nature in its moods; but he is not blind to the grim and stormy aspects
of Nature. He chiefly dwells upon the small, everyday objects of Nature and
does not seek the unusual and the rare aspects of Nature. The fields around
Willey Farm are peaceful and tranquil so as to harmonise with the idyllic life
of the human beings there. The rapid and turbulent flow of the river Trent, on the other hand
symbolises Paul’s passion for Clara who is with him when he is walking along
the river bank. Still, the emphasis in the novel is on the peaceful objects of
nature. Another noteworthy point is that Lawrence
chiefly dwells upon the small; everyday objects of nature and does not seek the
unusual and the rare aspects of Nature.
Lawrence revolted against industrialisation and
machinery in his treatment of Nature. Nature symbolises the instinctive life,
while machinery exercises a disruptive and dehumanising influence on human
beings. He had the feeling that some power flowed into man from Nature, even by
means of a contact of the foot of a man with metaphysical relationship between
man and Nature. However, Lawrence
does not go to find a Devine Spirit in the objects of Nature. He does not give
any evidence of making a Pantheistic approach to Nature.