Walter Morel is the father figure in the novel Sons and Lovers. He is rough, sensual, hard-drinking father. In many
ways, he is his wife's opposite. Walter is from a lower-class mining family. He
speaks the local dialect in contrast to his wife's refined English. He loves to
drink and dance practices that Gertrude, a strict Congregationalist, considers
sinful. There are two ways to look at Walter Morel's failure to be a good
husband, father, and family breadwinner. We can see him as a man broken by an
uncaring, brutal industrial system and an overly demanding wife. We can also
see Walter as his own worst enemy, inviting self-destruction through drink and
irresponsibility.
We learn a good
deal about Walter's good and bad qualities in Sons and Lovers, While Lawrence
seems to concentrate on the character's violence and irresponsibility, he also
gives you a picture of Walter's warm, lively, loving ways. The key scenes of
family happiness revolve around the time when Walter stays out of the pubs and
works around the house, hugging his children and telling them tall stories of
life down in the mines.
In this novel, Paul utters a line which could be a
vital clue to the understanding of the major characters of his father an mother
and their mutual incompatibility. “The difference between people isn’t in their
class, but in themselves. From the middle classes one gets only ideas and from
the common people- life itself, warmth.”
On one occasion Walter fell ill. His wife nursed
him back to health with great devotion. Of course, she did not love him any
more, yet she realized that he was the bread-winner of the family and that his
life was precious to them. At the same time she could not have denied that she
had been steadily casting him off, and turning for love and affection to her
children. From the time onwards he was more or less a husk. The children now
hated him just as their mother did. On one occasion he wanted to thrash the
eldest boy, William, because a neighbor had complained to him against the boy’s
behavior; but Mrs. Morel did not permit her husband to touch the boy.
On
another occasion, William became so defiant to his father that he was almost
ready to hit him. William clenched his fists and was ready for a fight with his
father who had spoken to him threateningly. It was Mrs. Morel who prevented the
two from coming to blows with each other. Paul too had started hating his
father. Every night he would pray to God to make his father stop drinking. It
was not only Mrs. Morel who was now suffering the misery of her husband’s
drinking habits and his violent behavior, but the children also suffered with
her. Indeed, the children thought him to be such a tyrant that the would lie in
their beds at night in a state of suspense when he came home nearly drunk, and
banged his fist on the table.
Indeed, Walter was now shut out from all family
affairs. No one told him anything. On one occasion, when Paul had won a prize
in a competition, his mother told him to tell his father about the prize. Paul’s
reaction was that he would rather forfeit the prize than tell his father about
it. However, he did give the news to his father, though the father did not
express much joy over his son’s winning a prize. In fact, conversation had
become impossible between the father and any other member of the family. He was treated by them as an outsider, an
alien.
And yet there was another side to Walter’s
character. There were times when he not only behaved affectionately towards his
children but was very jovial and merry. He was a good workman not only at the
pit, but also in cobbling the boots or mending the kettle. While doing this
sort of thing in the house he wanted his children around hi; and they united
with him in the work. On these occasions he was his real self. He was not only
in a good humor, but he also sang. After periods lasting months and years of
friction and bickering with his wife and children, he would become suddenly
jolly, and then it was nice for them to see him in a carefree mood soldering a
utensil or repairing boots. But the best time for the children was when he made
fuses. When the children asked him any question, he would reply most kindly,
addressing the question as “my beauty,” “my duckey” and “my darling.” One when
Paul fell ill, Walter felt deeply concerned about the boy’s condition. He tried
to attend to the sick boy though the boy had no love at all for his father.
Walter showed the same love to William when William had gone to London to take up a new job.
When William was to pay a visit to the family, Walter spent some very anxious
moments because William had not arrived in time. And his eyes were wet when
William left again. Once, when he had hurt his leg in an accident at the pit,
he was taken to hospital where his wife visited him regularly. He told her that
he could not survive; but she told him that nobody ever died of a fractured
leg. During this period of hospitalization, she was a source of great comfort
to him. And he was not lacking in his appreciation of the attention she was
paying him.
When William died, his grief was immense, though his grief was not
half as much as his wife’s grief. For a time he even became gentle towards his
wife. William’s death affected him so much that he took care never to go to the
locality where William had at one time been working as a clerk, and he always
avoided going to the cemetery where William lay buried. Years later, when his
wife fell ill, he felt genuinely sad because everybody said that she was dying.
Incidentally, Walter Morel was modeled upon D. H.
Lawrence’s own father. On the whole, the portrayal of Walter does correspond to
the actual character of Lawrence’s
father. However, Lawrence
is on record as having said that in this novel he had been unfair to his
father. He is believed to have said that, if he were to re-write this novel, he
would not portray Walter Morel in such dark colours. Evidently, Lawrence thought that he
had exaggerated his father’s faults in portraying Walter Morel.
