Attempt
a comparative study of the characters Miriam and Clara/How does Lawrence orchestrate
the theme of love in Sons and Lovers?
Lawrence has presented two
contrasting women characters in Sons and Lovers as regards to love in Paul’s
life. Paul is torn in two directions with both of these women; he loves them,
and then he hates them. One is Miriam and other is Clara. Miriam is giving,
virginal even. She was his first love, and she loves him dearly, but he loves
her in a spiritual sense rather than a romantic sense. Clara on the other hand
has captured him sexually. They enjoy a physical relationship rather than a
spiritual one. Where Miriam is a young girl, Clara is an older woman. Miriam
would sacrifice anything for Paul, and yet Clara still wants to reunite with
her estranged husband.
In search of a physical
relationship, Paul instead falls into a spiritual one with Miriam Lievers. With Miriam, his first love, Paul's primary
contact is spiritual and cerebral, and the once mutual attraction crumbles into
bitterness, hurt and rejection, because neither can respond to their
"physical life force" or integrate it into their attempted communion
of souls. Part of the difficulty in this relationship, Lawrence seems to be
implying, is that Miriam's attraction to Paul is attracted, that she rejects
the spontaneous physical response available to them and prefers "the
higher level of affection and spiritual communion and intellectual
interchange." When Paul, physically aroused, finds no natural response in
the girl who seems to love him, he is confused, helpless, and becomes even
cruel.
From Clara, Paul found a new
pleasure which Miriam couldn’t give him. Unlike Miriam, she is more realistic.
A married woman knows what is requisite to a man-- the pleasure of sex. And she
attaches more importance on present happiness, not the spiritual thing. All
these are in violent contrast with Miriam’s desire on Paul.
