Kurne Williams
Mrs. Buffonge
Summary of Sons and Lovers (pages 1-25)
Date: 12th January 2012
The novel opens out with a description of “The Bottoms” neighborhood where the Morel family lives. The family is then introduced to the audience. Mrs. Morel (Gertrude) at present has two children namely William and Annie and she is also expecting her third child. We are later introduced to Mr. Morel (Walter) who is a miner and the sole provider of the family. The main action begins with William attending a wakes on the day the family moves into their new home. William returns home from the wakes in order to have dinner but hurriedly returns to the wakes. He is later joined by his mother and his sister Annie and the group spends some time together at the wakes. However Mrs. Morel tires of it and heads home with Annie. They are soon after joined by William whose enjoyment of the wakes ended when his mother left for home.
Later on the children are put to bed while Gertrude awaits her husband’s return from the bar. The novel then takes us into her reflection of her life. It is revealed from this that she doesn’t want the child she is currently carrying and she despises her husband for his drinking habits. During her process of sewing her husband returns from the bar and an argument formulates about whether or not he was drinking. Gertrude leaves him and goes to bed.
The audiences are then given a background view of their marriage through the literary technique of flashback. Knowledge of Gertrude poverty state growing up is provided. We are then introduced to her old friend John Field. One of the memories of their friendship that she remembers was where she tried to convince John to become a minister against his father’s will. John assisted in Gertrude realizing that being a man isn’t everything.
Another flashback reveals Gertrude actual meeting with Walter Morel at a Christmas party. Gertrude is asked to dance by Walter but he is turned down so instead the sit and talked. It is then told that they marry the follow Christmas. However like every other marriage it is only a bed of roses in the first 7 months. After this period things began to change as a result of Gertrude finding out that the house they were currently occupying was in face Walter’s mother’s house. That event birth her hostility towards him caused the separatism in their marriage. All her attention and affection was placed on her child instead.
An important incident exposed in this chapter that increased her hostility towards her husband is when Walter cuts William hair when she is asleep. She developed a feeling of betrayal which remained with her throughout the years. The novel then moves back to another one of Walter’s drinking incident. Walter goes out with a friend named Jerry Prudy who Gertrude dislikes. They walked and talked stopping at every pub they could find along the way to Nottingham. This makes Walter very sick. After spending time in a field he returns home and the couple engages in a verbal fight. It ends up with Walter locking Gertrude outside in anger and falling asleep at the table. Then after an hour of knocking on the door she succeeded in waking Walter up to open the door for her.
