Please note the following essay contains some spoilers for Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence. (Ed.)

Well, young Paul Morel is in a bit of a pickle.  It’s what comes of trying to better yourself.  If he’d only been content to follow his dad down the pit, he might have saved himself a lot of heartache.  But, no, he has to go and educate himself, and there lies half his problem.

Paul is an over-thinker.  I can say this with some authority – it takes one, to know one.  He is also a bit of a mummy’s boy.  Not really his fault this; his mother just won’t allow him to cut those apron strings, her own selfish emotional needs playing on his guilt to keep him close.  It is not an ideal environment in which to develop an intimate adult relationship but, to his credit, Paul manages two.  One with the daughter of a local farmer, Miriam; the other with an older work colleague, Clara, who is separated but not divorced from her husband.

Just over the halfway point of the novel reached and I am beginning to speculate if Paul will ultimately find happiness with any of the women in his life?  Who will he still be with at the end of the novel?  I’ve drawn up my odds.

Miriam Leivers – 2/1
A. N. Other – 2/1
No one – 2/1
Paul dies – 5/1
Clara Dawes – 6/1
Gertrude Morel – 20/1

Here are my justifications:

Miriam
Miriam is playing the long-game.  She is a stayer; deft in the skills of a romantic war of attrition.  I rate her chances of emerging victorious and claiming Paul as her spoils quite highly.

Clara
Socially, morally, the odds are stacked against Clara.  Paul needs to be living 60 years in the future to have much chance of a relationship with a married woman ending happily.

Gertrude
Surely, Paul can’t end up the eternal bachelor living with his mother?  In that case, the novel would have been called Sons and Mothers.  No, Gertrude has lingering deathbed farewell written all over her.

A. N. Other
A distinct possibility.  That Agatha Christie-like character who bobs up in the last chapter to whisk Paul off to a better life.  His mother’s deathbed nurse perhaps?  Or a wealthy admirer of his painting?

No one
Another distinct possibility.  Paul discovers a happy/unhappy – probably unhappy given this is Lawrence – future independent of marriage and sexual relationships.  He becomes a monk to his art and painting.

Paul dies
A tragic graveyard scene, where the three women in his life, his mother, Miriam and Clara all stand over Paul’s coffin, all reconciled in their love for him.  I like it, but this is Lawrence not Hardy.  I am not convinced this will be how the novel ends.

I have under 200 pages of the book still to read.  I am interested to see if any of my predictions come close to Lawrence’s actual conclusion.  My track record at guessing the endings of other books has not been very good up to now.

© Fergus Longfellow

Fergus Longfellow puts his money on A. N. Other.