Sons and Lovers: Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

“The Bottoms” is a housing estate for coalminers, built on the site of an old estate which was called “Hell Row.” “Hell Row” burned down and was replaced when the small mines, or “gin-pits,” closed and the large mining company, Carston, Waite, and Co., took over the area. This company opened six large coalmines, all connected by the railway, which loops around the surrounding countryside.

“The Bottoms” sits in the valley facing Selby and has “twelve houses in a block” and six blocks altogether. It lies at the foot of the hill underneath the larger, finer houses of Bestwood. The front of the houses in “The Bottoms,” which face out onto the street, look pretty and the gardens are neatly kept and full of flowers. The back doors, however, open onto a grimy alley facing the “ash pits.” The kitchens are at the backs of the houses, facing onto the alley, and the people who live there spend most of their time in these kitchens.

Mrs. Morel is not pleased when she is forced to move from Bestwood to “The Bottoms.” At thirty-one, she is pregnant with her third child and married to a miner. Although she and her husband find a house at the end of a row, she worries about how she will get on with the local women. They have lived there for three weeks when a fair comes to town. Mrs. Morel worries that Mr. Morel will “make a holiday” of it, but the children, William and Annie, are extremely excited.

On the day of the fair, William can hardly contain his excitement and rushes out after lunch, as soon as the “wakes” are set up. Mrs. Morel follows later with Annie, but she is unsettled by the noise and bustle of the fair. William is delighted to see Mrs. Morel and seems to enjoy the fair even more when she is there. He shows her a pair of eggcups he has bought her as a present and feels proud that his mother looks like a lady, in her bonnet and shawl. He is disappointed when, just after four o’ clock, she decides to go home.

As Mrs. Morel leaves the fair, she passes the bar tent, the “Moon and Stars” and, hearing the men drinking inside, she fears that her husband is in there. William returns to the house for his dinner and seems exhausted after his day out. He tells Mrs. Morel that he saw his father, Mr. Morel, serving in the bar tent. Mrs. Morel knows that her husband has no money, and that he is working for drink.

Mrs. Morel puts the children to bed and then goes into the garden and watches people pass on their way home from the fair. She notices that most of the women and children are alone and that many of the men who go past are drunk. She feels “heavy” and burdened by her pregnancy and wonders how her life has reached this point. She is not looking forward to having the child, or to her future, and she worries that they cannot afford to keep the family.

Mrs. Morel goes back inside to wait for her husband’s return. When he finally arrives home, he is affectionate and maudlin and has brought presents for the children. Mrs. Morel accuses him of being drunk but Mr. Morel denies it. Eventually, Mrs. Morel tires of his excuses and his “chatter” and goes to bed without him.

Mrs. Morel comes from an industrious, middle-class family. Her father was an engineer but was poor and bitter because of this poverty. Mrs. Morel remembers him as an “overbearing” man and she disliked the way he treated her mother, who was a kind, gentle soul. Mrs. Morel was an intelligent and “proud” young woman and remembers being given a Bible by a young man called John Field, who grew up in the same town with her.

Mrs. Morel and John Field were friends and he wanted to be a minister. Mrs. Morel encouraged him in this, but John insisted that he could not go into the church and that he must go into business instead. Mrs. Morel thought that “being a man” meant that John Field could do whatever he liked. Now, as a married woman, she realizes that “being a man” is “not everything.”

Mrs. Morel met Mr. Morel at a Christmas dance when she was twenty-three and he was twenty-seven. She was attracted to him because he was lively and vigorous and not at all like her own father, who was “rather bitter” and intellectual. Walter Morel, in turn, admired Gertrude (Mrs. Morel) because she was the opposite of him; she was religious and reserved. She watched him dance and was flattered when he approached her. She was attracted to his strong, Northern accent, in which he “thee’d” and “thou’d” her, and she was fascinated by the fact that he was a miner and put his life in danger every day to go down the pit.

Walter and Mrs. Morel are married not long after this meeting and, for the first few months, they are very happy. However, as the months go by, Mrs. Morel begins to feel restless and find that, when she tries to talk to her husband about anything serious, he shuts down. Although she clashes with his family, who believe that she thinks herself too good for them, she still feels secure and content in her marriage.

Walter is a very practical man and Mrs. Morel loves how “handy” he is around the house. However, she is shocked when she discovers that the home they live in – which he told her was his own – really belongs to his mother and that they are still paying her rent. Mrs. Morel objects to this arrangement and finds herself growing cold towards her husband. Although she is tolerated by the neighbors, the local women feel she is “superior” and laugh at her when she says that Mr. Morel does not drink.

Two years into their marriage, Mrs. Morel gives birth to their first child, a son called William. She is ill for a long time after his birth and feels lonely and disconnected from her husband. She dotes on her baby, however, which makes Mr. Morel jealous, and she is frustrated and abandoned when he begins to spend more and more time away from home. The couple begin to “battle” with one another and it becomes clear that, although they are married, their personalities clash.

Mrs. Morel is extremely proud of her son and loves his long, blonde hair. Mr. Morel is affectionate with the boy when he is in the right mood, but often he is rough and even hits the child. One morning, Mrs. Morel comes downstairs and is horrified to find that Mr. Morel has cut William’s hair off. She is furious with her husband and this incident finally turns her completely against him and ends her love for him.

Still, because Mrs. Morel is a religious woman, she does not give up on her husband but strives constantly to make him a better man. He begins to drink regularly and spends most of his evenings and weekends in the pub. He begins to get into trouble at work because he does not like taking orders and cannot keep his opinions to himself; his wages are low as a result of this. In the slow summer months, when the mines often close early for the day, Mr. Morel earns very little and the family are poor. In the winter, when he earns more, he spends all the extra money in the pub.

At the time when the fair comes to town, Mr. Morel is not earning much, and Mrs. Morel is trying to save money for the new baby. After the fair, there is a public holiday for two days and the mine is closed. Mr. Morel plans to walk to Nottingham with his friend, Jerry Purdy, whom Mrs. Morel hates. She knows that Jerry’s wife, who died recently, hated him too, and Mrs. Morel despises him because he believes that men are superior to women. Mr. Morel is pleased to go out for the day but tries to conceal this from his wife until the two men are away.

The men walk across the fields, stopping to drink at pubs along the way. Mr. Morel sleeps for a while on the ground, under the hot sun, and feels strange when he wakes up. The pair go on to the city and, when they arrive, continue to drink and start to gamble. Meanwhile, Mrs. Morel passes a miserable day at home, caring for the children in the oppressive heat.

Mr. Morel and Jerry catch an evening train back to “the Bottoms” and go to another nearby pub where they continue to drink. Mrs. Morel spends the evening at home; she prepares dinner and waits irritably for her husband to come home. Eventually Mr. Morel appears. He is very drunk and in a foul mood because he still feels odd after sleeping in the heat and because he must go back to work the next day. Mrs. Morel snaps at him because he is drunk, and he flies into a rage.

Upset, Mrs. Morel shouts back at her husband and tells him that she would have left him long ago if it weren’t for their children. Enraged, Mr. Morel turns her out of the house and Mrs. Morel finds herself alone, outside, in the dark. After forcing her out, Mr. Morel slumps into his armchair and falls unconscious after a few minutes.

Outside, there is a huge pale moon. Mrs. Morel is shocked by the sight of it and wanders blindly down the lane, replaying the fight in her mind. She feels the baby moving inside her and tries to soothe herself by walking among the flowers in her garden. In the light from the moon, she begins to feel calm as she breathes in the scent from the lilies. Her spirit seems to leave her body and mingle with the countryside around her. Eventually, she feels strong enough to return from the house, and she knocks on the window to try to wake Mr. Morel up. After several attempts, he hears her and opens the door. When he has let her in, he rushes from the room and up the stairs without speaking to her.