Class Struggles in Sons and Lovers

This paper looks into the ideological discourse embedded in D. H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers. Sons and Lovers is an autobiographical novel which necessarily carries the author's own experiences. For this reason, it reflects the social and historical background upon which the narrative is displayed. Sons and Lovers is full of the historical characteristics of the late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century England. This essay closely reads the class struggles of the time in Sons and Lovers. In most of Lawrence's novels, the class struggles appear in the form of the marriage of two people from different classes. In Sons and Lovers, the hegemonic conflicts between Walter Morel and Gertrude Morel clearly show the class struggles of the time. Also, this paper disentangles the complicated stories of William and Paul and shows the general tragedy of English young men of the time. In the end, it will show that Sons and Lovers is a fully loaded ideological discourse.