RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

more persuasive to her sons in the sense that she does not have
to fight with them to see them walking the path she wants them
to follow.
Thus, William and Paul blindly follow the directions
their loving mother 'imposes' over them.
I will try to explain
this part more clearly.
As I said in the beginning of this chapter., William, the
first child, is born under bad conditions, but his birth means
for Mrs Morel a fearful hope in life.
She grasps this hope with
an inner strength to overcome, through the baby, the failure of
her marriage. All her efforts are directed to this child. And
in a certain way, as he is growing up he really corresponds to
her expectations.
He walks through the paths she has designed
for him. As an example, William's first job is at the 'Cooperative
Wholesale Society'.
This job, arranged by the mother,
causes a discussion between his parents.
Morel cannot understand
why the boy does not go to the pits like him.
The discussion
presents the opposing ideas of father and mother.
Mrs Morel does
not want her son to follow the same kind of life of her lower
class husband.
In William's job the mother wants to feel her son
'rising' in respectability.
Therefore, she will never allow her
son to work at the pits.
She will do her best to make of her son
a man with perspectives in life, not a man whose horizons are
cut off, like the father's.
That is why she disagrees with her
husband.
Or, better saying, she does not disagree, she simply
says "'He is not going in the pit... and there's an end of it'"
(p.69) .
Later on, when William is older, there is a sense that he
shares the virtues and 'defects' of his parents.
He is clever
and 'learned' like his mother, but he also likes dancing as did
his father.
This, of course, is condemned by the mother.