The Book Report - A Sample

劳伦斯生于一八八五年九月十一日，一九三零年三月二日死于肺痨，终年四十四岁，是世界文学史上重要得不能再重要的人物。最重要的作品有：《儿子和情人》，《虹》，《恋爱中的妇女》和《查太莱夫人的情人》。《儿子和情人》是劳伦斯的成名之作，小说写尽恋母情节。美国现代图书馆的二十世纪百部小说排名上，《儿子和情人》远远比劳伦斯其他入选小说靠前。劳伦斯是能于无声处听见惊雷的人。人最大的悲剧不在外部世界，不是地震，不是海啸，而在他的内心。劳伦斯临死前将自己的一生概括为：A savage enough pilgrimage（残酷的朝圣之旅）。或许就是这种苦难，这种对自己的心灵绝不放过的苛求，造就了文字的力量。

Sons and Lovers is a novel written by David Herbert Lawrence and it was first published in 1913 in London by Wyman & Sons.

D. H. Lawrence was born at Eastwood, Notts, on September 11, 1885, the fourth child of a miner who had been employed at Brinsley Colliery since he was 7 years old. In 1911, his first novel The White Peacock was published.

Sons and Lovers is divided into two parts and is composed of 15 chapters altogether. The story, set in England, can be interpreted as an autobiographical novel of Lawrence. The hero of the book, Paul Morel, is the second son of a miner's family. His mother, Mrs. Morel, is a daughter of a mid-class family. Because of the differences in family background and education, a shadow is soon cast upon the married life of Mrs. Morel. And this shadow is darkened by Mr. Morel's laziness and alcoholism. By misfortune or bad luck, Mr. Morel has an accident and becomes a cripple, which changes him into a man of bad temper. As a result, the couple shares less and less the things in common and is driven farther and farther apart from each other. Little by little, Mrs. Morel transports her attention and love to her children, especially her two sons, William and Paul. She encourages them to leave the small mining region for a big city to find opportunities for a better life. After the death of her first son, William, because of hard work and pneumonia(肺炎), Mrs. Morel's divided attention and love is poured completely upon Paul. The mother's abnormal love robs Paul of his normal love for his girl friend.

Sons and Lovers has always been claimed since its publication to be another version of Oedipus complex*. But D. H. Lawrence is in no sense an imitator. Sons and Lovers is truly an autobiographical novel. It describes an ordinary life of a coal miner's family. The abnormal love from the mother deprives Paul of his independent personality and mental health. It is perhaps because of this true picture of life that the novel has won Lawrence everlasting reputation.

Oedipus complex: (psych) love of an infant for the parent of the opposite sex, with jealousy of the other parent. The term originated from a Greek myth in which King Oedipus killed his father and married his mother.（心理学上）（儿子对母亲的）恋母情结（及对父亲的嫉妒）；（女儿对父亲的）恋父情结（及对母亲的嫉妒）

第二篇：儿子与情人读书报告

外 国 语 学 院

读 书 报 告

题 目： The Report of Sons and Lovers 班 级: 姓 名: 学 号: 书 名作 者: 总 页 码：出 版 社： Aviation Industry Press 出版时间： 2004 版次，印数

About the author:

D.H. Lawrence was born in 1885 in Eastwood-----a mining town just outside Nottingham, in the industrial Midlands of England. He was the son of a coal miner, Arthur Lawrence, and a strong-willed, refined, middle-class girl, Lydia Beardsall Lawrence, formerly a schoolteacher, had married ―beneath her , ‖ Lawrence had two older brothers, an older sister and a younger sister. After completing school in 1908, Lawrence was appointed as a regular teacher at the Davidson Rood School in the London suburb of Croydon. When he was twenty-four-year old , had his first novel quickly accepted by the London publishing company of Heineman, Ltd. Later, he met ―the woman of a lifetime,‖ Frieda Weekley. While he was in Mexico, in 1925, Lawrence became dangerously ill will ―malaria‖ and with a lung infection, which subsequently turned out to be tuberculosis. Finally , he dead in 1930.

Background of the book:

Sons and Lovers was written by D.H. Lawrence in 1913. it is set in working class Nottinghamshire in the early 20th century, and tells the story of a young man reaching adulthood.

Lawrence used the writing methods of realism and psychoanalysis, and described the Lawer Middle Class people’s life and the relationship between mothers and sons in the specific environment of English industry society in the end of 19th century. He also criticized the industrialization material civilization and commercialism(工业化物质文明和商业精神—有道词典) of the England people’s life.

Analysis of characters:

Paul Morel: Paul is the central character of Sons and Lovers. He is a light, quick, slender boy, tall, with a shock of reddish, light –brown hair and, later on, a mustache like the young Lawrence’s.

In my opinion, Paul is especially sensitive, artistic and imaginative, and he becomes extraordinarily dependent on his mother, a highly intelligent woman with an unusually strong and vivid personality. Thus when he gets older and begins to have important relationships with girls, his attachment to her prevents him from loving them as fully as he feels he should.

Also I think Paul is a volatile, gregarious, likeable young man with, indeed, much of Lawrence own charm and mercurial ―gift for life.‖

Gertrude Morel: Gertrude is a strong-willed, refined, puritanical, middle-class girl

who has been shocked and disappointed by her marriage to a miner. She was hardworking, thrifty, uncomplaining, and most important, possessing exceptional intelligence and strength of will, Gertrude Morel makes the most of the difficult situation in which she finds herself.

In my opinion, Gertrude is very emotional she put her intense and passionate devotion to her sons. Although she succeed in making her boys succeed, she fails to establish them, as self sufficient and independent individuals capable of living their own live and loving their own loves without constant reference to her judgements and feelings. Also, I think Gertrude is very stubborn, because of her stubborn, to make her boys into miniature husband-figures from their earliest childhood.

Clara Daws: Clara is a sensual, slightly older woman with whom Paul finally discovers the joys of ―passion‖ was probably modeled on several different woman in Lawrence’s own life. Clara beside being physically ―superb‖, she is also a suffragette, an advocate of women’s rights.

In my opinion, Clara is a sensual creature, a ripely responsive woman, with whom Paul first becomes aware of the mysterious generative power of the universe as it is embodied in sex.

Walter Morel: Walter is Paul’s father, Paul’s attitude toward his own father was his own father was essentially ambivalent. Walter Morel is generally shown as drunken, brutal, thriftless and often irresponsible toward his family. His internperateness and commonness, in fact, are cause of the rift with his wife, the rift which turns her passion so irrevocably toward her sons.

But in my opinion, Walter has his own good sides, I think the black-bearded miner is a handy man around the house, a strong and skillful workman with a jobs of carving or repairing. And he is handsome vital looking, gregarious and well-manned.

In addition, I am very feel sympathy to him. Later, he became mare miserable. He became little mare than a ―husk‖ of a man. He ages badly, becoming alternatively ‖ mean‖ and ―scared ‖ in response to new developments in the family.

Plot summary:

The life of the Morel family is unhappy, tense and uneasy. Mrs. Morel transfers her affections from her husband first to William, then to Paul. As William suffers a lot between his feelings toward his mother and his girl friend, he gets severely ill and dies. After William’s death, Mrs. Morel turns her love and attention to Paul.

Paul, sensitive and emotional, strikes a friendship with Miriam. As Paul thinks that the

relationship with Miriam is too much spiritual, he heads into an intensely sexual relationship with Clara. But he could not form satisfactory relationships with both of the two women

Mrs. Morel falls gravely ill because of a tumor. Paul and Annie cannot stand to see their beloved mother live in such pain that they give her an extra dosage of morphine. Mrs. Morel dies.

Clara decides to return to her husband as she declares that her husband had treated her with more respect and had loved her more than Paul ever did. Paul and Miriam ponder getting married, but Paul confesses that he has no desire nor any intention of marrying her. There is no woman left to hold him in Nottingham and he talks of going abroad.

Conclusion:

Sons and Lovers was a rather different case for this autobiographical, Freudian story of a working class boy’s growth to maturity in the English Midlands.

Sons and Lovers with its heavy dependence on autobiographical material and its introspective. And it is a catharsis, achieved by re-living an actual experience—re-living it over it over again.