'Sons And Lovers'

Every son loves his mother and it should be no surprise that this is a common theme in literature. I say "love" only because it's the best word. In fact, the mother-son relationship is so dynamic that it shapes most males to their detriment or otherwise.

The United States government once claimed that they disallowed women in battle because it would be too traumatic for the male soldiers to see a woman die. That's because when a male soldier is bleeding out all they ask for is their mother. All women are sort of their mothers.

D.H. Lawrence wrote Sons and Lovers while his mother was ill. The first draft of the novel was lost due to him leaving it to tend to his sick mother. The story itself is a mirror of his mother. He felt she married below her social standing. Paul Morel's mother falls in love with a poor, drunk and simpleton miner. She lives a hard and unremarkable life fighting off her dullard husband and preventing him from spending their meager pay on drink.

I can relate. My parents divorced when I was 15 and it was probably another five years until my mother starting "dating" guys. She was in her 40s and 50s so it wasn't anything like it sounds. It was older, grandfatherly like guys from her church. Everyone was lonely.

I probably ran at least one of them off. I was in college so I wasn't around. But one guy was not unlike Paul Morel's father: Unintellectual, unambitious and physically unfit for any basic action like going to a museum or traveling.

Yeah, I understood that she was lonely and it makes me sick sorta thinking about it. However, that's no excuse for compromising even if the scales were even. I would like to think I did all of this because I love her. But I don't if it was altogether altruistic or built out of jealously.