Sons and Lovers Drugs and Alcohol Quotes
How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
He had signed the pledge, and wore the blue ribbon of a teetotaler: he was nothing if not showy. (1.107)
When Mrs. Morel first falls in love with Walter, the dude won't touch a single drop of booze. His sobriety doesn't last long, though, because it's only six months into his marriage when he decides that he really, really likes to drink. As you might imagine, spending half his life drunk and the other half hungover makes Walter a pretty irritable guy.
Quote #2
"But Mr. Morel does not take any drink."
The woman dropped the clothes, looked at Mrs. Morel, then went on with the work, saying nothing. (1.161-1.162)
At this early stage in the novel, Mrs. Morel reveals her gullibility about her husband's newfound love for drinking. The moment is a sad one, because what follows is a painfully slow decline in Mrs. Morel's love and respect for her husband.
Quote #3
Paul hated his father. As a boy he had a fervent private religion.
"Make him stop drinking," he prayed every night. "Lord, let my father die," he prayed very often. "Let him not be killed at pit," he prayed when, after tea, the father did not come home from work. (4.36-4.37)
Paul hates his father's drinking habit, and he sometimes mistakes his hatred of alcohol for hatred of his father. When it comes down to it, he badly wants his dad to be a good man. So, once again, Lawrence shows us that family bonds often elicit strange blends of love and hate. But Lawrence also makes it fairly clear that alcohol is the great wedge between Walter and his family.
Quote #4
She saw the determined little collier buying in the week's groceries and meat on the Friday nights, and she admired him. "Barker's little, but he's ten times the man you are," she said to her husband. (8.330)
Gertrude's so fed up with Walter stealing all of her grocery money to buy booze that she never misses an opportunity to shame her husband. She specifically attacks his sense of masculine pride, saying that he's not a true man. Unfortunately, Walter doesn't respond to being shamed, and doesn't change his behavior one bit. Maybe if Gertrude had tried a different tactic on him, she might've found more success…?
Quote #5
He ran straight upstairs and kissed her. He was almost afraid to ask:
"Didn't you get up, pigeon?"
"No," she said. "It was that morphia; it made me tired"
"I think he gives you too much," he said.
"I think he does," she answered. (14.135-14.139)
In her final days, Mrs. Morel starts taking morphine to help her cope with the pain of her cancer. The only problem is that the morphine almost does her as much harm as good. It's possible to see a parallel here with Walter Morel's drinking. Walter seems to drink to help cope with the difficult life of being a miner, but the alcohol destroys him while making him feel better. The same goes for Mrs. Morel's morphine.
Quote #6
In the morning they were both normal again, though her face was grey with morphia, and her body felt like ash. (14.155)
Just like the ash that's left on the end of a burnt cigarette, ash seems to be all that's left of Mrs. Morel once she's had a lot of morphine. Eek. Again, passages show that Lawrence is skeptical of all kinds of painkillers. For him, maybe there's a direct connection between trying to hide your pain and moving toward death. Think about it.
Quote #7
She had morphia every night, and her heart got fitful […] His mother was wasted and almost ashen in the morning with the morphia. Darker and darker grew her eyes, all pupil, with the torture. (14.258)
As Mrs. Morel takes more morphine, her pupils grow so large that her eyes seem to turn completely black. This blackness could represent the life that's being squeezed out of her by death. It could also show that the morphine is taking complete possession of Mrs. Morel, like some sort of demon or zombie-virus.
Quote #8
"She'll live over Christmas," said Annie. They were both full of horror.
"She won't," he replied grimly. "I s'll give her morphia."
"Which?" said Annie.
"All that came from Sheffield," said Paul.
"Ay—do!" said Annie. (14.282-14.286)
It's almost impossible to tell whether Paul and Annie are serious in this conversation, or if they're indulging the same dark humor you see in Chapter 4 when they burn Annie's doll. In any case, the scene makes a clear connection between the effort to numb pain and the movement toward death.
Quote #9
So he was always in the town at one place or another, drinking, knocking about with the men he knew. It really wearied him. He talked to barmaids, to almost any woman, but there was that dark, strained look in his eyes, as if he were hunting something. (15.3)
After his mother passes away, Paul becomes an alcoholic, just like his father. He spends most of his nights wandering from bar to bar and hitting on women he doesn't really care about. He's searching for some guiding force in his life, but he can't find one, so he keeps drinking to numb his loneliness.
Quote #10
"What am I doing?"
And out of the semi-intoxicated trance came the answer:
"Destroying myself."
Then a dull, live feeling, gone in an instant, told him that it was wrong. After a while, suddenly came the question:
"Why wrong?"
Again there was no answer, but a stroke of hot stubbornness inside his chest resisted his own annihilation. (15.10-15.15)
Here, Paul finally realizes the direct connection between hiding one's pain and killing oneself. Still, he can't think of any logical reason to keep on living, which is why he asks himself the question, "Why wrong?" In the end, it's a "stroke of hot stubbornness" that keeps him from killing himself. Just as he won't sacrifice his individuality to be with Miriam, he won't sacrifice his life to alcohol.