The novel uses simile and alliteration in Chapter 1 when Gertrude Morel, pregnant with her second son Paul, stands in the garden after Mr. Morel locks her out of their home:
The tall white lilies were reeling in the moonlight […] [Mrs. Morel] drank a deep draught of the scent. It almost made her dizzy. Mrs. Morel leaned on the garden gate, looking out, and she lost herself awhile. She did not know what she thought. Except for a slight feeling of sickness, and her consciousness in the child, herself melted out like scent into the shiny, pale air. After a time the child, too, melted with her in the mixing pot of moonlight, and she rested with the hills and lilies and houses, all swum together in a kind of swoon.
The heady smell of lilies has a lulling effect on Mrs. Morel, causing her to feel “dizzy” and “lost" within herself. Lawrence emphasizes this psychological transformation by using a simile to describe her consciousness, which “melts” out from her like perfume or some other smell that becomes dispersed in the air. This vivid, memorable description evokes Mrs. Morel’s dazed, dreamlike state and enlivens the reader’s imagination. The presence of the moon and moonlight—symbols associated with motherhood—also represents Mrs. Morel’s deep love for her son Paul. The moon also absorbs and reflects light, a characteristic that mirrors the cyclical nature of Paul and Mrs. Morel's relationship. This love, however, has an unhealthy side, suggested by the phrase “melted with her in the mixing pot of moonlight"; as Paul grows older, he and his mother become increasingly enmeshed, both emotionally and psychologically. Eventually the two become as close as lovers, which limits Paul's ability to form romantic relationships with other women. The destructive nature of their relationship all comes to a head at the end of the novel, when Mrs. Morel dies and Paul is forced to confront life without her. All in all, Lawrence sets up the Oedipal nature of Paul and Mrs. Morel's relationship through evocative passages like the one above.
In Chapter 7, Paul uses alliteration, a figure of speech in which the same sound repeats in a group of words, as he explains to Miriam why she likes a drawing in his sketchbook:
It's because there is scarcely any shadow in it; it's more shimmery, as if I'd painted the shimmering protoplasm in the leaves and everywhere, and not the stiffness of the shape. That seems dead to me. Only this shimmeriness is the real living. The shape is a dead crust. The shimmer is inside really.
In the passage above, Lawrence carefully crafts language to create a specific effect. The phrase "shimmer” occurs four times. This repetition is intentional; Lawrence employs alliteration to mimic the poetry and beauty of Paul’s drawing, which Miriam experiences but struggles to explain. Moreover, the letter “s,” which occurs repeatedly throughout the passage, has a soft, smooth sound that gives Paul's words a rhythmic and lyrical quality. Although Paul speaks in abstract, lofty terms and the meaning behind his words is difficult to decipher, they are “the medium through which [Miriam] came distinctly at her beloved objects.”
In Sons and Lovers, characters are motivated by strong emotions and psychological forces but often struggle to voice them. An inability to communicate is a recurring idea. Miriam and Paul, who both have romantic worldviews, express themselves through conversation and nature. Lawrence believed nature played an important role in the everyday lives of human beings, an idea that is reflected in the novel's characters and events. Paul's sensitivity to nature leads him to embark on a career as a painter, and painting becomes an important source of inspiration and self-expression. Instead of explaining or describing these ideas to the reader, Lawrence uses figurative language, drawing the reader in with playful, striking passages like the one above.
