The tone of Sons and Lovers is generally authoritative and sympathetic. In the novel's opening, the narrator recounts the history of Bestwood—the mining village where the Morels live and where most of the events in the novel take place—using a formal, knowledgable tone.
The narrator's tone in the novel is also often empathetic, stirring the reader's compassion for characters. This can be seen in the below passage from Chapter 1, when the narrator describes Gertrude Morel's emotional state and living conditions:
Mrs. Morel was alone, but she was used to it. Her son and her little girl slept upstairs; so it seemed, her home was there behind her, fixed and stable. But she felt wretched with the coming child. The world seemed a dreary place, where nothing else would happen for her—at least until William grew up. But for herself, nothing but this dreary endurance—till the children grew up. And the children! She could not afford to have this third. She did not want it. The father was serving beer in a public house, swilling himself drunk. She despised him, and was tied to him. This coming child was too much for her. If it were not for William and Annie, she was sick of it, the struggle with poverty and ugliness and meanness.
The narrator vocalizes Mrs. Morel's inner emotions and thoughts, which importantly allows the reader to feel close to her as a character and gain insight into her motivations and desires. Words like "wretched," "dreary," "endurance," "despised," "poverty," "ugliness," and "meanness" all have negative connotations and paint an overall portrait of Mrs. Morel's life as unhappy and difficult.
The narrator of Sons and Lovers occasionally makes omniscient, or all-knowing, statements, as in the below passage from Chapter 1 when Gertrude Morel—worried, pregnant, and alone—reflects to herself aloud:
[Gertrude] seemed so far away from her girlhood [...] "What have I to do with all this? Even the child I am going to have! It doesn't seem as if I were taken into account."
Sometimes life takes hold of one, carries the body along, accomplishes one’s history, and yet is not real, but leaves oneself as if it were slurred over.
"I wait," Mrs. Morel said to herself—"I wait, and what I wait for can never come."
Note how the narrator interrupts the narrative to comment on Mrs. Morel's statements. Lawrence employs this device in order to underscore and clarify Mrs. Morel's emotions and psychological state for the reader. Furthermore, the narrator doesn't just summarize her feelings but also uses figurative language—a simile—to heighten the sense of bewilderment and loss Mrs. Morel feels due to her difficult living circumstances.
