How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
They called the baby Arthur. He was very pretty, with a mop of gold curls, and he loved his father from the first. Mrs. Morel was glad this child loved the father. Hearing the miner's footsteps, the baby would put up his arms and crow. (3.21)
Unlike every other person in the Morel family, Arthur loves his Walter. Over time, Arthur will see Walter for what he is and start hating him, too. But at this early stage, we have an example of the unconditional and irrational love that children possess for their parents. As Lawrence shows us, though, while love might be unconditional at first, it has to be earned if a person plans to keep it for the long haul.
Quote #5
Again rose in her heart the old, almost weary feeling towards him. She had never expected him to live. And yet he had a great vitality in his young body. Perhaps it would have been a little relief to her if he had died. She always felt a mixture of anguish in her love for him. (4.114)
Mrs. Morel loves her son Paul very much, but she also experiences a slight regret at the fact that he survived his sickly childhood—if he hadn't, that'd have been one less mouth to feed in the Morel home. In this passage, then, Lawrence is showing us that even motherly love can be very complicated and contradictory… no matter how straightforward we think it's supposed to be.
Quote #6
"Pretty!" she said, in a curious tone, of a woman accepting a love-token. (4.149)
When Paul gives his mother a flower, Lawrence decides to compare the two of them to lovers. It might be easy to just glide by a little statement like this, but the truth is that Lawrence is getting at something very profound (and possibly creepy) here. He's asking every one of us: how deep does the love between a parent and child go? How deep should it go? We might think that there should be no limit to how much a parent can love their child, but lines like this suggest that there must, in fact, be some limits.