Abstract: Sons and Lovers was one of the most famous works of D.H.Lawrence in his early life. He applied symbolism to express the underlying theme and the inner life of the main characters.Among these ingenious symbols, flower is the most typical. For example, Madonna lily symbolizes the twisted love of Mrs. Morel, white rose symbolizes the religious quality of Miriam, Bluebell symbolizes the beauty of Clara. These flowers reveal their inner world and personalities, and also function as the media used by each heroine to express their love.
Key words: Sons and Lovers; flower; symbolism
摘要：《儿子与情人》是劳伦斯早期作品中最著名的小说，在这本小说里，劳伦斯使用了大量的隐喻诠释了小说的内在主旨和主人公们内在的心理活动。在这些巧妙的象征物中，花最具有代表性。比如说，百合花象征了莫雷尔太太和她那畸形的爱恋，白玫瑰代表了米丽安爱的宗教性质，而蓝铃花反映了克莱拉的美丽。这些花反映了主人公的性格和内心世界，也是女主人公表达爱情的媒介。
关键词：《儿子与情人》；花；象征主义
As a literary technique, symbolism describes the usual things in our normal life. But actually, it is not only to depict the superficial phenomenon, but also the inner mysteries. It drops a hint instead of explantion. Symbols make the inner activites which are fanciful reflected in something that could be touched and vivid. To explore the symbolic meanings of symbols is to study the theme of novels. As a writer, Lawrence was sensible to these changes in spiritual and moral values and in human relationship which were brought by Industrail Revolution. He believed that the merciless expansion of industrialization, in spite of its surface prosperity, had dehumanized man’s nature that resulted in the twisted relationship between man and woman. So the theme of Sons and Lovers is that Lawrence attempts to realize the one perfect sexual relation to get rid of distortion of and constraints human nature from industriailized society. In order to make readers touch the inner personalities and mental activities of heros directly, Lawrence used flower symbols to help them to explore the theme of the novel. This paper has clearly analyzed the symbolic meanings of some important flowers mentioned in Sons and Lovers. The attitudes of the hero —Paul and three women to these typical flowers have been researched back and forth for many years. In the novel, flower is not the simple plant. Lawrence attaches special moral to flower. He uses three different flowers to symbolize the different dispositions of the heroines. These flowers state the inner voices of them. So the symbolic meanings of the flowers should be studied deeply. Exactly, the key point to understand the theme that Lawrence wants to express is the relationship between the flowers and the main characters.
