A. D. H. Lawrence's description of the story of Sons & Lovers is almost like that of his relationship with his mother.

A woman of character and refinement goes into the lower class, and has no satisfaction in her own life.  She has had a passion for her husband,  so the children are born of passion, and have heaps of vitality.  But as her sons grow up she selects them as lovers—first the eldest, then the second.  These sons are urged into life by their reciprocal love of their  mother—urged on and on.  But when they come to manhood, they can’t love, because their mother is the strongest power in their lives, and holds them. . . . The next son gets a woman who fights for his soul—fights his mother.  The son loves the mother all the sons hate and are jealous of the father.  (Boulton 49)

This has been a kind of bond between me and my mother.  We have loved each other, almost with a husband and wife love, as well as filial and maternal.  We knew each other by instinct . . . We have been like one, so sensitive to each other that we never needed words.  It has been rather terrible, and has made me, in some respects, abnormal.  (Meyers 25; underline added)

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