Story is about Gertrude Coppard who is the first protagonist of the novel. She fell in love with the coal miner Walter Morel and later regretted her decision of marrying him and shifted her affection towards her elder son William who raise to the middle class and changes his social situation. He finds it difficult to get attracted towards any other women as the bond of affection with his mother is so strong. William dies of illness and left his mother devastated. Her younger son Paul Morel survived the bout of pneumonia and she rediscovered her affection for him. Paul couldn’t find the match of feeling which he receives from the closeness with his mother. But to fulfill his physical needs he got in relationship with Miriam who couldn’t satisfy him and he started affair with Clara a feminist who has left her husband but couldn’t give the Paul which his mother makes him feel and returns to Gertrude and she died soon after that. And he was left alone to cry over his fate. Paul More set himself on the quest of his life. Gertrude represents here the unrealistic object of desire for Paul and William which cannot be attained.