She loves Paul deeply, but he never wants to marry her and "belong" to her, in his words. However, their relationship takes ages to move beyond the Platonic and into the romantic. Miriam is a virginal, religious girl who lives on a farm near the Morels, and she is Paul's first love. A natural intellectual, she also feels society has limited her opportunities as a woman, another reason she lives through Paul. She bitterly disapproves of all the women these two sons encounter, masking her jealousy with other excuses. She is first obsessed with William, but his death leaves her empty and redirects her energies toward Paul. Morel is unhappily married to Walter Morel, and she redirects her attention to her children, her only passion in life. However, the major reason behind Paul's break-ups is the long shadow of his mother no woman can ever equal her in his eyes, and he can never free himself from her possession. His relationship fails with Miriam because she is too sacrificial and virginal to claim him as hers, whereas it fails with Clara because, it seems, she has never given up on her estranged husband. Paul has ultimately unsuccessful romances with Miriam Leiver and Clara Dawes, always alternating between great love and hatred for each of them. They are inseparable he confides everything in her, works and paints to please her, and nurses her as she dies. He is sensitive, temperamental, artistic (a painter), and unceasingly devoted to his mother. Paul is the protagonist of the novel, and we follow his life from infancy to his early twenties.
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