Sons and lovers as a psychological novel

Abstract

This paper talks about psychological analysis of novel sons and lovers by D H Lawerence. It
describes how the psychoanalytical approach could be used in literature to interpret the text,
to understand the psychological development of the character and the psyche of the author.
Lawrence, being inspired by Freud has produced work like Sons and Lovers that cries out for
psychoanalytical interpretation of the text. In the novel, the paper focuses on how the over
domineering power of the love of a mother and how her jealousy restricts her son's desire for
other women. How ultimately the mother wins by her blood ties over another woman and also
how the early psychological development of the child affects their personality in the later stage
of life.

Introduction:

The psycho-analytical novel, as the very name implies, lays stress on psycho-analysis. The
novelist becomes a psychoanalyst and he brings into focus, the subtle and intricate
psychological cross currents. The analysis of the psychology of the characters is what
constitutes the motif of a psychoanalytical fiction. The novelist goes deeper and deeper into the
innermost crevice of the psychology of his characters and he brings out or externalizes the
subtle psychological framework of the characters.

Sons and Lovers is about the psychological development of a young man, Paul Morel. He
attempts to understand and resolve the powerful ambivalence he feels towards his mother and
the other women in his life and become an independent individual. It is a great tragedy that the
possessive mother makes her sons as her lovers-first the eldest, then the second. But when her
sons come to manhood, they cannot love other women, because their mother is the strongest
power over their lives, and she holds their souls against any woman who fights for them .

It mainly includes Paul Morel’s psychology on the theoretical basis of the Freudian Oedipus
complex. It will begin with a primary study of the Freudian theory and then turn to different
analysis of several major characters associated with Paul and their relationships. The literary
analysis of this paper will be developed along with psychoanalytic analysis, which will center on
the reasons why Paul is to develop the Oedipus complex and why he can never detach himself
from this attachment. For example, according to Freudian theory, most boys’ Oedipus complex
will gradually pass off because of their development of castration anxiety. This factor is vital
important for the passing of the complex and it will be discussed at length by means of the
analysis of the influence from Paul’s father, Walter Morel, and their relationship.
Theoretical framework

The most influential psychologist in the twentieth century, Sigmund Freud, founded
psychoanalysis and also established a new system for treating behavior disorders. In his
Psychoanalytical theory Freud compared the human mind to an iceberg. The tip above the
water represents consciousness and the vast region below the surface symbolizes the
unconscious mind. He believed that much of an individual's personality develops before the
age of six. He also proposed that children pass through a series of psychosexual stages, during
which they express sexual energy in different ways. According to him, boys become sexually
attracted to their mothers and feel hostility and jealous toward their fathers. Similarly, girls
develop sexual feelings toward their fathers and feel rage toward their mothers. In Freud's
view, such innate sexual and aggressive drives cause feelings and thoughts that the person
regards as unacceptable. In response, the individual represses these feelings and drive them
into the unconscious mind (ibid.)

In the process, three basic personality structures are formed: the id, ego, and superego. Out of
them, the id is totally unconscious. Id forces are unconscious and often emerge without an
individual's awareness, causing fear, anxiety, depression, or any other distressing feelings.
These three function as an inseparable whole (ibid.). Third represents unchecked instinctual
drives; the superego is the voice of social conscience whereas the ego is the rational thinking
that mediates between the id and the superego and deals with reality. Thus, the bewildering
number of interrelated observations uncovered by psychoanalytic exploration led to the
development of a model for the three- structure functional psychic system. This system gives a
clear understanding of psychosexual development and unconscious motivation of behavior.
Freud describes the unconscious inner self as id and conscious self as ego. Ego is regarded as
active portion of personality adapting to the forces of id, external reality, and superego .

The name Oedipus has been borrowed from the classical story of the Greek myth of Oedipus,
the mythical and tragic king of Thebes. This inspired Freud to come up with the Oedipus
complex. Oedipus is a name that signifies or is derived from "a swollen foot", "swell", "a foot".
The Oedipus conflict or complex is a concept developed by Freud to explain the infant boy
maturation through identification with the father and desire for the mother. It is described as a
state of psycho-sexual development and awareness first occurring around the age of 4-6 years,
i.e. during the phallic stage, in Freudian terms (Wikipedia: online)
Freud considered this complex the cornerstone of the superego and the nucleus of all human
relationships. Nonetheless, while acknowledging the significance of the oedipal relationships to
personality development in culture, many psychiatrists ascribe love and attraction toward one
parent and hatred and antagonism toward the other not necessarily to sexual rivalry but to
resentment of parental authoritarian power (The Columbia Encyclopedia, 2001- 05)
Textual selection

Research gap:

Analysis and discussion

Instead of portraying the life and activities of an Augustan hero in a vast and Aeschylean scale,
the psychological novelist concentrates on the subtle shades of the psyche of his
characters. Hence, Lawrence was preoccupied with the inner life of his characters. He set
himself to the task of portraying the psyche or ‘the shimmeriness’ and not the hard facts.
Robert Humphrey has appositely stated that the modern psychological novel is ‘a type of fiction
in which the basic emphasis is placed on exploration of the pre-speech levels of consciousness
for the purposes primarily of revealing the psychic being of the characters’. M. I. Muller also
subscribes to the view that in the modern psychological novel, as that of Lawrence, we notice ‘a
withdrawal from external phenomena in the flickering half-shades of the author’s private
world’.

The modern novelists including Lawrence take the readers straight into the psychological plane
of the characters and in so doing they allow the readers to discern the incessant flow of
sensations and impressions which rise up in the minds of the characters. The psychological
novelists including D. H Lawrence have resorted to a new technical device has rendered
immense help to the novelists in their bid to lay bare the psyche or the soul of the characters.
This ‘stream of consciousness’ technique has made it possible for the novelists of
experimenting on time and place. The plot is rescued from the bondage of time. The action
does not proceed forward chronologically. The novelist very often flouts the norm and
propriety with regard to the logical consistency of time. But this resultant incoherence or
inconsistency of structure has been more than compensated by the exquisite delineation of
subtle psychology of the characters. In order to suit the artistic purpose, the novelists make the
action move forward and backward. In this context, the pertinent observation of David
Daichess merited:

“The stream of consciousness technique is a means of escape from the tyranny of the time
dimension. It is not only in distinct memories that the past impinges on the present, but also in
much vaguer and more subtle ways, our mind floating off down some channel superficially
irrelevant, but really having a definite starting off place from the initial situation, so that in
presenting the characters’ reactions to events, the author will show us states of mind being
modified by associations and recollections deriving from the present situation, but referring to
a constantly shifting series of events in the past”.
Lawrence’s bold originality is exemplified by his style, which is impressionistic. His style is more
poetic than the prosaic style of others. He has used plants of vivid images and symbols for
giving expressions to the complex thought process of psyche of his characters. Long before the
efflorescence of ‘the stream of consciousness novels’, Lawrence foreshadowed the style of
consciousness novels’, Lawrence foreshadowed these style of is type novels. Later on James
Joyce and Virginia Woolf perfected it with their mature artistry.

The ‘Oedipus Complex’ constitutes a psychological problem and this forms the nucleus of

the novels, "Sons and Lovers". The possessive character of Mrs. Morel was great stumbling
block in the life of Paul, the hero of the piece. She was terribly dissatisfied with her married life
and then subsequently. She exerted her influence on the life of Paul who could not liberate
himself from the mother-fixation. Mother’s influence was so preponderant and so overweening
assertive that Paul could not get a balanced emotional life. He failed to establish a becoming
relationship both with Miriam and Clara. The mother-image was deterrent to the emotional life
of Paul who himself was also a highly sensitive person and in his attachment with mother we
notice the warmth and passion of a lover. This complex psychological problem has been treated
or delineated by Lawrence with the consummate art of a poet and an unfailing observation and
insight of a true psychologist.

Mother’s Strong and Abnormal Affections

Many factors concerning the Oedipus complex usually refer to the son. However, the mother
takes the same responsibility for the consequence. In Sons and Lovers, without the strong love
lavished by Mrs. Morel, Paul would not have been attached to her that much. So it is obvious
that the strong impact from Mrs. Morel’s affections towards her son weighs much on the
causes for Paul’s Oedipus complex.

We may wonder how it happens that the mother in this story come to lavish all her affections
upon her sons. The right person she should have loved is her husband, while what she would
have given to Paul is the pure and simple maternal love. It is the failure of her marriage with
Walter Morel whom she had hardly loved makes her turn to the sons. First is the eldest one,
William, and then the second, Paul.

In the opening chapter Mrs. Morel, the wife of a cool miner, is expecting her third child, the boy
Paul. Actually, at that time, her life with her husband has already turned out to be a complete
fiasco. He is a drunkard and a bully, a man with whom she “shares neither intellectual, moral
nor religious sympathies”6. Mrs. Morel dreads the coming of the new baby, because she does
not want to give birth to a child who is conceived in a loveless relation between its parents.
“With all her force, with all her soul she would make up to it for having brought it into the
world unloved. She would love it all the more now it was hers; carry it in her love.”7 Towards
Paul she feels, as to none of the other children, that she is guilty of doing something unjust to
him and that he must recompense her for all that she has missed in her shattered love for her
husband.

Alfred Booth Kuttner, a well-known critic, considers the early relations between mother and
child are full of a delicate and poetic charm.8 Paul admires his mother very much and her
presence can always be attractive to him. Often, at the sight of her, “his heart contracts with
love.”(p.67) Everything he does is for her, the flowers he picks as well as the prizes he wins at
school. His mother is his intimate and his confidant. When his father is confined to the hospital
by an accident in the mine, Paul joyfully becomes “the man in the house.”(p.88) The interaction
between mother and son is complete, as if she lives in him and he in her.

In the end she shared everything with him without knowing… She waited for his coming home
in the evening, and then she unburdened herself of all she had pondered, or of all that had
occurred to her during the day. He sat and listened with his earnestness. The two shared
lives…”(p.114)

As the passage indicates, mother and son are actually one while the father becomes merely a
rival.

Another reason why Mrs. Morel concentrates all her affections on Paul is the death of her
eldest son, William. His death comes as a terrible blow to her, who loves him passionately. This
event makes her lose any interest in life, and remain shut off from the family. However, only a
few months later, Paul comes down with the same disease as his brother did. Until then, does
Mrs. Morel realize that “I should have watched the living, not the dead.”(p.140) Now, the
strong affections from Mrs. Morel used to be shared by two brothers is being put into one.
Being afraid of losing her lover or her son again, Mrs. Morel turns to be more dominant in the
growth of Paul.

Being a woman with tough mind and strong will, Mrs. Morel’s love towards Paul unconsciously
becomes the tyranny over his life. And it is the subtle response to Paul’s Oedipal affections that
leads to the tragedy which almost ruins a young man’s life. Frank O’Connor, who is an Irish
writer and one of the masters of the modern short story, holds the view that the only thing
lacking between the boy and his mother is sexual contact9. However, Lawrence could not agree
with Freudian psychology on this point of incest. He believed that the normal outcome of the
parent-child relationship was the result of impressions planted in the child’s unconscious
mind10. Therefore, in Sons and Lovers, the Oedipal love turns to be spiritual rather than
physical. And this spiritual love manipulated by the capture of the boy’s soul is more
overwhelming than any other forms Fruedism indicates. “It hurt the boy keenly, this feeling
about her that she had never had her life’s fulfillment; and his own incapability to make it up to
her hurt him with a sense of impotence, yet made him patiently dogged inside. It was his
childish aim…”(p.67) This spiritual attachment to his mother defeats the sexual desire to
physical contact and finally transfers into another form of psychological incest which is deeply
rooted in Paul’s mind. In this sense, though the physical desire of sexual intercourse cannot be
fulfilled, the psychological desire of incest can be satisfied. Therefore, one factor mentioned at
the beginning, which enables the passing of the Oedipus complex cannot be achieved. And
Paul’s heart and soul will always be with his mother’s even if death tears them apart physically.
They will still be lovers.

IV. Other Influences from the Family

In Sons and Lovers, among the other family members around Paul, his father and his elder
brother is very influential on the shaping of his manhood, because they are the elder ones with
the same sex. Actually, they are the models for the boy. Thus their different influences on Paul’s
growth cannot be taken for granted.

A. The great influence from the impotent father:

In most early analysis of the Oedipus complex presented in Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers, the
influence of the father was not as equally discussed as the impact from the mother in its
importance and decisiveness. However, the neglect of the father’s role in the oedipal relation is
vital and is worthy of mention, because the major factor for the passing of the Oedipus
complex-castration anxiety, consists in the involvement of the father.

Kuttner explains the father’s influence to the child as saying that: besides its mother’s, the
influence of the father that other major constellation of our childhood is also felt. Though not
so gracious, he too is mighty, mightier than the mother, since he dominates her. His presence
brings about a striking change in the attitude of the child, according to its sex. The boy, seeing
that the mother loves the father, strives to be like him. He takes his father as an ideal and sets
about to imitate his masculine qualities.11 However, it is a different case with Paul Morel,
because his father, Walter Morel is someone unwanted in the family. He is a man with many
disadvantages-“poverty, inadequate education and limited class expectation, work that is
physically exhausting while mentally undemanding, cramped housing and political
impotence”12. He is a symbol of the working class, while Mrs. Morel was brought up in a
middle-class family. So the conflict grounded in the difference of social status put Morel in an
unnatural position in the family. However, the mother seems to have occupied an exceptional
position in the family, and she evidently dominated the household. Her disappointment
towards Morel, a man who clearly does not live up to her ideal of manhood certainly has
influenced the children’s impressions of their father. She even communicates her judgment to
the children. For instance, in scenes when the children learn from her to mock their father’s
manner, to belittle his work at the mine, to sneer at his lack of formal education and in general
to degrade his manhood, we can see that all the family members dislike him and turn
everything against him. “Walter Morel exiled from the intellectual life of the family.”13 The
home is dominated by the mother’s values and the father has no place there except when
working about his chores.

Paul’s relationship with his father, or rather say lack of relationship, make it impossible for the
boy to imitate his father. In Paul’s mind, his hostility towards his father can be more expressed
by his discrimination and hatred.
One example in the early chapters, when Paul was reluctantly suggested by his mother to tell
his father the prize he won in a competition, best shows his discrimination upon his father.

“I’ve won a prize in a competition, Dad,” he said.

“Have you, my boy? What sort of competition?”

“Oh, nothing-about famous women.”

“And how much is the prize, then, as you’ve got?”

“It’s a book.”

“Oh, indeed!”

“About birds.”

“Hm-hm!”

And that was all. Conversation was impossible between the father and any other member of
the family. He was an outsider. He had denied the God in him.”(p.64)

Paul’s responses to his father’s questions are brief and unhelpful. In Paul’s eyes, his father can
only think of prizes and reward in financial terms; culture, inquiry and the value of knowledge
are alien to him. He is a man with shabby insights to the things which the other family members
value much.

Paul’s hatred towards his father is quite obvious. Once he witnesses a violent quarrel between
his father and his brother William. They are so furious that nearly started a fight, with fists
ready and knees crouched. “Another word, and the men would have begun to fight. Paul hoped
they would.”(p.p.59-60) “Paul hated his father. As a boy he had a fervent private religion. ‘Make
him stop drinking,’ he prayed every night. ‘Lord, let my father die,’ he prayed very often. ‘Let
him not be killed at a pit,’ he prayed when, after tea, the father did not come home from
work.”(p.61) Had Paul been old enough then, he would have beaten his father in the face.
Showing no respect to Morel, Paul feels that his father’s figure is weak to him though he is
physically strong. There are few ideal masculine qualities in Morel. So Paul is not afraid of his
father as he might feel himself much stronger than Morel. Unlike other boys, Paul cannot
develop his anxiety of being castrated by his father for loving his mother too much. And his
ignorance of the father’s dominance in the family is met and enhanced by Mrs. Morel’s
depreciation of Morel’s manhood. Hence Kuttner points out that in Paul’s case, the abnormal
fixation upon the mother is most obviously conditioned by the father, whose unnatural position
in the family is responsible for the distortion of the normal attitude of the child towards its
parents.14 The father ideal simply does not exist for Paul; where there should have been an
attractive standard of masculinity to imitate, he can only fear and despise.
The major factor for the passing of the Oedipus complex-castration anxiety cannot take place in
Paul’s case; thus he is destine to be ruined by his attachment to his mother. Or rather we say
that Paul’s abnormal dependence upon the mother is perpetuated because there is no counter-
influence to detach it from her.

B. Paul’s imitation of his brother William:

William is the first victim of the Oedipus complex in the family. However, his death at his early
age makes him detach his fixation upon his mother. Mrs. Morel is very proud of William,
because she thinks that she has made him into a middle-class gentleman successfully through
years of education and nurture. William shares the same feeling as Paul does in doing
everything for his mother. When he won a first prize in a race, he “only ran for her. He flew
home with his anvil, breathless, with a ‘Look, mother!’ That was the first real tribute to herself.
She took it like a queen.”(p.53)

William is a good person who enjoys everybody’s appreciation. And “he never drank”(p.54),
which shows a sharp contrast with his father. So the other children in the family love him
dearly, particularly Paul. He sets William as a great model for himself, because he knows clearly
that his mother loves William very much. And what Paul wants is to be like his brother-quite
successful in his work and be loved by others. What masculine qualities cannot be found in his
father can be found in his brother now. William becomes someone Paul can imitate. He wants
to be another William to his mother and he tries very hard.

Another similarity which William and Paul share is that as soon as they come into contact with
women, there is a split. Lawrence thinks that “William gives his sex to a fribble, and his mother
holds his soul. However, the split kills him, because he does not know where he is. Then Paul
gets a woman who fights for his soul and actually fights his mother. Paul decides to leave his
soul in his mother’s hands, and like his elder brother go for passion. He gets passion where the
split begins to tell again.”15 Paul really admires his brother and wants to do everything in the
same way as he does. This is a natural stage in a boy’s growth of finding a model of the same
sex to imitate. Here, William becomes Paul’s choice.

We can assume that Paul might share the same fate as his brother’s. Although he survives the
same disease as his brother gets, he suffers the same-patterned fixation to his mother. In a
letter to Edward Garnett, Lawrence told his friend about the story he wrote. He mentioned
“Paul is left in the end naked of everything, with the drift towards death.”16 The “death”
indicates the passing of Paul’s Oedipus complex cannot be achieved when he is alive. He is
destined to suffer the frustrations along the other half way of his life.

V. Paul’s Dissatisfactions of His Love Affairs with Other Women

In Sons and Lovers, Paul’s failure in forming normal relationships with either Miriam or Clara is
mainly attributed to two reasons: one is his own psychological immaturity, which is the major
factor; the other is the block from Mrs. Morel.
A. The immaturity of Paul’s psychology:
If there were no strong love lavished by the mother and no great influence of the father’s
impotence, would Paul still be so attached to the Oedipal relationship that ruins the two
relationships with his two lovers- Miriam and Clara? There is no certain answer to this
assumption. However, one thing can be sure that Paul, to some degree, will encounter
difficulties in forming relationships with women too, because his psychology is still immature.

During the growth into his manhood, Paul has always been taken care of. Physically, Paul is
more delicate than the other children so that his illnesses always tend to further his mother’s
concentration upon him. His mother and for a time his sister Annie are his only real
companions. His brother William is too old to be his playmate and other children play no role in
his early childhood. He is growing in the intricate love from women and weak masculine
qualities from men. He has always been a good boy of his mother and he always holds his
childish fantasy of living with his mother. “But I shan’t marry, mother. I shall live with you, and
we’ll have a servant.”(p.244) He thinks at twenty-two as he thought at fourteen, like a child that
goes on living a fairy-tale. Even in the relationship with Miriam, he has been called a child of
four by Miriam. And it is true that she treats him as a mother treats a perverse child. At the age
of twenty-four, he still sums up his ambition as the same as before.

Unlike other boys growing into their manhood, Paul cannot develop a kind of independence a
mature man should possess. He cannot live without his family and his mother. Although he is
physically mature at twenty-five, he still maintains a heart of child. The self-maturity is one
factor affecting the Oedipus complex according to Freudian theory mentioned at the beginning
of the essay. And it is the major internal cause for the passing of the complex. Unfortunately,
Paul does not possess the psychological maturity, which is, along with other causes, responsible
for his deeply rooted Oedipus complex.

B. The failure of Miriam’s spiritual love:

Miriam Leivers is the first woman who attracts Paul outside his family circle. It might be
regarded as his puppy love that Paul is fascinated but uneasy and fights shy of personal
intimacy with Miriam. However, the intensity of her emotions frightens him and impresses him
as unwholesome. He finds her growing absorption in him strangely discomfiting. Paul resists
every intimation that he is falling in love with Miriam. “We aren’t lovers, we are friends.”(p.173)
And Miriam has already gone so far. Paul can do nothing with her love because he cannot
return it. Love seems to him like a very terrible thing. The honest and more impersonal passion
that he feels for her frightens him.

However, Mrs. Morel makes her appeal. She fears that Miriam will absorb Paul and take him
away from her. “She is one of those who will want to suck a man’s soul out till he has none of
his own left.”(p.161) Her jealousy is being intensified. Her comments on Miriam grow spiteful
and satiric, and she no longer takes the trouble to hide her jealousy. She makes the final,
ruthless, cowardly appeal.
“And I’ve never-you know, Paul-I’ve never had a husband-not-really-“

He stroked his mother’s hair, and his mouth was on her throat.

“And she exults so in taking you from me-she’s not like ordinary girls.”

“Well, I don’t love her, mother,” he murmured, bowing his head and hiding his eyes on her
shoulder in misery. His mother kissed him, a long, fervent kiss.

“My boy!” she said, in a voice trembling with passionate love.

Without knowing, he gently stroked her face.(p.212)

Thus she wins him back. But there is still some resistance in Paul. His emotions towards Miriam
are constantly changing. But at last he tells her that he cannot love her physically. “I can only
give friendship-It’s all I’m capable of-it’s a flow in my make-up…Let us have done.”(p.220) “In
all our relations no body enters. I do not talk to you through the senses-rather through the
spirit. That is why we cannot love in common sense. Ours is not an everyday affection.”(p.250)
Miriam is totally defeated in the fights for Paul’s soul.

At the same time, Lawrence makes clear that Miriam’s failure to attract Paul physically, has led
to her defeat in the spiritual conflict. The girl’s sexual failure is deeply rooted, for example, in
her own emotional make-up. As Lawrence demonstrates, she is unable to lose herself in any
simple pleasurable occasion, her body is tense and lifeless, and her abnormal spiritual intensity
is coupled with a genuine fear of things physical.

C. The failure of Clara’s sensual love:

The failure of the relationship between Paul and Miriam makes Paul turns to another try for
sensual love. Clara Dawes is married, but lives separated from her husband. She shows a frankly
sensual attraction upon Paul. Like Mrs. Morel, she is unhappy with her husband, which makes
Paul feel less unfaithful to his mother. She takes care of Paul’s sexual needs, and leaves plenty
of him over for Mrs. Morel. So the mother is not hostile to the idea of Clara. Paul is twenty-
three when he meets Clara, and she is about thirty. Clara really admires Paul’s animal
quickness: he brings her the promise of renewed vitality, and they draw close together and
make love. Thus Paul receives the impersonal love he needs, and Clara comes to full awakening
as a woman.

However, Clara is soon dissatisfied with impersonal love; like Miriam, she wants to grasp hold of
Paul and to possess him personally, Paul is even more disturbed about another failure of
relationship. At this moment, the novel turns to the death of Paul’s mother. Paul meets Clara’s
husband and has a fight with him. Surprisingly, Paul brings Clara back to her husband and
makes friends with Dawes, after knowing that the husband is desperate to win his wife back.
Then Paul takes care of his dying mother and never leaves her until the end.
To sum up, Sons and Lovers presents Miriam not as a type of human love, but as a type of
spiritual love, Clara as a type of sensual love, and neither of them can satisfy the heart of the
young man who loves his mother.

Sigmund Freud rebelled against the Victorian idea that children are asexual. Freud stated that
psychological evolution of the emotion of love as finally expressed by a man or a woman
towards a member of the other sex. According to psychoanalysts Sons and Lovers reflects one
of Freud’s most famous theories is the Oedipus complex.

As indicated by Freud man usually falls in love for the first time in his life with the image of his
mother. When the boy grows up a little, his super ego gets activated. As he grows older, his
super ego is suppressed by his ego. The protagonist Paul, in this novel is trapped by the conflict
between his ego and super ego.

The Oedipus complex of Freud is based on the inevitability of the tragic fate of a man who fled
his home to escape the prophecy of parricide. Thus, he fulfilled it by killing a stranger who
proved to be his father. The meaning of Sophocles’ play Oedipus the King is found to lie in the
clash between Oedipus’ omnipotent narcissism (hubris) and the power of the unconscious
psyche, rather than in cross-generational sex. As Freud does, this consideration of the tragedy
of Oedipus takes as its point of departure the inevitability of the confrontation between father
and son. Paul has deep resentment towards his father and unconsciously sees him as a
competitor. When the father is dead the completion is over. Paul’s passions upon his mother
and the mother’s upon him are quietly mutual.

Freud’s theory of the oedipal complex, however, held that the heterosexual outcome was the
“normal” resolution, while the homosexual outcome represented arrested sexual development.
In the normal resolution the boy identifies as a male with the father, gives up the mother as a
love object, and later substitutes another woman of his choice for the mother. He suggests that
infantile sexuality is bisexually orientated the final object choice due to repression of either
homosexual or heterosexual desires.

On the evidence of Sons and Lovers, neither Lawrence as author nor Paul as a character in the
novel appear to master their deepest feelings towards the mother. Paul never utters a single
word against her gentle but unyielding rule, trying to contain his violently conflicting emotions,
wildly alternating from admiration and compassion to anger and despair. But at the end Paul
finds a new direction.
………”Mother!” he whispered—”mother!” She was the only thing that held him up, himself,
amid all this. And she was gone, intermingled herself. He wanted her to touch him, have him
alongside with her. But no, he would not give in. Turning sharply, he walked towards the city’s
gold phosphorescence. His fists were shut, his mouth set fast. He would not take that direction,
to the darkness, to follow her. He walked towards the faintly humming, glowing town, quickly.

(Sons and Lovers D.H. Lawrence)

At the end of the novel, Paul takes a major step in releasing himself from his Oedipus complex.
He intentionally overdoses his dying mother with morphia , an act that reduces her suffering
but also subverts his Oedipal fate, since he does not kill his father, but his mother.
Sons and Lovers is a semi-autobiographical novel in which the male protagonist of the novel
Paul Morel got chained by a mother’s love. Throughout the novel, his love is for his mother and
he is all the time surrounded by his mother that led Paul towards composite psychological
issue. The novel actually focuses upon Oedipus complex, mother fixation and psychological
issues. The novel deals with the mother and son’s strong bond which seems like aflimsy
pendulum, gradually split and smashed. Sons and Lovers was published in 1913 and it was
fictional autobiography and this novel is build upon D.H Lawrence’s personal experiences.
According to Michael Bell, who wrote about this autobiographical novel in his essay “A
Restrained, Somewhat Impersonal Novel”: “Sons and Lovers was the first of Lawrence’s
novels… gave fictional expression to the intense relationship with his own mother which had,
in its possessiveness, checked his capacity in early manhood… as the figure of Miriam Leivers is
closely based on his own girlfriend of adolescence, Jessie Chambers.” (Bell,2005)Throughout
the novel, one can see Oedipus complex as a major theme of the novel which consequently
becomes psychological novel. Psychological here cannot be defines easily as it has different
interpretations and connotations. It can be taken as mental illness or the closely acquainted
association with his mother.

Oedipus complex regards under the concept of psychoanalytical theory. According to Melanie
Klein, “Freud had referred oedipal situation as the primal scene, i.e. the sexual relations of
the parents both as received and as imagined” (Klein 1928) and this shows , Paul suffers the
same situation throughout the novel. However, Gertrude Morel lives a very disrespectful life
with her husband and consequently William and Paul starts hating their father, vigilant towards
their mother. In the start of the novel Gertrude Morel was close to William and being shattered
she comes close with Paul. They both have very deep erotic bond between them which causes
incapacitate result and affects Paul’s psychological as well as emotional development. As he
fears to initiate any kind of relationship with other women, fails to build relationship with
Miriam and Clara too. He never feels satisfaction with other women and he never comes in a
comfort zone with other women in his life as Alfred Booth Kuttner says, “Paul will hope again
and when he has compared one woman to his mother and found her wanting, he will go on to
another, in an endless repetition.”
Thus, Paul left every relationship behind except his mother. Whenever, he was about to fall in
love whether with Miriam or Clara, he resists by saying “We aren’t lovers, we are friends.”(pg
173) .It is a human’s very nature if someone got close to or feels a warm association with
someone special, jealousies and insecurities rises up there as Lawrence discloses the same
insight into human nature through the text because Mrs. Morel was unable to hide his
jealousy.
“And I’ve never - you know, Paul-I’ve never had a husband-not really”
He stroked his mother’s hair, and his mouth was on her throat. I don’t love her, mother”(pg
212).It is Mrs. Morel fault behind Paul’s psychological immaturity even though his physical
appearance is not immature enough. Whenever he moves ahead in his life, Gertrude was
standing there in his way to stop him by emotionally blackmaling him which is quite evident in
the above text. He is caught between duality likewise Paul and Miriam displays the problem,
an individual faced while getting in towards the new experiences. It doesn’t come from
childhood but it is the brain or psychology of mind that makes a person psychological
immature. The novel is seen as a psychological novel through Paul and Mrs. Morel’s acts. Paul’s
struggle of being attached with his mother makes him realize that he cannot unchain himself
from his mother even she is dead. He feels nostalgic and needs someone to be with but his
mother repressed him as well as his feelings. In short, circumstances like mother fixation,
incompleteness of Oedipus complex and alienation after his mother death makes him mentally
ill and the novel, a psychological novel.
…………………………………………….
Conclusion

It was in the early years of the 20 th that Freud shook the foundations of human thought by his
revolutionary discoveries in the field of psychology as he stated that thoughts buried deep in
the unconscious and the subconscious constantly keep coming to the surface and an amount
of human personality cannot be complete and satisfactory unless these hidden elements are
given their due weight.
The modern novel is pre-dominantly psychological. The role of the irrational in determining
human conduct is being emphasised more and more. Consequently, the study of the
subconscious, even the unconscious, is a major theme of modern literature. Intellect is no
longer regarded as the means of true and real understanding and emphasis is placed on feeling
and intuition. Rationalism, and along with it Humanism, is at a discount.
As a record of Lawrence’s emotional and spiritual struggle as a youth and the problems
of most young people with the desire to love and to be loved, Sons and Lovers shows the
effect of psychology upon writers of literature. Freud's theory of Oedipus complex, for
example, has caused a sensation and is being freely exploited by 20th century writers such as
Lawrence.
Though Lawrence’s psychological insights into modern man are truly of peerless genius,
he has been charged with obscenity. He has been often misunderstood and regarded as
sensualist and some of his novels were banned as obscene since he broke free from the
Victorian taboos on sex. He treated the subject in a free and frank manner without any
inhibition. But in fact, he regards sex as a great spiritual and physical union between a man
and a woman as a basic way for the realisation of God. Thus, he seeks to sublimate the sexual
act and raised it to the level of a spiritual experience. Nonetheless, there are a number of
causes which lead to a conflict between the sexes, the most important of which is the
attempt at domination either on the part of the male or of the female; the relationship
between the sexes must be one of reconciliation, and not of domination.
Accordingly, instructors teaching the novel should teach their students Sons and Lovers in
terms of moral, spiritual, religious and metaphysical aspects of life rather than pure physical
and sexual aspects. They, educationally, should have their own goals behind that and should
aim, for instance, at encouraging students to study the text and think critically of their real
world and compare it to that of the novel. They, then, could examine different human
experiences they are exposed to. They should realise that certain social and educational
theories prove to have a significant role in satisfying physical as well as spiritual needs and
provide solutions for most of the psychological and social problems related to the family as
well as to the individual. Islam, for instance, teaches man a code of behavior and gives a
meaning for his existence. Islamic principles, which are based on the Glorious Quran and
Hadith, are the best form of prevention and treatment of emotional disturbances that Freud
portrays miserably.

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