Paper Summary:

This paper provides an overview of D.H. Lawrence's "Sons and Lovers" citing different psychoanalytic theories. The author explains that although there is a likeness between the life of D. H .Lawrence and the experiences of Paul Morel, the main character in the story, this essay examines Paul without commenting on any psychoanalytic symptoms regarding the creator.

From the Paper:

"Critics like Alfred Kuttner have started a trend which study on the close relationship between Paul and his mother and interpret this within the Freudian Psychoanalysis as the Oedipal Complex. When examined trough the views of Freud, the mother-son relationship in "Sons and Lovers" is really the type of relationship which Freud names as "oedipal crisis" but it works differently in this novel. Naturally, the mother is the first love object for all boys. They want her attention and her love. Similarly, the two boys of Morels, Paul and his eldest brother William, see their mother as a divine creature and live as her worshippers. Paul imagines that he and his mother will live together when he is old enough to earn money by himself and when his father has died. Paul loves his mother so much that he wants to be with her and spend all of his time with her. To live with his mother by himself is his greatest desire. When Paul gets ill, he sleeps with his mother and for him this is more healing than the medicine.
"Paul loved to sleep with his mother. Sleep is still most perfect in spite of hygienists, when it is shared with a beloved. The warmth, the security and peace of soul, the utter comfort from the touch of the other, knits the sleep, so that it takes the body and soul completely in its healing.(Lawrence 67)
"The quotation above is important in that it shows how much Paul likes being with his mother. He feels secure and relaxed. Not only physically but also spiritually he feels himself healed.
"Of course, each of us loves our mothers too much and our mothers, less or more, are effective in our relationships with others, especially with women. In fact, loving mother too much or her dominance in the relations can not be assessed as an oedipal crisis. There should be a rival for the mother's affection; the father. The father is stronger and superior in many ways to the boy so at the beginning, they are jealous of their father and the father is seen as an enemy and is hated by the boys. Moreover, as Paul does, they sometimes wish him die."

Sample of Sources Used:

• COWAN, James C. D. H. Lawrence: Self and Sexuality. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2002.
• LAWRENCE, D.H. Sons and Lovers. London: Penguin Books Limited. 1995
• http://www.bibliomania.com/0/5/146/387/18209/1/frameset.html
• http://www.enotes.com/sons-lovers

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