OEDIPUS COMPLEX IN SONS AND LOVERS

Sons and Lovers is vividly pregnant with the theme of Oedipus Complex; a theory postulated
by Freud according to which a male child unconsciously exhibits a desire to have close relation
with his mother and a jealousy and hatred is aroused for father. Lawrence‘s treatment of this
complex I s having a dramatic effect in this novel.
The novel is basically about relations of Mrs. Morel with her three sons William, Paul and
Arthur who are born out of a disastrous marriage of Gertrude Morel with Mr. Morel. Although
marriage is a happy one in start but as soon as Mr. Morel turns out to be an irresponsible
husband and father the gulf is created in married life and it goes on widening after the birth
of Paul and Arthur when Mr. Morel is more brutal to his wife and pushes her outside the
house in a drunkard stupor. After no time Mr. Morel becomes unwanted person in this house
only because of his rough behavior, the way he is drunkard, the way he uses to be a fine mess
and his uneducated background makes him so unbearable thing in this house. Everybody in
the house loathes his presence in the house. When he is outside they feel relaxation. Paul
after a long wait of her mother for his father rebukes her for this waiting, as he says; “What
do you bother yourself for? If he wants to stop and get drunk, why don‘t you let him?”
William often has quarrels with his father on mere trifles, even at one place they stand ready
for fight, with fists drawn and knees crouched one word and men would fight, and Paul wished
they would fight. This is all because of Mrs. Morel as she is responsible for making her sons
stand against their father. She fails to get expected love from her husband and finds substitute
in her sons. It is failure of her marriage with Walter Morel whom she had scarcely loved makes
her turn to the sons. First to William and then to Paul. Her life with the coal miner turns out
to be a complete fiasco. He is a bully and drunkard to whom she “shares neither intellectual,
moral nor religious sympathies.” 2 After the birth of Paul she is so delicately concerned with
him that it
is a kind of guilty of doing unjust to him and that he must compensate all that she has been
missing in her shattered married life.
A famous critic, Alfred Booth Kuttner deems the early relations of Paul with mother as very
exotic and delicately beautiful. 3 As even the sight of his mother is source of contentment for
him.
His soul seemed always attentive to her.
And every conversation of Paul with mother holds a kind of spiritual attachment. And he even
now and then realizes the fact that why they both are not of same age. “Why can‘t a man
have a young mother?... and why wasn‘t I the oldest son?”
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 f all that occurred
to her during the day. He sat and listened with his earnestness. The two shared lives and it
seems mother and son are actually one and the father comes merely as a rival between the
two.
The other reason why Mrs. Morel is drawn more closer to Paul and lavishes all her love to him
is the death of her eldest son William. After his death she loses all hopes and remains vacant
and cut out from the world. It is after few months that Paul too is caught by the same disease
that of his brother William was dead with. Then she realizes “ I should have watched the living,
not the dead. ”
The love for Paul is so intense that she incorporates jealousy for any other women in the life
of her son. At first she treats William the way as a beloved does to her lover. Even when
William wants to marry Lily, mother stops him and dictates him to think again on “marriage”.
She forbids him as she says “nothing is as bad as marriage, that‘s helpless failure. Mine was
bad enough and ought to teach you something; but it might have been worse by a long chalk.”
In case of Paul when he is to marry Miriam, she makes her son guilty for his idea of marriage
to Miriam, she dictates Paul by saying; “I can‘t bear it, I could let any other woman – but not
her, she‘d leave me no room, not a bit of room. And I have never had a husband, not really.”
And in response to this Paul wouldn‘t surrender and avoid Miriam to the extent that had
created complexity in his mental building.
According to Frank O‘ Connor, 4 the only thing lacking in relation of mother and son was a
sexual relation, rest of things were completely like man and wife, as they made caresses,
kissed each other passionately, blushes in face, treated each other like two lovers. The first
prize in school and painting competition which Paul won, she received it like a queen. The
love they made to each other was so passionate in itself and so husbandly, wifely that nobody
would take them as mother and son. Even Mrs. Morel takes them red handed at one night
when Paul was showering kisses on her neck, he wishes to fight with him but mother comes
between the two.
However Lawrence does not agree with the Freudian concept of incest, he deemed it as the
normal outcome of parent- child relationship in the unconscious of Child‘s psychology. Thus
in Sons and Lovers the Oedipul love is more spiritual than the physical. And this spiritual love
is manipulated by the prison of boy‘s soul in clutches of his mother. Like we see how he is
messed up with the idea that; “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..” So the
spiritual attachment to his mother forbids him to have sexual relationship. This spiritual incest
is more deep rooted than the physical incest. Though the sexual desire for incest is not fulfilled
yet psychological incest is fulfilled. So this was the one factor that was responsible for passing
Oedipus Complex in his personality so much so that even after her death he is unable to free
himself from shackles of this complex. His soul will always be in possession of mother and
they forever will remain lovers. There are other factors as well which makes Paul likely to get
affected from Oedipus Complex.

The Overall Family Influence

The overall family environment is molded in such manner as to make the psychology of Paul
complex, he is a serious, quite child, with eyes seemed to listen, and with a full, dropping
under lip. His quietness and vulnerability is the result of seriousness in family. He always
remains conscious of what other people felt, particularly his mother. When she fretted she
understood, and could have no peace. His soul seemed always attentive to her. The way he
took revenge from Arabella; a doll which Annie adored and was broken by Paul, Paul quietly
convinced her sister to burn it, and he burned it to the last drop of wax melted from it. Paul‘s
personality develops as a person who is self-centered and less talkative. Because he is
undesirable child of the family, his father hates him when he weeps. As a result he gets all
parental love from his mother exceptionally which is one of the major reasons of his
Psychological building prone to have Oedipal Complex.

Role of Impotent Father

In most early analysis of Oedipus Complex in Sons and Lovers the role of father come out to
be of little importance but if minutely observed this role of father equally stands with other
factors. The presence of father has a mighty impact in behavior of child especially regarding
sex. The boy seeing his mother physically loved by his father takes him as his rival and then
imitates his masculine strength and other qualities.6 but in the case of Paul Morel effect from
father is negative, his father is unwanted person in the family with several drawbacks;
poverty, insufficient education, person belonging to lower class, being a coal miner supposed
to do work which is physically exhausting and above all extensive drinking habit, all these
things make Walter morel a thing suited to be hatred.
On the other hand Paul‘s mother belonged to middle class society with ambitious desires.
When she fails to receive ideal sort of life from her husband she wants to get such life from
children. She brings them up in such manner as to develop personality traits belonging to
upper class. In this attempt she indirectly teaches her children to hate their father, to mock
his presence, to belittle his work and to sneer his lack of education.

And a simple fellow like Walter Morel easily becomes victim of Villainous attitude of his wife.
As he is easily exiled from the intellectual life of the family.
Paul‘s relationship with father is based on hatred and discrimination. The best example can
be found in lack of communication between the two, as in early chapters Paul gets a prize and
is suggested by mother to tell father about the prize, the way he discriminates his attitude
can be found in his following conversation;
―I‘ve won a prize in 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‖
That was all he could talk to his father. In Paul‘s view his father could take prizes in financial
terms, value of knowledge and art was alien to him Paul thought his father having a shabby
insight, almost denying God.

Paul’s failure to get along with other women in his life

The influence of mother is so pressing in personality of Paul that bit is very hard for him to
give his spirit to any other female in his life. Although Miriam is so intimate to Paul that she
“boasted to red him like a book, could place her finger any minute on the chapter and the
line.” Even this much was not enough for Paul. His soul was bound to his mother. If he
passionately wants to meet Clara and demands sexual relation with Miriam it is his effort to
be freed from the prison of his Mother‘s possessiveness. But it does not prove to be an easy
one.
He even expresses his inner fear to his mother that he cannot get along with any other woman
until she is alive.
“But no mother, I even love Clara, and I did Miriam; but to give myself to them in marriage, I
couldn‘t, I couldn‘t belong to them. They seem to want me, and I can‘t even give it them.”
“you haven‘t met the right woman,” “And I never shall meet the right woman while you live.
”
Even after her death he is unable to free himself from eternal spiritual bond with mother,
even his poisoning the milk of his mother is deemed as his unconscious wish for escape. But
even this does not work. After her death he is still unable to marry Miriam for his psychological
complexity. He says to Miriam; “I can only give friendship- it‘s all I am capable of- it‘s a flaw in
my makeup. The thing overbalances to one side- I have a toppling balance.” and “I have given
you what I would give a holy nun- as a mystic monk to a mystic nun.” So it is obvious that
entangled in the net of mother fixation and finds no way out to release himself.
So far as the Clara is concerned Paul makes sensuous relations with her but it is all temporary
to be distracted from his complex Psychology. He belongs to Clara as long as a child plays with
a new toy. “He was an unreasonable child, he was like an infant which, when it has drunk its
fill, throws way and smashes the cup. ”
It is obvious that Paul confronts three types of love; spiritual love from Miriam, Sensual love
from Clara and Oedipal love from his mother. Neither spiritual love of Miriam nor sensuous
love of Clara can distract him from shaking off Oedipal love for mother. His mother is the
valuable thing in his life. Paul’s immaturity in Psychological makeup; One last important factor
for Paul‘s vulnerability for attack of Oedipal love is his immaturity. It witnesses one of the
Freudian concept that child‘s personality is reasonably built at phallic stage. And Paul at his
phallic stage was confronting with nothing but mother everywhere. If at this stage he had
lived like other normal boys in adventurous and sporty activities, he would never have been
incorporated fixation of mother love. Some critics also argue that because he was born weak
and fragile, mother took more care of him than rest of the children, so more he got attention
and love from mother more he associated himself towards his mother. Mother‘s
extraordinary care and more than necessary affection brought him in contact with Oedipus
Complex.

Conclusion
Psychoanalytical reading of Sons and Lovers give two conclusions; one ambiguous and other
obvious. Owing to the fact that the love of mother clutches him in its hold even after her
death,
Paul Morel finds deficiency in any other woman‘s love, he seems either moving towards an
independent adulthood or drifting to a derelict with a wish to remain with his dead mother.
So in both cases he is left with nothing except memories of mother haunting his soul, and
making him more likely to be suffered and ruined by his psychological complexity. The only
solution for
Paul is to find any woman closely resembling his mother in attitude as well as affection, until
he is nothing but derelict.