Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory Oedipus complex: A critical study of D. H.

Lawrence’s “Sons and

Lovers
 Freudian Psychology exercised a profound impact on English novel than drama or poetry,
since novel has greater scope for psychological interpretation of characters and representation
of diverse human relationships. Between members of a family, there are supposed to be
sharing a deep relationship like mothers and fathers , boys and girls. Those relations must
specifically be based on love and protection of each other without any distracted regard on
something else although the existence of both gender Wich can inspired and attracted each
other . Those genders are often distracted and sometimes bring in some household a fansif and
fanatic relationship between mother-son , what sigmund Freud call the oedipus complex , and
father-daughter what carl jung calls an Electra complex. D. H. Lawrence‟s novel Sons and
Lovers published in 1913 is considered to be the first Freudian novel in English and modern
literature, declared ji Hujuiang. The work release to his personal experience in life Wich make it
an autobiographical novel. The way of placing events, what reader may concieder as fiction,
depict to the life of the author . At a stage of his life, Lawrence once over love his mother and
hatred his dad because of his repetitive absence. . In much of his work, Lawrence is deeply
using the themes of Psychology, puritanism, hypocrisy, love, sex, and nature but this novel
Wich captivated our study deals with the love between mother, son and their beloved and the
relationship between son, mother and father. The actuality of the novel tells of the deviation
between Gertrude and Paul Morel who respectively occupy the place of mother and son in the
household of this story. The succession of events show how Gertrude Morel fades into the lives
of her sons while creating a disaster that upsets the lives of each of them Lawrence's sons and
lovers portrays a complex husband-wife, mother-son, and man-woman relationship as a
product of psychological interpretation of a mother fixation through the life of her sons,
especially her paul maurel who's concieder as the psychological character in the novel. .
Sigmund Freud then call it the oedipal complex . It is a term first used in his book “The
Interpretation of Dreams; his perception of the word believed that humans early on in
development had a sexual need, , which was seen through his perspective of desire and
emotion within the unconscious part of the human mind. Freud define sexuality as a key
component to human personality and thus plays an important role in a child's development.
Thus studying this work is going to give experience on how to analyze and provide more ideas
on the literary work of the greatest writer D.H. Lawrence, the question that can depict is how
does Laurence deeply , confront issues that relate to emotional health to the life of the
protagonist that's still trying to enter the departure of his life. How is he going to manage to
succeed in his life and escape to the mother fixation and the complex that hold him to distroy
his life step by step.
 Sons and Lovers written by the great David Herbert Lawrence is a novel inspiring from his
personnal life experience . The novel presents the consequences of unnatural love on both the
lover and the loved as in the relationship between Mrs. Gertrude Morel and Paul and on one
side and between Paul and Miriam on the other.

The story is built around the Morel family and show the falling of the second son, Paul Morel,
as he still learns to build himself in the tensions between his love life and his family life. Paul
Morel is emotionally bound and influenced by his mother, so he is unable to form another
relationships when he meets other women. At the beginning of the novel, the author present a
couple Mr. and Mrs. Morel that were attracted to each other, but gradually, by the time their
first son William was born, Mrs. Morel's bitterness and disgust toward her husband grew so
strong . Consequently, she becomes very lonely, and devotes her attention to her sons and
avoids her husband. This generates a serious conflict between husband and wife , and build
some ideas of misunderstanding and contrast actions that continues throughout the whole
development of the novel.

Mr. Morel is presented as a man who could have been loving and caring, given a different
circumstance as the novel present that "he brings a cup of tea to his sick wife in bed and
sometimes tells his children stories about the mine, or has them help fix kettles or make fuses."
But after few years of leaving three years of happiness, each members of the couple undertook
that it's already sufficient for them and started an unfinished battle . And Mrs. Morel
deliberately excludes Mr. Morel from all family affairs and encourages the children to be hostile
to her ,so , forced to despise their father. Therefore, as he has an attitude of alienation, his
character deteriorates until he becomes raw, angry and violent. All of this negatively affects
the children, especially Paul who is very sensitive.

Gertrude Morel started choosing, prefered and loving her sons more than her husband. What
is also seeing in the personnal life of the author. The more she loved them, the most she lost all
interest to her husband , up to the point where the the maternal love she is supposed to give to
her children becomes a completely different form of love. Little by little, she replaces the love
she had to provide for her husband on her children, who become her lovers ; what critics call
husband in substitute, and expects from them the fulfillment that her marriage lacks. According
to those critics, the kind of love that exist between the mother Gertrude and her son is more
than a maternal love because she is emotionally attached to her sons in a relationship that
Freud calls the Oedipus complex. This is manifested by the kind of possessiveness with which
Mrs. Morel tries to cling to her sons once they grow up, and the hostility she directs towards
their girlfriend. The fact that she first decides at the beginning to choose who will be the
girlfriend of her sons, and also that she does not accept them by presenting crises "i cannot
bear ... she would leave me not a bit of room''
 This suggests that her feelings for her boys are much stronger than simple maternal love. As
he grows older, William diverts his attention from home, resists his mother, and pursues his life
with many girls, despite his mother's passionate love and ill-hidden rejection of his female
friend. He becomes prosperous but vain, snobbish and eager for social success instead even
out of the house and far to his mother, he still continues sending her love letter. Gradually he
loses himself for the family and in the end the fast pace of the new life kills him. He dead in the
arm of his mother , that heavely destroy her .

Ms. Morel now turns fully to the youngest son, Paul, who almost lost his life following
pneumonia. She becomes passionately attached to Paul and becomes the dominant force and
influence in his life. The second section of the novel presents the conflict between Miriam and
Mrs. Morel on the one hand and the passionate feeling between Paul and his mother on the
other. Paul loves his mother more than anyone else, but this would not be called a destined
love but a love of profit because he was neglected at first and was fully sensitive to the way Mrs
Walter treated his mother. this feeling of disgust therefore made him feel compassion for his
mother and brave disgust for his father. He is then plunged between the love of Mrs. Morel but
also loves Miriam, so he is torn between the two women in his life. Unfortunately, Mrs Morel's
influence is destructive in Paul's life. At a given moment in history, social inequality sets in
because Mrs. Morel takes the pretext that Myriam is not endowed with any fortune and only
has purification to offer it because the present text that if as a great believer. yet Clara not
only makes him a lover gift but has monetary and sexy potential to offer it. where we here
denounce love for the sake of both sens.

the tragedy that occurs in the work comes from the compassion of both parties, my mother and
the son. during his mother's sickness period, he was the only one who cared for her at that
time. he show a complete devotion and concern for his mother, he hold no peace of mind. he
often addresses his mother as ''pigeon'', ''my little'' as if she was her lover. He had sexual union
with clara and is filled with guilt and cannot talk about it with his mother . We properly see how
he realise that he is oppress by her. He realise then that she is destroying him and he wants
liberation . This is how he decided with the complicity of his sister , to give an over dose of
medicine in her milk and she dead.

At some point Paul becomes estranged from both Miriam and Clara and his life is shattered
and with his mother's dead, he becomes empty and helpless. (Such as noticed in the life of
Lawrence himself on that stage where his mother was going to dead ). So he needs someone to
fill the void left by his mother's death so turns completely on Miriam but Miriam couldn't fit
into the shoe left by his mother. He becomes unstable. However, the author presents an
optimistic future for Paul as the novel ends with the presentation of a strong determination to
live by Paul as he clenches his fist, closes his mouth and walks towards the light of the city. He
is “determined to take the path of life, not death. He will not follow his mother. So he walks,
not into darkness, but into city lights".

The work of of D.H Lawrence has just been tracked down. This analysis clearly shows the
reader that, the direction of his writings, the high thought of the author needs a psychological
understanding of the thing, although he only expressed an imaginary story to free his thoughts
to which he adds many moments of his own life. Nevertheless, in what Psychological theory
did the literary explore sons and lovers of DH LAWRENCE?

Throughout the analysis of the novel, it seem that psychology is the most relevant way
uses to better understand the text. The relationship that is discuss during the whole novel , call
the reader or the critic, the explore it as oedipus complex. It is a term Used by sigmund freud in
his book untitled The Interpretation of Dreams (1899) . he present it as a child's complete
sexual desire for his parent of the opposite sex and recent complete jealousy towards the
parent of the opposite sex. Freud concieder Oedipus complex as a part of his theory, that
childhood development can be divided into psychosexual stages,differentiated by children's
alleged sexual fixation on different parts of the body. In psychoanalytical theory, it is seen as a
desire for sexual involvement with the parent of the opposite sex and a feeling of rivality and
jealousy toward the parent of the same sex. This stage of growing, is a crucial step in the
normal developmental process of a child because society let child growing with the mother
without the contrepartie around. The baby during his growing, especially the boy, get fast
attached to his mother and started feeling more compassion for her than the father. He grow in
a wishes protect this attached part, and being the only for whom she must take care and
received a common gift or exaggeration of love.

The term derives from the Theban hero Oedipus of Greek legend, , Oedipus is abandoned at
birth and therefore does not know who his parents are. It is only after killing his father and
marrying his mother that he learns their true identity. Her feminine sense is called the Electra
Complex, introduced by Carl Jung to describe how this complex manifests in girls. However,
freud believed that the term Oedipus complex referred to both boys and girls, although he
believed that each sex experiences it differently and still have different background. Electra
complex is named after another mythological figure, who instead helped to kill her mother.

Freud in Nye , attributed the Oedipus complex to children between the ages of three and five
and Sue attributes it in the phallic stage of growing. They (Sue and Freud) emphasize that ,
during this stage, the incestuous felling for the opposite sex parents become very strong. Freud
then argue that the stage generally ends when the child identifies with the parent of the same
sex and suppresses his sexual instincts. If previous relationships with parents were relatively
loving and non-traumatic, and if parental attitudes were neither overly prohibitive nor overly
stimulating, the stage is passed smoothly. In the presence of trauma, therefore, there occurs
an instance of "infantile neurosis" which is an important precursor to similar reactions during
the child's adult life. The superego is the moral factor that dominates the conscious adult mind,
also finds its origin in the process of overcoming the Oedipus complex. Freud considered
reactions against the Oedipus complex to be the most important social achievements of the
human mind. This regained the social of the human being ( infant) from this early age and is
totally confronted with the mentality in which it should take part.

This is manifested by the complete over attached of a child to a parent of the other sex, his
desire to defend him his desire to defend him against all odds, admired the opposite sex as a
god and wanting to idolize him, which leads to resenting the parent of the same sex. this
occurs naturally according to Freud in the sense of the id and the ego. the ego naturally knows
that it will not be able to fight and win and also knows that the parent of the same sex has total
power over the coveted person of the opposite sex. he already knows that the one if it wins
then, the id, in default of his fleshy desire, is obliged to make a hypocritical friendship with the
latter necessarily as according to Lacan, for the dissolution of the complex to take place, the
child must identify with the father, the love of the father cannot be avoided because it will
allow the son to assume his own masculinity.but in some cases, in the face of this, the covet
goes to war and becomes jealous and envious of the character of the same sex. According to
Freud, the boy wishes to possess his mother and replace his father, whom the child sees as a
rival for the mother's affections.The boy then for having taken mother as his own possession
regards father as enemy wanting to take his place. Thus this complex is also called ‘Mother
Fixation'.

This desire is kept out of consciousness by rejection, denial, but Freud says it still influences the
behavior of the child and plays a role in development. What Sue define it as an abnormal
behavior. In their book understanding the abnormal behavior, They defines it as '' the behavior
that depict on some norms,and is detrimental to the affected individual or tho other'' . In
Freud's theory, children progress through a series of stages of psychosexual development. At
each stage, the subconscious is focused on the pleasure related to a certain region of the
body.he states that the Oedipus complex then has an important role in the phallic stage of the
child's psychosexual development. successful completion of this stage involves identifying with
the same-sex parent, which would ultimately lead to the development of a mature and more
controlling sexual identity.

In the previous line, a theory that can be link to Lawrence sons and lovers has been
explored , so oedipus complex is well depicted. It result as being the complete desire that a
child can Express for his parent of the other sex, and feel jealous and envie toward the life of his
parent of the same sex. Thus,what is the oedipus complex that appears in the work?
The greatest writer D.H. Lawrence is one of the author who can be described as a controversial
writer, most of the time is considered a life changing writer according to the fiction used when
he write his work. His novel Sons and lovers have layers of meaning and therefore various
angles of perception are needed to understand the real intentions and the message that is
communicated . The novel calls for a psychoanalytical interpretation and benefits from an
examination of what Freud called the "Oedipus complex" that indicates the sexual desire of a
son for the mother and feeling in rivality with the father. Lawrence, by introducing the Oedipus
complex into english literature, also opened up a new perspective in the field of fiction ; he
gave a new psychological depth to the handling of such a complicated theme. Although
Lawrence did not read Freud while writing Sons and Lovers, the novel is a fine illustration of
Freud's theory of the Oedipus complex according to some critics. Sons and Lovers is then
named as the first Freudian novel in English.This psychoanalytic theory is visible on several
levels in the novel; respectively to Mrs. Morel and her sons, as a substitute father, and
relationship between Paul and both Miriam and Clara as substitute mother . The answer is
mainly about the relationship between Paul Morel, the protagonist and his mother. Graham
Hough in his discussions of Sons and Lovers in The Dark Sun says that "the whole situation in
the novel presents the Freudian Oedipus complex as an embarrassing situation in the classic
entirety.

D.H Lawrence begin the story by introducing the way how the couple Morel meet together.
At the first day, because of mrs walter's attitude, Gertrude thought that she finds her life mate,
the one with Wich she can spend the rest of her life . Unfortunately, after three years mariage,
the couple started being disgusted for each oder . The only thing Wich can show that they
Where once married is the presence of their children , ( williams, paul and annie) . Disappointed
by her husband Walter Morel, mrs Morel gradually rejects him and takes him away two sons
William and Paul as husband replaces one after the other, thus destroying their emotional life.

On the present novel, at the beginning , the Oedipus complex appearing in William and Paul is
illustrated in the relationship between the parents. The boys witness a marriage that is not in
the norm, in which Walter Morel their father often returns drunk after having wasted his
income which could be used for the family by playing. All of this causes the boys to hate their
father and to be sympathetic and protective of their mother. They see in their mother
someone good and pure and in turn, she keeps her sons for herself and safe from their father.
By this act, Gertrud Morel unconsciously directs and dictates conduct to her sons in what she
wants, so that they can eventually take the place of her husband. She is clearly unhappy in her
marriage, so she tries to live through her sons. It is the stimulus that allows the oedipal
attachment to form in both of those boys.

William is his mother's eldest and favorite son at the beginning of the novel. He does everything
to please her. which sparks a sibling rivalry between William and Paul as they were doing a
competition for their mother's affection. Mrs. Morel becomes jealous of William's companions
and he ends up moving to London. William's move to London was his unconscious way of
trying to free himself from his fixation with his mother. In London, William meets a girl named
Lily. They get engaged but William is not happy. He has a misogynistic attitude towards her.
It's very clear that Lily doesn't possess the good qualities he sees in his mother which emanates
from a crude comparison and it angers and frustrates him. William has classic displacement
symptoms. When William expresses his dissatisfaction with Lily, his mother asks him to
reconsider his marriage. He replies, "Well, I've come too far to break up now." These
conflicting feelings that William experiences are a sign of his apparent struggle to get rid of the
mother fixation and the Oedipal fixation.William is proud to be seen with his mother because
"no other woman looked like such a lady as her" William is the surrogate husband that Mrs.
Morel does not find in her marriage and the son are a source of emotional fulfillment for her.
William takes his father's place in his mother's heart as Lawrence well said , "William was
already a lover for her". Mrs. Morel disapproved William's girlfriends; and it is to Aruna Sitesh
to declare "William dies torn between his beloved and his mother".

After William's death, Mrs. Morel turns to the youngest, Paul. The relationship between Paul
and his mother runs through the entire novel. It has different stages and different degrees of
intensity and stress. Paul suffers from pneumonia and when he recovers, the mother captures
his spirit. There is a striking emotional correspondence between them. His heart contracts
with pain of love for her. Mr. Morel tries to interrupt her but Mrs. Morel gets angry. Paul also
hates his father and prays for his death. H. M. Daleski writes that the clash between Paul and
M. Morel is of course a vivid example of the Oedipus complex.

Oedipus complex that faced by paul is a kind of the love that he feels toward his own mother,
their relationship is base on love and attachment of each other . And this was please to Paul
because he can find what he want from his mother and never dare to hurt her . According to
him, the only person in his life that can receive a deepest love is his mother and none any
woman else : he declare '' the deepest of his love belonged to his mother . When he felt he had
hurt, or wounded his love for her could not bear it " . We properly see how he is devoted to his
mother . This is where Freud denonces the abnormal behavior; the way in Wich paul declare de
be attached to his mother and prefer her , and avoid interaction with his father.
 Paul sees the love of his mother as a burden that make him unable to love another woman.
He can't love another woman under his mother's shadow . He sees himself close to his mother
as how a man must be close to his beloved. His romantic relationship with his mother takes a
new turn with the arrival of Miriam, his first girlfriend. The mother is deeply hurt. She throws
her arms around Paul's neck, hides her face on his shoulders and cries in a whispered voice: “I
can't bear… She wouldn't leave me a bit of room. " The situation becomes quite emotional and
intense with a long, fervent kis In fact, Paul's relationship with his mother takes on the
character of a husband in substitute. He sticks to her by instinct as a shadow as if he were her
man. There are various incidents and situations in the novel where they were both like lovers.
Consequently, Paul fails to establish a well-adjusted relationship with both Miriam and Clara
because of his complete mother fixation. He finds it difficult to manage them and to be
comfortable with them. Paul had developed a sexual relationship with Clara, but he could not
discuss about it with his mother.

Lawrence was an explorer of human relationships and in this novel he studied sexual
relationships from different angles. He managed to psychologically define the character of
Paul. The novel traces the growth of the protagonist's consciousness and the development of
emotional relationships from a subtle psychological angle. when Madame Morel falls ill. Paul
showed extraordinary devotion and concern for his mother. During his illness, he did not have
peace of mind. He often addressed his mother as "Pigeon" and "my Little One", as if she were
his lover.Paul cannot give himself to Miriam because he knew that as long as his mother was
alive he would not get freedom. He has a sexual union with Clara and is filled with guilt. He
finds himself carried away by his violent passion.

Graham Hugh is right when he says, “The whole situation presents the Freudian Oedipus
complex in almost classical completeness."The relationship between miriam, clara and Paul ,
brings about a marked change in his attitude towards his mother. He realizes that his mother is
destroying him and he wants liberation. He is aware of the fact that when his mother is alive,
he will in no way be able to develop his personal life and therefore undertakes to give her an
overdose of morphia pills with the complicity of his older sister annie. His act of giving an
overdose of medicine in his milk is another aspect of the Oedipus complex.

Oedipus complex is also seen in annie. According to the study of this psychoalitic theory, it
comes out that, Electra complex goes with girl's desire of their father and the complecity to kill
their mother. Sure during the novel, she's not a part of caring because as well as she where the
same sex as the mother, she's not really so viewing. The fact that she was a complice, she was
aware of the fact that wath we put in her mother's milk will just off her and never give her any
force anymore instead she's on a sick- bed, make her properly a murder as well as the one
whose put the morphia in that milk .
In the previous life, the expectations of oedipus complex in Lawrence's work has been study
throughout relationship since it's the way how it started. Mrs Gertrude Morel's exces love
toward her sons spoiled their life because they took it as a burden and a way to be attached to
their mother especially Paul. We can see how through that love, he show his possession
towards his mother wich make him as a husband in subtitut. However, is sophocle's and
lawrence's work expect the same characteristics of oedipus complex? What is their
relationship?

In sons and Lovers, the protagonist Paul's case differs from that of sophocle's oedipus Rex .
In sophocle's work , sin was a sin of ignorance and a tragedy of fate. until the discovery is made
his relationship with his mother brought nothing but self-approach suggestions. Paul is not
quite aware of the presence of this complex, but although he often fights for his release, he
does not engage in any self-approach in his account. He usually loyally obeys fierce instinct. The
social instinct of the novelist does not allow him violate what is inviolably sacrosanct, again
Lawrence never tries to eliminate the physical suggestions. It tries to faithfully represent the
primitive psychodynamics without transgressing social setting. The bond between the sons
and the mother is the direct consequence of the Oedipus complex.

Both William and Paul hate their father and even Paul pray God that his father dies. When
William is born, Walter the husband becomes a stranger because he does not receive love,
care, affection and attention. Sons treat their father as their enemy. In Greek mythology,
Oedipus commits the sin of killing his own father and marry one's own biological mother
unconsciously and under a curse but the Walter's suffering at the hands of his sons and his wife
Gertrude is done on purpose and intentionally. In the modern era, whatever we knowingly or
unknowingly doing it is the psychological dilemma posed by modernity psychologists based on
their observations and studies. The suffering of Paul and Mrs. Morel is no less than the
suffering of Oedipus and Jocasta.

William and Paul are unable to form intimate relationships bond with their beloved. They
are not able to form union with their souls and they continue suspended between their
mother and their beloved. It is this Oedipus complex which forbids Paul to thinking of any
other woman to be his life partner. The head says don't let the mother down and the heart
says that Miriam is a nice woman and of live with her. But he continues to struggle on thepoint
that he is unable to find the mother substitute for Miriam. The true and true consolation is
only found in the mother and that is why it looks like the naval string is still attached.

Paul cannot find his personality away from his mother hence the revelation of mother fixation.
He dies every second of his life when he is revealed that Ms. Morel suffers from cancer. Love
was so strong but destructive that it gives the overdose of morpheme to his mother to put his
heart free from pain. The bond was so strong that even after the death of his mother, he
chooses to live alone and he leaves Miriam for all time. Even if the mother was not alive but
she is still there in his mind.

It is recognized that Oedipus married his mother Jocasta totally unconsciously. He is even so
ashamed and afraid to marry her. When he hears this from the oracle of Delphi he left his
country Corinth to escape from such a crime, and finally he is informed that he married his own
mother and afterwards, aware of his relationship with his mother, he closes his eyes. his heart
is full of remorse, agony and guilt. On the contrary, Paul bonds with his mother from feeling
very consciously satisfied and comfortable instead of feeling ashamed or guilty like Oedipus. If
it's a universal phenomenon then why feelings. Oedipus was a victim of fate Sophocles' purpose
behind the drama was mainly to show the dominating power of fate which all the ancient
society even the Shakespearian of all time ancient modern time believed.

On the other side, Madame Morel also resembles the contradiction between Oedipus and
Paul. Whether Freud's claim is universal so Jocasta's feelings and Mrs. Morel's feelings
regardless of their relationship to their sons should be the same. But unfortunately that does
not happen. Where Jocasta unknowingly marries her son and after being informed commits
suicide with her heart filled with agony and shame here Mrs. Morel consciously involves herself
in sexual relations with her own child and feels quite happy and rewarded for it.

The only relationship between sophocle's work and that of Lawrence is base on the theme of
oedipus complex. We properly see that oedipus the king, oedipus react exactly due to the
tragedy of his fate. Unknowingly, he kill his father king Laius and married his mother and slept
with her . When they was aware of the tragedy , queen jocasta hang herself and oedipus dig
out his eyes. But here in Lawrence's sons and Lovers, they are really aware of what they are
doing. Mrs Gertrude intentionally want to take her sons as husband on substitut. she uses
emotional blackmail to achieve her goals and to be able to Reignier in their lives what Freud call
mother fixation. This firmly let us to analyze the relationship in the novel : how did character on
this novel are they percieved each other?

The animosity between father and son is one of the harmful behaviors that appear in the work.
William is Mr. Morel's eldest son. His relationship with his father is not so pleasant. The
violence and barbarity of his father, his lack of refinement and his drunkenness force him to
hate his father. He witnesses the brutal and violent treatment by holding his father's hand
when the latter comes forward to beat his beloved mother, William sees this with disbelief and
hostility. Because his mother loved him so much, his father turns red with envy. Once he found
out his father had hurt his mother, he threatened to beat him up and probably did if his mother
didn't stop him. In this way, William openly demonstrates his contention with his father.
the relationship between father and son is also one of the plots of the work according to the
reader. Mr. Morel's second son, Paul, is also obsessed with his mother. So, it is only natural
that Paul would be disgusted with his father because of his father's rough treatment of his
beloved mother. His hatred for his father becomes acute when Mr. Morel, rather than
approving, tries to grab the award Paul had received at school. Mr. Morel also fears an
unfaithful relationship between mother and son. In the eighth chapter of the novel, when Mrs.
Morel confesses to Paul that she never had a real husband, and Paul tries to comfort her by
caressing and kissing her. Mr. Morel arrived just then and commented, "Your mischief again?"
If Mr. Morel hadn't been insane because of his excessive drinking, there would have been a
fierce battle between father and son.

Mrs. Morel has always prayed for her son's happiness, however, she does not know that she is
the cause of much of his misfortune. So, with all the passion in her strong heart, she begins to
hate Miriam. Paul is aware of his need for both but cannot give himself fully to them. The
result is intense and heartbreaking suffering. The conflict between Miriam and Clara replaces
this conflict in the later part of the novel. Even so, Paul's relationship with Clara also becomes a
failure, as the dark picture of maternal fixation is also present there. Paul is unable to develop
a good relationship with a woman because of his mother. The Oedipus complex within him
destroys him emotionally. Paul is aware of his mother's domination and he struggles to be free
to move forward in life. Madame Morel is wrong to be too possessive. Mrs. Morel and Miriam
want to possess Paul's soul.Paul and Miriam love each other, but their relationship fails
miserably. His deep attachment to his mother prevents him from thinking of having any
relationship with other women. In fact, he himself is averse to physical relationships and when
he takes Miriam physically, he is torn between his love for Miriam and his love for his mother.
Paul not only fails in his relationship with Miriam, but he also fails in his relationship with Clara.
Although Clara only claims Paul's physique and leaves the rest to her mother, their relationship
still ends in a fiasco. the mother is therefore considered wicked because Seeing Paul's failure to
establish relationships with other women, one can conclude that Paul is not only spiritually
involved with his mother, but that he is also physically involved with She. Paul fails to preserve
his relationship with Miriam because of a spiritual cause. However, Clara does not become a
rival of Mrs. Morel because she only needs sexual pleasure. But Paul does not find in her the
image of his mother. Paul is unhappy with Miriam and Clara but his interdependence with his
mother never diminishes.

To sum up, after careful and intensive observation of the novel, we can conclude that the
Oedipus complex illustrates the emotional stress of people's sexual life in modern literature.
Therefore, Hu Junjie as a Freudian psychologist writes that Lawrence is one of the most original
and controversial English writers of the twentieth century responding to the major theme of his
writing the relationship between man and woman.he is of the opinion that, if we accept Freud's
assertion in this work, then Freud's theory also fails to be universal because Lawrence himself
describes the character Mrs. Morel has transformed her relationship with her son for unusual
reasons .Lawrence with the description of the complex and unusual relationship also finds
many unusual factors behind this unusual relationship . Lawrence used the Oedipus complex
theory in this novel but without knowing it. His love for hermother is shown through the
character of Paul Morelle. As Sons and Lovers is a autobiographical novel, we find that
D.H.Lawrence gave a faithful and true account of his life and what he felt and lived in the
company of his mother. It is on this way that Lacan discusses the Oedipus complex as a
metaphor in which the Name-ofthe-Father is a crucial signifier that substitutes for another
signifier, the desire of the mother, which until then was an enigma for the child. It is presented
as a fundamental signifier that installs a model for naming through metaphoric substitution,
and that permits signification to proceed normally. The Name-of-the-Father is also the signifier
incarnating the rules and prohibitions that structure relations to others. It positions the subject
within the symbolic order of human reality

WORK CITED

 Freud Sigmund (1913). Interpretation of Dream, 3rd edition. Translation in English

 Junjie Hu (2007).Analysis of Paul’s Oedipus complex in Sons and Lovers.
 Lawrence D H (1913). Sons and Lovers.
 Safra Jacob E (1768). The New Encyclopaedia Britannica.
 Chicago. Valentine C W (1962). The Normal Child and Some of His Abnormalities
 Graham Hough The dark son
 Sue (1986) understanding the abnormal behavior
 Freud (1986) Nye
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