OEDIPUS COMPLEX IN D.H. LAWRENCE'S NOVEL ' Sons and Lovers '
D.H.Lawrence is one of the most disputed geniuses in the history of the modern English novel and his novels like ' The Rainbow ' and ' Lady Chatterley's Lover ' were prescribed on the ground of immortality. In his personal life, he had to endure great emotional stresses in youth and face many problems. His home was torn by parental conflict, and as a result, he considered Man woman relationship is one of the discord. Sex looms large in his works in all its biological and psychological and metaphysical relation .
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Like Dickense 's ' David Copperfield ' , D.H.Lawrence's 'Sons and Lovers ' contains autobiographical notes of the writer. The novelist himself in his personal life had been a victim of a deep rooted Oedipus Complex. A person who suffers from Oedipus Complex shows abnormal affection for the parents opposite in sex.
In the novel ' Sons and Lovers ' , Paul Morel extends his affection towards his mother since the early days of puberty and it affects his harmonious relationships with other girls. Disillusioned with her husband, Paul's mother, Mrs. Morel graduation takes her two sons- William and Paul- as husband substitute. Paul's mother feels deserted due to his husband's habitual drunkenness, his indulgent and growing up of William. Lawrance presents William ' almost like a lover ' offering the first prize which he received at school to his mother dressed like a queen. When William meets with girls and brings them in the house, his mother is highly critical of it expressing her hostility.
In emotional and personal life of William and Paul , she overshadows like a gloom in Greek tragedy. Paul likes to sleep with his mother like the intimate or confidant one. When Paul suffers from Pneumonia, Mrs. Morel desperately tries to save him from the clutches of death.
Oedipus Complex incites the two sons to envy the father. Paul's unwillingness to show prize to his father, his failure to stand even before his father, and above all, the hostility and hatred towards father show the signs of Oedipus Complex. Paul behaves like a martyr to Meriam in their nun like religious love life. Clara can offer him just the baptism of passion. In his relationship with Clara or Meriam, Paul seeks a mother image in both the ladies.
The Last chapter of the novel is named as Release where Paul breaks his relationships with Clara and Meriam, and confirms his allegiance to his mother. Paul sincerely obeys fierce instinct representing the primitive psycho dynamics. The suffering of Paul and Mrs. Morel is no less than the suffering of Oedipus and Jocasta. Paul is to some extent another Hamlet, divided into Head and Heart. No less a critic than Graham Hough is of the opinion that, " Freud could and almost certainly did do is to set a theoretical seal on the situation that had been very throughly explored in actuality. "
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