Roll No : 19651502-026
Subject : Modern fiction
Assignment Topic : Son and Lovers as autobiographical novel
Submitted To : Sir Ibrahim
Submitted By : Maryam Dar
Class : BS English (8th)
Sons and Lovers as an Autobiographical Novel
The concept of Oedipal love is a scientific theory about human nature propounded by
Austrian neurologist, Sigmund Freud. According to Freudian Theory it is a manifestation
of sexual desire of son for mother and conflict with the father. Freud derives this theory
from the story of King Oedipus of Thebes who unknowingly married his own mother and
had children by her. This problem of Oedipal love in Sons and Loves is very subtle and
puzzling. Now the questions always trouble everyone, whether this love relation
between son and mother is of Oedipal in nature or not? Or whether this kind of love is
possible or not?
Let us examine how the love relationship between the mother and son develops. Mrs.
Gertrude Morel who is married to Mr. Walter Morel is deeply dissatisfied with her
husband. Mr. Morel is neither intellectual nor has any moral or religious feeling. Besides
he is a hardcore drunkard. There is a clash and temperamental difference between the
two. Although they live together physically but they are poles apart in emotional
ground. Mrs. Morel is emotionally broken. It was the matter of chance that their third
child was coming. This child is not the result of any love between the two. Mrs. Morel
thinks that she must love it with all her affections when it is born, because the child is
the result of hatred of wife for the husband. So she decides to love it more than all her
children. A male child takes birth. He is weak, tender and delicate, so the mother needs
to care this child. Here at this point starts the growth of emotional love between mother
and son.
The mother has begun to influence the soul and conscience of the child. She has
deliberately trained her children to hate their father. All children are horrified with their
father. They all hate him but Paul hates him most. He wishes “Lord it would be better
that my father dies.”, but at the sane time he is confused, feels guilty and says “Let him
not die in the pit.”
The elder brother is too older to become the playmate of Paul and younger brother is
too younger to play with him. Annie and mother remain in the family. But Annie keeps
herself busy in books and in her friends. Ultimately there remains mother who cares for
her son, Paul.
Lawrence presents the relationship between the son and the mother in the novel
poetically. He lives in mother and mother lives in him on the emotional ground. Paul
goes to school and for the whole day she keeps on waiting and waiting. She dreams of
his son would be well-established. She does not want that Paul should join his father’s
job in mines.
Paul comes out from the four walls of family when she gets a job at the family of
Jordans. And when he meets Miriam, he experiences the close intimacy of some other
woman besides his mom. But his mother also wants to possess his soul. Here his
mother’s excessive command and her hold on his temperament and emotion existence
become a terrible impediment or stumbling block. Paul and Miriam love each other
passionately. But his mother does not permit him to love Miriam. His mother feels that
this Miriam is too dangerous for her son. But when Paul comes in contact with Clara, she
does not suspect as Clara is a married lady. But Paul becomes disillusioned with Clara.
He felt dreary and hopeless between Clara and Miriam.
Paul feels that his mother is destroying him unconsciously. So, he hated her for
sometime but he could not liberate himself from the strangulating effect of his mother
and find himself hopeless. Anguish and agony, pain and love go together in his life. But
when his mother falls ill, he increases the dose of morphin to liberate her from her
painful life. At the time of her death he whispers again and again, “My love, my love.”
Now mother is dead but Paul is not happy. He finds himself in more complexities. To Paul
the real world looses the charms of his life. He begins to realise that there is nothing
meaningful in this world. Like Hamlet – “Man delights me not”, he is not delighted by
the world. Such was the influence of his mother on his consciousness.
