Does the value of Sons and Lovers depend wholly or mainly on the validity of the Oedipus complex? Discuss with close reference to the theory and the text.

 The Oedipal complex also better known as the Oedipus complex was coined by Sigmund Freud in his theory of psychosexual stages of development to describe a male child’s attraction towards his maternal mother. Freud suggests that in the phallic stage of psychosexual development, the Oedipus complex plays an imperative role. The Oedipus complex “is a state which a person shows excessive affection for the parent opposite in sex to him or herself, and a equivalent aversion for his or her other parent.”  Paul Morel is fond of Mrs Morel- and ranges his affection beyond puberty, unpleasantly affecting the harmony of his relationship with other girls (Miriam), we may also describe him as a victim of the mother fixation.

 

The value of sons and lovers is dependant wholly or mainly on the validity of Oedipus complex from the foreword already. Here we learn that “Lawrence” is aware of the Oedipus Complex from his own personal life and is a major theme in the novel. Lawrence states that a man who is like Oedipus cannot have a proper marriage. His wife cannot be a full part of his love, because the husband is not able to transfer the feeling of love from his mother to his wife. During his life, Paul experiences the difficulties in the contact with women he feels attracted to and whom he has relationships with.

 

Mrs Morel says this at the birth of Paul which most critics claims this as the turn of fate that sealed his tragedy. “She no longer loved her husband; she had not wanted this child to come, and there it lay in her arms and pulled at her heart. She felt as if the navel string that had connected its frail little body with hers had not been broken. A wave of hot love went over her to the infant. She held it close to her face and breast. With all her force, with all her soul she would make up to it for having brought it into the world unloved. She would love it all the more now it was here, carry it in her love.”

 

Early on in adolescences Paul brings his mother Mrs Morel flowers and takes them as a gift of a lover: “Pretty!” she said, in a curious tone, of a woman accepting a love-token.” Thus, his mother stays his first object of love for an unusual long period of time. If he would find a girl to love in exactly the same, he can experience true love, but because of his mother would not let him be carried away by her, as if it’s a heinous ‘sin’ for him to experience such love.  She knows, perhaps only unconsciously, about the influence she has on him and feels a great competitive pressure to lose her companionship which she does not find in her son and supports the theory.

 

He is accidentally cruel to his lovers, Miriam and Clara, because he cannot decide what he wants from them and he tends to be self-absorbed and think about himself before he considers their feelings. He feels uncomfortable about sex and is deeply ashamed of his desires. This often makes him hate his lovers because he blames them for causing his shame. Paul is extremely close to Mrs. Morel, especially after William’s death, and wishes that he and his mother were not related so they could be lovers rather than mother and son.