Literature review on Oedipus complex in Sons and Lovers
1. Definition of Oedipus complex
This term, Oedipus complex, derives from one of the Greece and Rome mythologies. There was a prophecy that the new prince of Oedipus realm would be the person who killed his father and married his mother, after hearing the prophecy, the Oedipus King decided to dissent his son to the desolate mountain. Luckily, the young prince was rescued and brought up by a shepherd and was sent to Oedipus realm. Becoming the king of Oedipus realm, the young king married the queen of Oedipus realm. One day he knew the truth that the queen was his mother and his , father had been killed by him as a passenger. Realized this, the young Oedipus king dug out his eyeballs and then led a vagrant life.
According to the story, the Austrian psychologist Sigmund Freud marked the real establishment of psychoanalysis theory. In the Totem and Taboo which was published in 1913 Freud said, the earliest sexual target of boy is his mother. That is to say he always wants to occupy his father’s position scramble for mother’s love with his father. This is Sigmund Freud advanced a theory of personality development that centered on the effects of the sexual pleasure drive on the individual psyche. At particular points in the developmental process, he claimed, a single body part is particularly sensitive to sexual, erotic stimulation. These erogenous zones are the mouth, the anus, and the genital region. The child’s libido centers on behavior affecting the primary erogenous zone of his age ; he can not focus on the primary erogenous zone of the next stage without resolving the development. In this stage, the child’s erogenous zone is the genital region. As the child becomes more interested in his genitals, and in the genital of others, conflict arises. The conflict, labeled the Oedipus complex (The Electra complex in women), involves the child’s unconscious desire to possess the opposite-sexed parent, and to eliminate the same-sexed one. In another words, during this stage boys seek genital stimulation and develop both unconscious desires for their mother and jealousy and hatred for their father, whom they consider a rival. It was said that boys felt guilt and lurking fear that their father
would punish them, such as by castration. Freud also believe that conscience and gender identity from as the child resolved the Oedipus complex at age 5 or 6, but this actually happens earlier.
We speak of “love”when we lay the accent upon the mental side of the sexual impulses and disregard, or wish to forget for a moment, the demands of the fundamental physical or “sensual”side of the impulses. At about the time when the mother becomes the love-object, the mental operation of repression has already began in the child and has withdrawn from him the knowledge of some part of his sexual aims. Now with the choice of the mother as love-object is connected all that which, under the name of “the Oedipus complex,”has become of such great importance in the psychoanalytic explanation of the neuroses, and which has had a perhaps equally important share in causing the opposition against psychoanalysis.
2. Situation of the research
As we know, D. H. Lawrence is a well-known novelist for his combination of social criticism with psychoanalysis. A wave of enthusiastic study of his works commences in the last thirty years in China. A lot of scholars publicized their own distinctive views on his works, among which Sons and Lovers also attracted public attention around the academic world. There are many observations and surveys of this work from different perspectives.
A famous scholar from Beijing Normal University wrote in his book that the abnormal relationships in Lawrence’s novel can be categorized into three: social marriage, love without sex, and spiritual manipulation (Liu Hongtao, 2007: 167). The marriage of Gertrude and Morel is the typical case of the social marriage. The image of Miriam represents the second and the third classification. He also gives a precise definition of these three kinds of relationships and cites a lot of examples among Lawrence’s works. It has a good guide for the writing of this thesis.
In addition to the above-mentioned researches of the Chinese scholars, some foreign studies also need to be addressed here.
The foreign scholar Gamini Salgado gave in his book A Preface to D. H. Lawrence a classical generalization of his comment on the triangular relationship of Paul, Miriam and Clara. He said,
Paul’s crucial emotional relationship is of course with his mother. Of the
other two women with whom he becomes involved, Miriam enters far
more deeply into his life than Clara Dawes. In comparison with the
strength and intensity with which the Miriam-Paul relationship is
depicted, that between Paul and Clara is meager and superficial and has a
good deal of wish fulfillment only just below the surface. (Salgado, 2005:
104)
A scholar states that the dramatic significance of “male sexual response”to women carries social significance of “biblical proportions”. “Healthy sexuality is finally not dependent on reproduction or fertility or on any organized, social function-but neither is it treated as if existing apart from these. Rather, sexuality forms a bodily religion all its own, one that is prerequisite to social change and well-being.”This indicates the importance of healthy sexual relationship between a man and a woman. Despite the fact that “a full satisfaction with a woman would always be impossible and that only homosexual love, however threatening, might suffice”, it is from the sexual fulfillment with a woman that most of the far-reaching meanings of “male sexuality” are drawn (Pecora, 2005: 722).
3.Existing Problems in the Research
Lawrence took human relationship, especially that of men and women, as his major theme. His novels are full of scenes of sensuous beauty, with a lot of naturalistic details. His works turned out to be a challenge to conventional morality. And some people rejected them, especially Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928), as pornographic. But his books are filled with ideas and they penetrate into the shadows of the human psyche. In his works, Lawrence showed the instinctual force in human nature and offered a critique of modern industrial society.
Sons and Lovers (1913), containing many autobiographical details, is Lawrence’s masterpiece and also his most popular novel. It tells the story of a miner’s family-the Morel family. Mrs. Morel is disillusioned with her husband, a coarse and hard-drinking miner. Therefore, she places all her expectations on her sons, especially Paul. As Paul grows older, tensions develop in this relationship, until his passions for another two women involve him into a fatal conflict of love and possessiveness. This book has been regarded by critics as a brilliant illustration of Freud’s theory of Oedipus complex.
Many researches on the subject of relationships, especially for Lawrence’s works are done. Some of them discuss about the reasons of the distorted relationship. It is quite necessary to find out the roots of these distorted relationships, but it’s more imperative to make out what is a perfect relationship and how to achieve it and what’s the significance of it. Some others explore from the perspective of psychology to explain the inharmonious relationships. It is only different from the former view in terms of angle.
However, even if there exists the research revealing the significance of the relationships, it’s too simple. More deep meaning should be dug out of the work and more detailed analysis for the complicated relationships should be presented. These two aspects will be the focus of this thesis.
For the above resources of the study of Lawrence’s work, the exploration of his view of relationship is rare or without systematic relation. The description of the relationship in the novel Sons and Lovers also doesn’t have a thorough combination with the text of the work. The significance of the relationship is from the perspective of constructing a harmonious society, which lacks profundity and diversity. The tasks of this thesis now are to have a systematic study of the literature views of Lawrence and dig out the characteristics of the relationships and the deeper meaning of it.。
