儿子与情人 精神分析

The Analysis of Paul’ Oedipus Complex--A Psychoanalytical Study on D.H Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers Abstract: D.H. Lawrence is one of the greatest writers in English literature.Sons and Lovers is one of his masterpieces which are known as a novel with a large amount of sexual descriptions in it. Although this book is quite controversial, it is very popular all over the world. In the novel, the hero Paul has Oedipus complex towards his mother which means that he loves his mother like loving his lover. In this paper, the author is trying to use Freud’s psychoanalytical theory to analysis Paul’s Oedipus complex and illustrate several reasons that cause it. Some factors in his family directly cause his Oedipus complex, but capitalism is the fundamental reason for Paul’s tragedy life.Keywords: Oedipus complex, psychoanalytic theory, formations, reasons摘要：D.H.劳伦斯是英国文学史上最伟大的作家之一。

《儿子与情人》是其代表作。

这是一部以性描写著称的小说，因此自诞生之初就备受争议。

尽管如此，他还是受到全世界广大读者的欢迎。

在此小说中，主人公保罗有严重的恋母情结，他像爱自己的恋人一样，深深爱着他的母亲。

在本文中，作者试着用弗洛伊德的精神分析理论对保罗的恋母情结进行分析，并总结了导致保罗恋母情结的原因。

尽管家庭因素直接造成了保罗的不正常心理，但资本主义制度才是导致他悲剧生活的根源。

关键词：俄狄浦斯情节，精神分析理论，形成，原因I IntroductionD.H. Lawrence is one of the greatest writers in English literature whose masterpiece is Sons and Lovers. Due to his life experience and beliefs in the theory of psychoanalysis, there are a large amount of sexual descriptions in this novel. In fact, the hero of the novel has a strong Oedipus complex to his mother, Mrs. Morel. In this paper, the author uses psycholinguistic approach to analysis the development of Paul’s Oedipus complex and works out several reasons that cause the Oedipus complex.1.1D.H LawrenceD.H Lawrence was one of the distinctive writers in English literature. He was not only a novelist, but also a poet, dramatist and essayist.Lawrence was born in coal miner’s family. His father was a coal miner but his mother was from a middle class family and was a well-educated woman. The differences between his father and mother led to his unharmonious family life. He got a lot of social experience from his father and great care from his mother. He received excessive care from his mother, or we can say that his mother spoiled him to some degree, and at the same time, Lawrence also had extraordinary love to his mother. He once said that he loved his mother, just like the feeling to lovers. With his mother’s love, he was unable to love other girls like a normal man. All these about his family life could be reflected in his novel Sons and Lovers.Lawrence was deeply influenced by Freud’s psychoanalytical theory, so in his work, there are a large amount of descriptions about sex. He regarded the sexual intension as the root of everything. In his masterpieces, for example, Sons and lovers, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, he succeeded in describing sex vividly. Just because of this, his novel receives a lot of critics. In spite of these critics, his works are still welcomed due to his digging into people’s soul.As a poet, Lawrence was also very successful. His poems can be divided into three periods: In the early period, his poems were mainly his autobiographic; in the middle period, he turned his subject into nature; in the last period, he expressed his opinions to life and rebirth.Lawrence died in the year of 1930 at a very young age. His death is a great loss toEnglish literature. If he were able to live a longer life, he could have written more excellent works.1.2Sons and LoversSons and Lovers is the masterpiece and finest achievement of D.H Lawrence. Because of the sexual descriptions, it is representative in the banned movement. However, this did not influence its popularity among people. In fact, it has been welcomed in the readers all over the world.This novel has a semiautobiographical nature since it is a model of D.H. Lawrence’s own life. In his own life, his life was just like the life of Paul’s. Just as what is mentioned above, he loved his mother and his mother’s love deeply influenced his life. With this love, he could not love other girls like other young man both physically and psychologically. These feelings above could be directly reflected in Paul’s struggling in the novel. In this novel, his mother was the prototype of Mrs. Morel who lost confidence in the life with Mr. Morel and fell in love with her son. As her first son died from the tiredness for making more money, she devoted all her love to her younger son, Paul; Miriam in the novel was in fact Lawrence’s girlfriend Jessie. With his mother’s love, he could not love Miriam and did not know how to deal with the relationship with Miriam and Clara; besides, Paul’s father was also a coal miner, just like Lawrence’s father. Mr. Morel hated his life and drank a lot; only after drinking, could he have the courage to let off his anger which intensified his contradictions with Mrs. Morel. In the end of the story, after Paul’s mother passed away, he left his hometown to be a real and independent man.The book can be divided into two parts according to the content. The first part focuses on Paul’s Oedipus complex with his mother; the second part mainly describes his different relationship with Miriam and Clara.II Literature Review2.1 Studies on Sons and Lovers Home and AbroadStudies on Sons and Lovers have been popular both in China and abroad, but these studies have different focuses.Some researchers have been studying the work from the perspective of feminismsince Mrs. Morel’s mental process and behaviors are an example of the awakening of feminism; there are green studies on Sons and Lovers for in the novel, Lawrence expressed the Paul’s blood-consciousness. There are studies on this novel from the perspective of linguistic area: for example, there are conversational analyses on Lawrence’s language in it; other researchers focus on the language variants in the novel since the character’s languages differ from each other due to the different social status.In this paper, the author plans to use Freud’s psychoanalytical theory to analysis this novel. In psychoanalytical theory, Oedipus complex is an important concept. The hero Paul in this novel has a strong Oedipus complex to his mother.2.2 Psychoanalytical TheoryPsychoanalytical theory is an important theory in psychology and was first proposed by Austrian psychologist Sigmund Freud. Soon, it is widely used in literature field to analysis writings.There are three main principles in psychoanalytical approach: first, Freud proposed that most mental processes are unconscious; second, he claimed that the prime monitor of human behavior is libido which means sexual desire; third, many of people’s desires and memories are repressed in fact by the social taboos. Freud spited human mind into three parts: they are preconscious, conscious and unconscious which also equally means id, ego and superego. His focus in these three parts is unconscious. Freud emphasized the sexual differences and thought these differences are biologically determined rather than socially constructed. He advocated muscularism and regarded female as lacking male sexual organ.According to Freud, psychic zone can be divided into three parts, id, ego and super ego: id is actually the reservoir of human desires and it could make a person evil. It is inaccessible and chaotic and at the same time lawless and amoral; for ego, it could protect people from excesses of id. It is ruled by reality principles and in fact a conscious mind. Ego could make people into human being by standing for reasons. As the most important function, ego could make a balance between id and superego; Superego is the moral censoring agency of human and it is largely unconscious.Superego represents all the social rules and impulses toward perfection. It has the rules of morality repressing the drive of id and thrust the unconscious and conscious into id. But the overactive superego will create a sense of guilty.In Freud’s theory, the unconscious is inaccessible for the individual. However, people could detect it through some traces or symbols, for example, dreams, tongue slips and jokes and so on. Subconscious, conscious and unconscious should be in a balanced position, or the repressed and desired will surface as abnormal behaviors.In literature, psychoanalytical theory emphasizes that writers are day dreamers and they are psychoanalyzing the evidence in their life and connecting these with their works. At the same time, it intends to use the sex interpretations to psychoanalysis the characters in the writing.Latter, the neo Freudianism appeared and De Jung, Lacan and Kristiva are the representatives this theory.2.3 Oedipus ComplexAccording to psychoanalytical theory, complex is in fact a complicated emotional problem. This is a combination of generally correlated concepts or feelings which are probably caused by emotional hurt in one’s life experience. Once a person got hurt in a period of time, he will soon forget it and just sweep the unhappy experience in the memory. In fact, these feelings will deeply sink into his heart and become a part of unconsciousness and influence people’s behaviors and emotions to some degree. Complex is an emotional structure and everyone has it. But different people will have different results due to the different ways of dealing with them.Oedipus complex was originated from Greece mythology. In the mythology, Oedipus unwittingly killed his father, Laius and married his mother, Jocasta. Oedipus complex is an important issue in psychoanalytical theory. It refers to a child’s desire to sexually possess the parent of the opposite sex. For example, males are attracted by their mothers and females are attracted by their fathers. Freud first coined this concept and this is a basic idea in his famous psychoanalytic theory. Freud presumed that Oedipus complex is common in people’s life and the core of all the psychological problems. Oedipus complex is not only a psychological term, but also widely appliedin literature criticism area.III The Formation and Manifestation of Paul’s Oedipus complex3.1 The Formation of Paul’s Oedipus ComplexAs we know that Paul’s parents (Mr. and Mrs. Morel) were from different social status. At the beginning of their marriage, they lived a happy life because they had n’t come across the difficulties in life up to then. Gradually, Mrs. Morel was getting fed up with the miserable life since it was so different from the life before her marriage. She was a proud lady with a strong will and had a strong desire of acquisitiveness and domination. On the other hand, Mr. Morel looked like a cheerful and energetic man. He had great passion to life and his work at first. However, as time went by, when his marriage met difficulties, his nature appeared. He was becoming coward and timid toward everything. Because of Mrs. Morel’s proud attitude towards her husband, Mr. Morel tried to avoid conflicts with his wife and repress his anger although he was quite unsatisfied with her. In his life, for most of the time, he was tolerating his wife’s disdain. Only when he was drank, could he be able to release his feelings freely and violently to his families. But after all, drinking could not solve every problem and save him. When he became sober, he was still Mr. Morel—a timid and coward man, feeling shame to what he did when he was unconscious. As a man, Mr. Morel could not use a positive attitude to face everything.Due to Mr. Morel’s behavior, attitude and her own personality, Mrs. Morel at last abandoned her husband spiritually. On one hand, she was striking her husband’s self-esteem all day long which made Mr. Morel be more self-abased. In her eyes, her husband was a person without manhood; On the other hand, she was searching comfort from other persons and her son was her best choice. In fact, she was searching for a reliance to replace her husband.When her first son, William, was born, she devoted all her life to love him. William was working in a law firm as a secretary. Because of his mother’s great expectations on him, he was working hard. Finally, one day he died because of the excessive fatigue. Mr. Morel was heart-broken for her son’s death and nearly lost hope to life. So when her second son, Paul, was born. She had more expectations tohim. More seriously, she regarded Paul as her life. Paul was an obedient child and did not want to let his mother down. At this time, Paul’s Oedipus complex started to form. When Mrs. Morel was trying more and more to control Paul’s everything, Paul was also becoming more and more obedient to his mother and loved his mother. His Oedipus complex had become his fate in his rest of the life.3.2 Manifestations of Paul’s Oedipus ComplexIt is obvious that Mrs. Morel’s love and control to Paul was dominating Paul’s everything, including his emotion and soul. As a result, Paul lost his ability to love anyone else and was emerged in the abnormal love from his mother, both psychologically and physically. His Oedipus complex was not formed in one day, but by the continuous affections from his mother. When he noticed his mother’s extraordinary love, he could not escape from that. Instead, he actively responded to that love which promoted his Oedipus complex.First, Paul’s Oedipus complex was shown by his admiration towards his mother. When he was very young, he experienced not only delicate, subtle and sensitive kinship from his mother, but also the romantic and colorful love from her. When Mrs. Morel felt suffering from life, she could release her anger through talking to Paul and Paul nearly became her psychological harbor. She loved her son and encouraged Paul to work hard in order to be excellent to be a member of the upper class. Mrs. Morel wanted her son to do this because she was rather depressed by her current life and eager to go back to the life before her marriage. Paul understood what his mother was worrying about and comforted her often. Because of his sensitivity, all his attentions were attracted by his mother and he was sharing his mother’s happiness and sorrow all the time. Gradually, loving his mother had become a responsibility and aspiration of Paul’s.Second, Paul’s Oedipus complex could also be seen from his suffering when he was dating with other girls. Paul’s mother was terrified with his son’s dating with other girls. She wanted to occupy his son instead of letting him to be an independent man. Sometimes, Paul wanted to escape from this control and date someone else. He had two girlfriends, Miriam and Clara. For Miriam, she and Paul had similar interestand personality and they should have been a perfect couple. Miriam was a girl who was pursuing emotional satisfaction but lacked of passion in her relationship with Paul. She and Mrs. Morel were destined to be enemies for both of them were trying to occupy Paul’s soul. In the end, she was defeated by Mrs. Morel because of the irreplaceable kinship between Paul and Mrs. Morel. Another woman called Clara gave Paul physical satisfaction compared with Miriam. She was from lower class and separated with her husband. Their combination was transient and lifeless. When Paul felt depressed in his mother’s control and found no comfort in Miriam, what he wanted to get was to prove himself to be a real man. Unfortunately, he chose a wrong way of sexual releasing. Similar with Paul, the reason why Clara wanted to continue the relationship with Paul was also to prove her charm since she was not satisfied with her husband. When Paul was dating these two girls, he was obsessed by his mother. Although the dating was a temporary escape for Paul, he could not truly escape from his mother’s control in the end. Gradually, this Oedipus complex became his burden and suffering.Third, Paul’s hatred towards his father was also one of the manifestations of his Oedipus complex. At a very young age, he had all kinds of negative feelings towards his father. His father was a rude man, both in the society and at home. When he was unhappy and down, he liked to drink because drinking could help him survive in the dark society and icy family. When he was drank, he would be very violent to his wife, and also to Paul. Paul was deeply impressed by his father’s behaviors. He hated Mr. Morel and hoped that he could stop drinking because it was fatal for a drinker to stop drinking, in another words, he wanted his father to die. We can see here that he regarded his father as his enemy. If his father died, he could sleep with his mother on the same bed. In fact, he enjoyed the feeling to sleep with his mother; besides, without his father, his mother could be happier than before since in his eyes, his father was the root of his mother’s unhappiness; at the same time, without his father, he could occupy his mother both psychologically and physically. The same as the feeling his mother had towards him, Paul had the same desire to his mother.From all the details above, we can figure out that, Paul has a very serious Oedipuscomplex. According to Freud, a lot of boys have Oedipus complex but it mainly exists in their subconscious and will not come to the conscious part so that most boys will ignore it. But when it is so obvious that he or the people around him could feel it, the subconscious and unconscious balance will be broken which will lead to psychological problems. Paul’s problem is that he was excessive reliant to his mother and lost the ability to love other girls in a right way.IV The Reasons that Cause Paul’s Oedipus Complex4.1 Family Causes for Paul’s Oedipus ComplexThe most direct causes for Paul’s Oedipus complex are from his family. In his family, four people’s influences on Paul lead to his Oedipus complex: they are his father, his mother, his former elder brother and himself.Paul’s father gave him the first influence on his Oedipus complex: Mr. Morel was from the lower class of the society. Because of his social status, he was not able to receive good education. He spoke local dialect and could not communicate with his wife and sons properly. As a result, he was looked down upon by them. In a normal family, a father should be an idol and a model of the sons. Sons tend to admire their father and imitate them to some degree. In Paul’s family, he did not have the opportunity to do this because he regarded his father as a man without manhood. In his eyes, a real man should not be like that. He wanted to change a man’s image to replace his father’s. Besides, Mr. Morel could not give Mrs. Morel a perfect family and a happy life. Paul had a strong will to take his father’s place to care for his mother because his father was too useless in his heart. So we can say Pau l’s father is the remote cause of his Oedipus complex.Paul’s mother is one of the main causes that lead to his Oedipus complex. Paul’s mother was from a comparatively high social class and she was better educated than his father. When they first met, passion made them get married without thinking too much about the future life. As a result, the marriage life seemed miserable to both of them. Mrs. Morel gradually was getting fed up with her life with Mr. Morel and felt depressed to him. As time went by, the contrast between them was becoming more and more obvious. Paul admired his mother more while he had more negative feelingsto his father. Mrs. Morel lacked of comfort and had to seek comfort from somewhere else. At this time, her son became her best choice. The more Mrs. Morel was reliant to Paul, the more Paul loved his mother.Mrs. Morel had two sons actually. Her elder son died at a young age because of the great pressure and the heavy load of work. When Mrs. Morel wanted to search comfort, his first son, William, should have been her best choice. Unfortunately, all the responsibility of caring and loving his mother came to Paul as his brother passed away. Without Mr. Morel, without William, Paul became the only person Mrs. Morel could rely on. With the more and more intimate contact, Paul loved his mother gradually.The root reason of Paul’s Oedipus complex is his timid and coward nature. At the beginning of the relationship with his mother, he enjoyed the feeling of loving and receiving love from his mother. As time went by, he was feeling that his mother’s extraordinary love was a heavy burden and like a net which he was not able to escape from. As a burden, he was responsible to his mother; as a net, when he wanted to live a normal life like others and fall in love with other girls, he could not forget his mother all the time although he was dating them. In the end, he had to go back to his mother. If Paul could be brave enough to cut this abnormal relationship as soon as he was aware of it. He could have lived an independent life earlier instead of being a real man only after his mother’s death.4.2 Fundamental Reasons From Society that Cause Paul’s Oedipus ComplexSociety has strong influence on people’s life, both physically and psychologically. We can see that Paul’s Oedipus complex is an unhealthy state of mind. Unhealthy society and unhealthy way of life will certainly lead to unhealthy mental state. Paul’s mental problem is of course a result of the society.In the novel Sons and lovers, D.H Lawrence did not describe too much about the society. He concentrated more on the mental activities of people. However, as we read through this novel, we could clearly figure out that all the psychological activities were deeply influenced by the society: The capitalist society was destroying people’s life and leading people to a more miserable life.“Capitalism is an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital good, by investments that are determined by private decision and by price, production and the distribution of good that are determined mainly by competition in free market”1In capitalist society, everything belongs to the owner and he will do whatever he could to exploit the workers to make a better profit. Because of the nature of the capitalism, the workers can not escape from the fate of being exploited.Mr. Morel was a representative figure of this kind and his life was just a vivid picture of the working people in capitalist society.Paul’s father was born in a lower class family and the class distinction made it impossible for him to live a different life. When he was young, he could not receive a good education so that in the later life he became an illiterate person whom people looked down upon. He had few opportunities to contact with the upper class people. The only chance was that he met his wife in a dancing party which seemed a change in his life. But fortune could not change his fate. His marriage life was still as miserable as before, or more miserable than before.As a miner, he was dirty for most of the time. When he was in a mine, he had to work day and night and sometimes could not come up to the ground for several days. The heavy load of working made him be a machine instead of a man. When people went to relax after work, the only thing Mr. Morel could do after work was to drink to numb himself. As days went by, he lost the ability to release his feelings and the result was he was too oppressive to be a real man. After he went back home, sleeping and beating his wife had become an important part of Mr. Morel’s life.Mr. Morel is a good example of the workers of the old generations. He was dissatisfied with the realty and had spirit of resistance but they did not know whom to resist. No one had told them that their miserable life was caused by the industrialized society and the capitalism. So they were not aware of the fact that the exploiting from the capitalists was the root of workers’ poverty. They were working in the dark humid underground mine and were running great risk of losing their lives. This kind of work 1Merriam-Webster: Merriam-Webster Advanced Learner’s English Dictionary, 2010tended to lead workers to be rude and reasonable men. Drinking was their best pleasure. Being rude to their family members could be a kind of self-actualization for them. They lived in narrow and small houses; they walked on the muddy street; they were worrying about their hungry new-born babies; they were eager to know how to buy the next meal. For them, life was just like this, dirty and poor. Mrs. Morel’s life was just the lives of thousands of miner’s wives. The massive industrial production was adding more and more load to workers’ families and this was exactly the root of the Morel’s conflicts in daily lives. They had been a happy couple for a short period of time when they first got married, but Mrs. Morel’s dreams broke when she had to worry about trivial matters of the poor life and she realized that Mr. Morel was actually an illiterate man. Because of her despair, she was giving all her living bet to her son, Paul, which finally caused Paul’s psychopath.V ConclusionAs we have analysis above, Paul gave all his love to his mother without any reserve and regarded his mother as his meaning of life. As we look through the history of capitalism, we realize that this machinery industrial civilization makes more and more people feel depressed and the tense living pace could kill people’s nature of being a real man. So we could conclude that the tragedy life of Mrs. Morel and Paul’s was caused not only by their personal characters, but also the result of the current social environment.Oedipus complex is just like a shadow of a person, it is along with people all the time. However, people fail to find it and refuse to admit its existence. In fact, Oedipus complex is a kind of behaviors and emotion caused by libido in preconscious. Libido here does not only refer to sex, it includes all the emotions in preconscious. Freud explained it as a result of sexual distinct and stimuli from one of the parents (Father gives too much love to daughters or mother loves sons too much). In this situation, sons are likely to possess their mothers and it is natural to regard their fathers as enemies; daughters also want to occupy father s’ love and could not tolerate father’s gentleness to their mothers so that daughters and mothers become enemies. These instinct emotions generally could be controlled to some degree and can not be realizedbecause it lies in the preconscious. Even if it is realized, people are reluctant to admit it.Oedipus complex will not do harm to people’s life if we could know enough about it and treat it in a right way. Generally, the tragedy life in the novel will not happen in ours. However, just because of the vivid descriptions on the hero’s psychology change and suffering, the novel Sons and Lovers could be a classical novel with the eternal beauty.Bibliography:1. D.H. Lawrence (2011) Sons and Lovers. 北京：中国对外翻译出版公司；2.佛洛依德（2009）《精神分析学引论.新论》江西：百花洲文艺出版社；3.西格蒙德.佛洛依德（2011）《梦的解析》北京：国际文化出版公司；4.李淑芩. 从精神分析理论看《儿子与情人》中的恋母情结. 黑河学刊（174）：29-30；5.李红. 浅析影片《儿子与情人》中的“恋子情节”.电影文学（2013.9）40-41；6.席战强.现代工业社会人际关系的变奏曲：从《儿子与情人》中几组人物关系看现代社会生态的变异. 名作欣赏（下月刊）（2013.1）；7.梅里亚姆-韦伯斯特公司（2010）《韦氏高阶英语词典》北京：中国大百科全书出版社。