儿子与情人 文献综述 2014.4.16

On the Image of Mother and Its Influences on Sons in S ons and Lovers 论《儿子与情人》中的母亲形象及其对儿子的影响Literature Review2010级11班熊亮亮Abstract: Sons and Lovers is the famous British writer Laurence’s autobiographical novel in the beginning of the twentieth century, is universally regarded as the masterpiece of Laurence. Since the advent of the book, it has given rise to much controversy in British society and literature. The novel gives unique perspective to reveal us the distortions between mother and son, deformity of love. This thesis paper chooses these two characters Mrs. Morel and Paul in S ons and Lovers as the objects of study. In order to reveal the abnormal attachment relationship between mother and children, here we will analyze the “Oedipus complex”, “Narcissism” and the influences the mother brings to the sons. By reading a lot of scholars’ comments, I have presented the title of my paper from their points of view: On the Image of Mother and Its Influences on Sons in Sons and Lovers.摘要：《儿子与情人》是二十世纪初英国作家劳伦斯的一部自传体小说，被公认为劳伦斯的成名作。

该书自问世以来，遭受到很大的争议，轰动了英国社会及文坛。

该小说以独特的视角为我们展现了母亲与儿子之间扭曲的、畸形的爱。

毕业论文以《儿子与情人》中莫尔夫人和保罗这两位人物为研究对象。

为了可以深刻揭示这对母子间不正常的依恋关系，这里我们分别对“恋母情节”、“自恋情节”以及母亲对儿子们的影响进行分析。

通过大量阅读学者们的评论，我从他们的观点中提出了我的论文题目：《论<儿子与情人>中的母亲形象及其对儿子的影响》。

Lawrence was one of the most famous British writers in the twentieth century, and he was well known as an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist and literary critic. He was also regarded as “the great writer who can match Joyce” in the history of English novels in the twentieth century. Lawrence was born in the Midland mining village of East-wood, Nottinghamshire. His father was a miner and addicted to alcohol, and he often beat his wife and children after he was drunk; while his mother, who was born in a middle-class family, was better educated than her husband, and she was a gentle woman with good manners. The works of Lawrence was deeply influenced by Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis. During his lifetime and even afterwards Lawrence was a controversial figure because of his frank description of sex, but he focused on the exploration i n human’s depths of the soul and applied moving artistic description to his works. As a result, his works are thought highly of by the world literature and his genius was recognized by the whole world.Lawrence’s work, S ons and Lovers, is based on his own life experience and gives an account of the protagonist Paul’s growth process under the control of his mother Mrs. Morel. The novel has revealed the abnormal attachment between mother and son and its influences on the son’s whole life. In this great work, Paul’s father Mr. Morel was a miner with a rude character, while his mother Mrs. Morel was a gentle woman with a good education. At the beginning their marriage was sweet, but later their relationship became worse and worse because of the distinction between their characters and culture. Due to the unhappy marriage, Mrs. Morel transferred all her love to her sons. After Paul’s brother William died, she paid all the attention to the younger son Paul and regarded Paul as her lover mentally. She even encourage d her sons to hate their father and to treat their father like her: “regarding him as a failure.” Besides, she enhanced her control on her sons, leading them to misdirection of Oedipus complex. She envied Paul’s girlfriends and looked upon them as enemies, worrying that her position in her son’s mind would shake, regarding Paul as “the most important part of her life.” Under the impacts of such mother’s image, Paul couldn’t love a woman with all his heart and soul. At last, after Mrs. Morel’s death, Paul st ill fell into deep thought on his mother and couldn’t walk out the shadow mother has brought to him. Finally，after a lengthy struggle, he set out to make his own life anew with his new found courage. The novel is actual autobiography and it’s one of Lawrence’s masterpieces and wins him great fame.Before writing my thesis, On the Image of Mother and Its Influences on Sons in Sons and Lovers, I have collected large amounts of information about the novel S ons and Lovers and the topic by reading books, articles and surfing the Internet. Many scholars have given commentson this novel, and they analyze the novel from different aspects. However, as for my thesis, I will focus on Paul’s “Oedipus complex” and Mrs. Morel’s “Narcissism”.Nie Qiang in Exploration of Oedipus Complex Phenomenon in Sons and Lovers points out that, in the novel, Laurence utilizes the image of Paul to strongly condemn that the capitalist industrial civilization twists people’s life, destroys the family relationship. The author reveals the f ormation of Paul’s “Oedipus complex” and how it is repressed into the sub consciousness. The origin is concerned with the father of Paul--Walter Morel. Paul’s father is a miner living at the bottom of the society, dirty and rude. However, different from the general industrial workers, he marries a middle-class, educated wife who was a primary school teacher once. The kind of marriage lacking a common class foundation and basis for the feelings is doomed to be a failure from the start. Although their marriage has a short happiness, but only seven months later their relationship is gradually deteriorated until they are hostile to each other, as if to be enemies. After the wife’s despair for her husband, the love for her husband is devoted to her sons. She wants to let the son to take the place of her husband, to get the instinct disguised satisfaction for a heterosexual to compensate her for the loss on her husband’s emotional desire, resulting in a “complex”. At this time, maternal distortion turns into the lo ve, which hinders the son’s instinctive desires and in turn leads to the son’s psychopathic. It makes the son could not establish a healthy, harmonious, perfect sexual relationships with other women.Some scholars establish a special way to study Mrs. More l’s narcissism in Sons and Lovers.The word “narcissism” comes from the Greek mythology, a handsome young man who dies for emaciation because of loving his shadow in the water -- Narcissus (Narcissus turns into daffodil after he dies). In 1914, in the epoch-making paper On Narcissism, Freud introduces narcissism is interpreted as a kind of sexual perversion, narcissists regards themselves as sexual object. Since 1960s, Cornell University psychiatrist Otto Kenberg is recognized as the authority in the field of narcissism, his representative Edge Condition and Pathological Narcissism(1987) has become a classic work in this field. Kenberg thinks: pathological narcissism comes into being in early childhood, the narcissist’s mother is full of love on the surface, and in fact she is indifferent and filled with malicious provocation. She usually invests too much emotion on children and regards children as a tool to meet the needs of narcissism. Wang Zimin thinks, the root for Mrs. Morel’s narcissistic injury is the disillusion of her marriage. She indulges in herself, looks down upon her husband and bullies her children emotionally. She vacillates between too much love and insufficient love, and makes use of them to achieve her unfinished aspirations. She is conceited, having the very strongpossessiveness to grab man’s love regardless of all. When Paul and Miriam get together, she makes no secret of her jealousy. Her words become more and more sharp, like an abandoned woman by men entangles him constantly, tortures him.Laurence’s description makes the readers to believe that Mr. Morel should bear full responsibility; Mrs. Morel is a noble woman, loving mother, an unfortunate wife. But, if we don't read novels first, is that the case? Without doubt, Mr. Morel is not a competent husband, however, is Mrs. Morel a good miner’s wife? After reading novels, we find that a large number of examples show the other side of Mr. Morel: he has clever hands and good sense, once in the peaceful family, he is gentle and considerate. He engages in a dangerous occupation, not pretentious, at the same time, in front of his clever opinionated wife, he becomes a complete loser. Chen Guiyan points out that, although Mr. Morel is a pillar of the family, but at home he has no position, become s a useless shell. Due to his wife’s alienation, coldness and scolding without stop, he begins feeling restless, spiritually empty, so he frequently goes to pubs to reduce his sorrow and give vent to his anguish and trouble. In Mrs. Morel’s fight with her husband, she makes her husband become self contempt, less important, losing dignity of being a man. She bids for the children with her husband, monopolizes and occupies her sons’ feelings, or even encourages the children to be against, alienate, despise and hate their father. Finally, Mr. Morel is unbearable, he angrily shouts: “I am trying to do the best, but you treat me like a dog!” Indeed, marriage is related with two people. Mrs. Morel is self-centered, always thinks that she gets the greatest harm, in fact, in the whole process, it is her narcissism psychology that causes the whole family tragedy.Mei Jinli, in her work On the Mother’s Image and Effects in the Growing Process of Children, points out that Mrs. Morel’s dominant position and the strong do mination decide her role in the growing process of the children, mainly reflect in three aspects: their character, career and love life. First, the effect in character the mother brings to sons is both positive and negative. The sons inherit some virtues f rom the mother’s personality. For example, the elder son, William is not only in high and vigorous spirits, but smart, talented, and has a strong will and ambition like his mother. However, because they are isolated from their father from a young age, they lack male masculinity’s influence and are fickle, sensitive, and very feminine. The same as character, the effects on career also has two sides. As for positive effects, to some extent Mrs. Morel contributes to her sons’ success. Though poor, she insists on providing educational opportunities for the two boys; she asks them to set goals and get a good job. From the negative effects, since William’s death, Mrs. Morel has grasped Paul very tightly, notwilling to let Paul go to a distant place for work. This kind of selfish emotion for Paul limits his world. At last, the sons’ love life is an important clue in the development of the novel. The author emphasizes this point because it can most vividly, completely show the role of the mother in the process of th e sons’ growing up. It involves two women, Miriam and Clara. Miriam stands for spiritual love, however, Clara represents physical love. But Paul can’t combine the two kinds of love together, and this is why Paul leaves his spiritual mate -- Miriam, and to the ebullient Clara, but eventually abandons her. His love with the two women cannot be perfect. H e cannot love a woman with all his love. This is what Paul’s love tragedy lies in.Mrs. Morel’s image is of great importance in Sons and Lovers. In order to understand it, we must realize the abnormal attachment between mother and son. Therefore, we should study Oedipus complex and Narcissism in this novel. At the same time, the mother has great effects on the sons under such conditions. This kind of phenomenon is worth thinking for us.All in all, I have tried my best to complete my thesis. Through studying these scholars’ comments, on the one hand, I have understood the novel better; on the other hand, it offers great help for my paper writing.BibliographyBrian, Finney. D. H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers. London: Penguin Books Press, 1990. Carol, Sklenicka. D. H. Lawrence and the Child. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1991.Harinder, Kaur. Semiotic Perspective on D. H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers. New Delhi: Arun Publishing House, 1996.Lawrence, D. H. Sons and Lovers. 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