D.H. Lawrence is one of the greatest English novelists of the 20th century. During his life-long literary career, he had written more than ten novels and several volumes of short stories. Besides being a great novelist, he is also a poet, a combative essayist, an atmospheric travel-writer, and prolific literary correspondent. His true greatness lies in his novels，on which his reputation rests.
His novel Sons and Lovers is considered as one of the most innovative novels of the twentieth century. The novel is about a mother’s abnormal love towards her son and the consequence has caused to her son. In the book, the extreme emotion given by the protagonist Paul to his mother is a brilliant illustration of Doctor Freud’s psychological theory of Oedipus complex. The paper consists of four parts. The first part is an introduction, which gives a brief introduction to the author and his works, especially his Sons and Lovers and a general review of Freud’s Oedipus complex. The main body includes the second and third parts, where Paul’s Oedipus complex and its causes are analyzed materialistically and objectively. The last part is the conclusion. In this paper ,I want to show Oedipus complex not only distorts the normal love between mothers and sons but also affects their life, especially the happiness of the future life of the sons. It’s a kind of abnormal human beings’ love and we should pursue normal love.
Key Words: Sons and Lovers; Oedipus complex; abnormal maternity; failed loveContents
1．Introduction 1
1.1 D.H. Lawrence 1
1.2 Sons and Lovers 2
1.3 The Oedipus Complex 3
2. Analysis of Oedipus complex in the novel 4
2.1 Mrs. Morel’s Jocasta complex 4
2.2 Paul’s Oedipus complex 5
2.3 The contradiction between Mrs. Morel and Paul 5
3. The causes of Paul’s Oedipus complex 8
3.1 Family background 8
3.2 Mrs. Morel’s abnormal maternity 8
3.3 The limitation of his character 10
3.4 The limitation of Miriam and Clara 11
4. Conclusion 13
Acknowledgements 14
References 15
