Summary of pages 1-25 in Sons and Lovers by D.H Lawerence

Summary of pages  1 – 25  in Sons and Lovers

There was a collection of cottages by the name of hell row where colliers live that got burnt down. A company by the name of Carston, Waite and Co. expanded on their operations and built houses in the area where hell row was located.

Gertrude Morel thirty one years old married for eight years have two children and is expecting her third child in September. Walter Morel her husband, is a miner. Gertrude was not happy to move to the bottoms in July, her children William who is seven and Annie who is five is excited.

William went out and came home unhappy from the absence of his mother after winning two egg cups for her. He also reported seeing his father at a bar. In the nights, Gertrude would go in the garden and watch other families while they are coming from the wakes and begins to think about her family and the problems with her can’t affording a third child, since her husband drinks away his wages. Mrs. Morel children are her only happiness. Additionally, Mrs. Morel got into an argument with her husband after he returned, about whether or not he was drinking.

Gertrude Morel came from a good family. She hated her father’s overbearing behavior towards her mother whom she loved and favored, but she inherited the temper of her father. Mrs. Morel thinks back on her youths and remembered when John Field a well educated young man, who gave her a Bible that she still has. She remembers discussing the reluctance to go into business.

At twenty three, Gertrude met twenty seven year old Morel, who was a hearty, vigorous and humorous man at a Christmas party. Morel was fascinated by Gertrude’s qualities. They got married the next Christmas and she was very happy for several months.

Morels lie, and his inability to communicate intimately and his increases drinking soured Mrs. Morel. She gave birth to William around their third Christmas and she turned her loneliness and delusion into passionate love for William, which made Morel jealous. Mr. Morel jealousy aroused in him cutting off William’s nice curly hair. His tendency to mock his superiors led to his lower wages, which he resulted in drinking.

One day John Purdy visits, Mr. Morel best friend. Gertrude hates his cold, manipulative and domineering nature. The men leaves for a ten mile walk to Nottingham, where they gambled.  Morel returns home drunk where he and Mrs. Morel fights viciously about his drunkenness. He locks her out the house and goes to sleep. She raps and Mr. Morel opens and ran upstairs before she can be angry with him. Gertrude cleans up the kitchen and goes to bed.

Oedipus

Definition of Oedipus complex

Oedipus complex denotes the emotions and ideas that the mind keeps in the unconscious, via dynamic repression, that concentrate upon a boy’s desire to sexually possess his mother, and kill his father. Sigmund Freud, who coined the term "Oedipus complex", believed that the Oedipus complex is a desire for the mother in both sexes (he believed that girls have a homosexual attraction towards their mother).

Understanding Oedipus complex

According to Freud, the boy wishes to possess his mother and replace his father, who he views as a rival for his mother's affections. The Oedipal complex occurs in the phallic stage of psychosexual development between the ages of three and five. The phallic stage serves as an important point in the formation of sexual identity.

Resolving the Oedipus complex

In order to develop into a successful adult with a health identity, the child must identify with the same-sex parent in order to resolve the conflict. Freud suggested that while the primal id wants to eliminate the father, the more realistic ego knows that the father is much stronger.

According to Freud, the boy then experiences what he called castration anxiety - a fear of both literal and figurative emasculation. Freud believed that as the child becomes aware of the physical differences between males and females, he assumes that the female's penis has been removed and that his father will also castrate him as a punishment for desiring his mother.

In order to resolve the conflict, the boy then identifies with his father. It is at this point that the super-ego is formed. The super-ego becomes a sort of inner moral authority, an internalization of the father figure that strives to suppress the urges of the id and make the ego act upon these idealistic standards.

Books\plays that deal with Oedipus complex.

1. Social psychology and deviant behavior

2. The legacy of Cleopatra.

3. Die Traumdeutung

4. A separate piece (Norwegian version)

5. Pandora’s Box