Sons and Lovers as Bildungsroman

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Sons and Lovers as Bildungsroman

As a twentieth century novelist, essayist, and poet, David Herbert Lawrence brought the subjects of sex, psychology, and religion to the forefront of literature. One of the most widely read novels of the twentieth century, Sons and Lovers, which Lawrence wrote in 1913, produces a sense of Bildungsroman1, where the novelist re-creates his own personal experiences through the protagonist in (Niven 115). Lawrence uses Paul Morel, the protagonist in Sons and Lovers, for this form of fiction. With his mother of critical importance, Lawrence uses Freud’s Oedipus complex, creating many analyses for critics. Alfred Booth Kuttner states the Oedipus complex as: “the struggle of a man to emancipate himself from his maternal allegiance and to transfer his affections to a woman who stands outside the family circle” (277). Paul’s compromising situations with Miram Leivers and Clara Dawes, as well as the death of his ...

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Kuttner, Aldred Booth. “Sons and Lovers’: A Freudian Appreciation.” The Psychoanalytic Review. 3 (1916): 295-317. Rpt. In TCLC, Ed. Dennis Poupard. Vol. 16. Detroit: Gale, 1985. 277-282.

Lawrence, D.H. Sons and Lovers. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1996. :Niven, Alastair. “D.H. Lawrence.” British Writers. Vol. 7. 1984. 87-126.

Spilka, Mark. The Love Ethic of D.H. Lawrence. (1955): 244. Rpt. In TCLC. Ed. Dennis Poupard. Vol. 16. Detroit: Gale, 1985. 289-293.

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