On Narcissism In Sons And Lovers

Sons and Lovers is one of those novels which have received the closest psychoanalytic scrutiny. But oddly enough, no psychoanalytic critic, either from a classical or contemporary point of view, has explored the subject of narcissism in it. In fact, Lawrence offers in Sons and Lovers a parable of the narcissistic condition.Chapter One of the thesis presents Ovid's story of Narcissus and illustrates Otto Kernberg's theory of narcissism in detail. Kernberg's depiction of the narcissist's family environment includes a parental figure, usually a mother or mother surrogate, who overloves her child, using the child as a way to fulfill her own narcissistic needs and underloves him simultaneously. The lack of the mother's empathy results in the child's narcissistic injury. The narcissist exhibits such symptoms as grandiosity, self-importance with an inordinate need for admiration and attention from others, fantasies of achieving unlimited success and power, cool indifference or feelings of rage, and interpersonal disturbances:exploitativeness, alternation between overidealization and devaluation, and lack of empathy and so on.Chapter Two explores the reasons for the narcissistic injuries of both Mrs. Morel and Paul. Because of her narcissistic injury suffered in her childhood and the disillusionment with her marriage Mrs. Morel becomes an overbearing, controlling and demanding wife and mother.Inevitably, she seeks satisfaction through her sons. She overloves and underloves them. William and Paul respond wholly to her call. In order to secure her love and attention, Paul struggles to cater to her needs by accepting her hostile and despising feelings toward his father, and taking to art attentively in order to realize her unfulfilled ambitions and his own perfection and shield himself from the sordid perils of the reality. As a result of Mrs. Morel's lack of empathy, Paul becomes narcissistically cathected.Chapter Three deals with the narcissistic complexes of both Mrs. Morel and Paul in Paul's love stories with Miriam and Clara. Mrs. Morel is a narcissistic mother who is bound up with the desire to be loved. She struggles desperately to seize the love of Paul while the latter falls in love with the two women because what threatens her most is the loss of men's love which is the measure of her own value and worth. As for Paul, he is an anaclitic lover who affirms mastering and controlling position before Miriam and Clara rather than their value as loved objects. In this sense, his anaclisis is self-directed: its effects are narcissistic. In fact, the women in his life are the stepping-stones to his own perfection: Miriam to admire his art as a disciple, Clara to awaken his sexual passion, and Mrs. Morel to provide that enormous support to inspire him to rise above his circumstances of his birth, to become an artist, and finally to fulfill his perfection. When he has exhausted their usefulness, he unhesitatingly discards the whole pack of his female supporters so that he may venture forth and inherit the great masculine world which awaits him.In short, psychoanalytic theory can illuminate a literary character's conflicts and interpersonal relationships. In particular, a comparison of Paul and Mrs. Morel to narcissistic personalities yields new and valuable insights into their disturbed inner world.