D.H. LAWRENCE’S SONS AND LOVERS AND WOMEN IN LOVE: AN ERIKSONIAN PSYCHOANALYTIC READING

Abstract

In the study, the researcher investigates the role of parents in children’s mental maturity. As a result, lack of rationality of parents in dealing with children will have detrimental effect on their future. Erikson explored the evolution of the superego and distinguished it among infant mortality, adolescent ideology, and adult ethics. His work, which has enriched formal Psychoanalysis, had enormous impact on the clinical area and had wide application in child psychology, education, psychotherapy, and marriage counseling. Since Lawrence’s works provide feasible texture for Psychoanalytic criticism, the two given novels are studied here on the light of Erikson’s theory. In the Study, a new understanding of modernity comes in through the study of D.H. Lawrence’s two major effects. The thesis, in its five chapters, seeks to trace between D.H. Lawrence’s work and Erik Eriksonian psychosocial analysis. It study is an attempt to cover Erikson’s Psychosocial theory, notably the notion of epigenetic theory and then apply it to the reading of two novels by DH. Lawrence (Sons in Lovers 1994 and Women in Love 1921). Erikson’s theory posits that every human being passes through several distinct and qualitatively different stages in life, from birth to death. The notion of identity preoccupied Erikson’s mind more than any other issues in psychology.