Oedipal Love in D.H. Lawrence's "The Rainbow"

In The Rainbow, D. H. Lawrence discusses Oedipal love in three relationships. In the first generation, Tom Brangwen has a mother-fixation which results in his sexual insufficiency. He is so much haunted by the mother image that he is not able to push his relationships with his girls to their desired development. Next we find it in the Tom-Anna relationship. During Lydia’s pregnancy and later during her preoccupation with the newborn child, Tom diverts his love towards his step daughter Anna. The relationship is charged with great intensity, but only momentarily. After Tom’s satisfactory adjustment with his wife, the undesirable intensity of this relationship automatically fades away. It is in the case of Will-Ursula relationship that we find a detailed discussion of the Oedipus complex. Frustrated in his marriage, Will looks to the child Ursula for his emotional fulfillment. Since it is a very strained and perverse kind of love, it sustains him all right, but it has a ‘deadening’ effect on Ursula’s sensibility. She becomes too moody and sensitive.

(For complete essay, plz email me)

Comments

evans0 said…
would love to see rest of essay if possible!

Popular posts from this blog

A Summary of Rolland Barthes' "From Work to Text"

I.A.Richards' Two Uses of Language

Analysis: The Fifth Stanza of William Blake's "The Tiger"