Psycho-Analysis in Fiction and a Study of D. H. Lawrence’s <i>Sons and Lovers</i>

Abstract

Psychoanalysis in fiction explores the innate conglomerate of the writer’s personality as factors that contribute to his experience from birth to the period of writing a book. Fiction is seen as a manifestation of latent experiences which are repressed in the unconscious mind. The art of writing is approached from the patient’s versus physician’s therapeutic model to the neurosis. All these are examined from the realistic view of life. Approaches adopted by various exponents of Literary Criticism are examined in relation to the sources/causes of writing. The writer is approached as a neurotic patient. Two avenues of psychoanalytic therapy which include transference and free-association are exploited to the modernist inchoate of Lawrence. The paper exploits a psychological stance to the analysis of Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers. Different biographies of the author are implied to the realistic influences of the fiction. The benefit of psychoanalysis to the writer as a means of ‘chimney-sweeping’ his disease is not underrated. The conclusion questions the extent to which fiction can be detached from reality and affirms that fiction writing emanate from experiences rather than muses.