The genre of 'Sons and Lovers'

Dr. SENARATH TENNAKOON

Genres represent the broadest and most fundamental of literary conventions of types (Finney, 1990). A genre is an identifiable category of artistic composition - in the literary domain, subsuming such general notions as poetry, drama, and novel as well as lower-order notions, as science fiction, crime and romance.

The term is also used in a more abstract way, to refer to any formally distinguishable variety, whether a speech or writing such as a song, sermon or conversation (Crystal, 1998). The concept of genre is related to text type and language choice (Kramash, 2000). It has been defined as a class of communicative events with a shared common purpose: examples of which may vary within allowable constraints (Swales, 1990).

In genre, language is used for a special purpose and genre itself decides the kind of style that should be used by the composer / writer / author. In any type of genre, a critic could identify some outstanding features such as context (setting), communicative purpose, channel modality, generalisibility and identifiable constraints. Of these the content is remarkably significant and important. Any genre has to be context sensitive and not be context free.

'Sons and Lovers' has been D. H. Lawrence's outstanding novel. It is based on his life and times. Its portrait of Paul, the middle son of an English middle class family, struggling with the encouragement of his aspiring mother to rise out of his father's class, is simultaneously a portrait of the whole of Paul's generation caught in the web of modernity, not quite knowing what they want but filled with dissatisfaction at their existing circumstances and prospects (Finney, 1990).

Lawrence describes the intense impediment to Paul's development drive. It is Paul's powerful Oedpial attachment to his mother. Paul's sexual relationships breakdown. He finds an enemy in his father and becomes sexually impotent.

It is believed that Lawrence was heavily influenced by psychoanalytic techniques and philosophy of Freud. Freud's 'The Interpretation of Dreams' (English translation) appeared in 1913. 'Sons and Lovers' too was published in the same year. It was his third novel Lawrence's first novel was 'The White Peacock' (1911) and the next was 'The Trespasser' (1912). But it was 'Sons and Lovers' (1913) that became the most popular and influential novel over his later novels like 'The Rainbow' (1915) and 'Women in Love' (1920).

In the genesis of 'Sons and Lovers' the following aspects of Paul's life have been drawn into focus:

1. The emotional development of Paul and his relationships with his mother, childhood love and his wife.

2. The development of Paul as an artist.

3. Paul's unresolved Oedipus complex - the jealousy and rivalry with father, the fixation on the unattainable mother, and the consequent split between the idealised and debased expression of sexual love.

It heavily deals with the complex and swifting situations of the inner consciousness of Paul, the protagonist.

This is even depicted in Paul's paintings in a disguised form. It is his mother's affection that prevented Paul from ever reaching a satisfying sexual relationship with either of his two girl friends (Finney, 1990). It is identified that 'Miriam' in the novel is none other than Lawrence's girl friend known to him from her childhood. Her real name was 'Jessie', on whom 'Miriam' in the novel was based and modelled.

In Jessie Chamber's memoir 'D. H. Lawrence: A Personal Record' (1935) she has encouraged Lawrence to rewrite the novel with a request - 'keep it true to life'. The other female character 'Clare' in the novel is a creation of Lawrence. Paul is non other than Lawrence himself. But 'Sons and Lovers' is not an autobiography as such. It is regarded as a sub genre known as the 'Bildunggsroman' in German.

Bildungsroman is a novel which describes the youthful development of the protagonist who normally attempts to integrate his or her experience at the end of the book (Finney, 1990). Charles Dickens' 'David Copperfield' is one such novel.

So, Lawrence has drawn facts and events from his own experience with power and fascination, mixed those with that of others, making use of the theoretical knowledge of Freud's psychoanalysis to create a context sensitive novel.

It is well-known that 'Sons and Lovers' created a great uproar in the literary world. The use of the psychoanalytic approach and that of symbolism became of focus of attention. Many writers began to examine the underworld of the human mind. By the 1950s and 1960s and even in the 1970s, the influence of Lawrence's 'Sons and Lovers' was not surpassed; and even today the power of Oedipal attachment continues to be an attractive theme for novels and modern films.

References:

1. Crystal David (1998) Language - 2nd Edition Penguins.

2. Finney Brian (1990), D. H. Lawrence - Sons and Lovers, Penguins Books.

3. Kramash Claire (2000) Language and Culture, Oxford University Press.

4. Swales J. M. (1990), Genre Analysis, Oxford University Press.