While Sons and Lovers was not Lawrence's first novel, it has the autobiographical quality characteristic of first novels, and lays the groundwork for ideas taken up and developed in later novels like The Rainbow and Women in Love. Chief of these is. the inner psychological conflict created in children by the conflict in the marriages of their parents. Lawrence had read the important essay by Sigmund Freud that set forth the theory of the child's sexual attachment to the parent of the opposite sex, and the ensuing rivalry with the same sex parent. The Oedipus complex and the necessity of resolving it before meaningful adult attachments can take place is one problem area for both William and Paul in Sons and Lovers. Yet psychological forces like the Oedipus complex, though potent in Lawrence, are not seen as entirely deterministic; the stronger characters attempt to face and...