Psychoanalytical Analysis of Gerald’s Three Coverts to Perpetrate Violence in D.H. Lawrence’s Women in Love

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on the life of Gerald, one of the main characters in D.H. Lawrence's Women in Love, focusing on his violence and the coverts through which people can meet/justify their desire for violence.

Abstract: D. H. Lawrence is well known for creating psychologically deep characters. Since contemporaneous with Sigmund Freud, he has been familiar with his groundbreaking theories about unconscious mind. Moreover, he utilizes them for creating his characters in his novels. For instance in his Women in Love, Freud’s impact on him is striking. Freud holds that human beings are primitive by nature and their primitive attitudes can emerge anytime. In this regard, this paper aims to draw on Freud’s idea of unconsciousness to analyze Gerald, one of main characters in the novel in question. To do so, it will primarily focus on his violence. According to Freud, human beings aspire for the violence in their unconsciousness; nonetheless, they cannot answer their psychological need easily because of social norms. However, from the view point of Freud, there are some coverts through which people can meet/justify their urge for violence. Thus, the present study endeavors to bring into light these coverts by focusing on the life of Gerald in D.H. Lawrence’s Women in Love.