'A Peculiar Fusion of Soul'

Narration, Characterisation, and the Self in Sons and Lovers

Abstract

In an attempt to integrate the study of characterisation with that of narration in D. H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers, this paper traces the psychological themes whose realisation structures the narrative techniques of character presentation and the types of discourse applied for establishing and presenting the psychologies of characters. It examines the narrative techniques the novel employs for characterisation and describes, in terms of narrative situations, focalization and the technique of free indirect discourse, its methods for presenting the mental activities of the characters. It finds that by means of constant shifts of focalization within two specific types of discourse ("psycho-narration" and "narrated monologue"), the narrative accomplishes the linguistic representation of the psychological themes that can be defined as 'the dislocation of sensibility' and 'the loss of the self,' and explains them accordingly.