An analysis on Paul Morel’s Personality Development in D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers

ABSTRACT

When we read or study literary works such as novel, poetry or short story we get some advantages. Besides, when we read and study it we realize that literary works have some relationships with human beings. It can make us be somebody who has a good tolerance, understanding and perhaps even wise.

Novel is very helpful in showing a person, the nature of human character. Character is one of the elements in the novel that dominates the story; because we often find out the character in novels very much resemble human being in real life.

This study is based on D.H. Lawrence’s novel, Sons and Lovers. The problems of this study are (1) how is the development of Paul’s personality? (2) what factors influence Paul’s personality development?

The theories used in this study are: psychology and literature, personality, type of personality, personality components, personality development, the factors that influence personality development, character and characterization, and the psychological approach.

This study applied a literary criticism because in this study the researcher conducts discussion of literature, including description, analysis, and interpretation of a literary work. In addition the researcher applied the psychological approach because this study analyzed the psychological aspect in Paul Morel. After finding and reading the data, the researcher selected the data based on the research problems by classifying the data. Finally, the researcher conducted, analyzed the collected data and made conclusions.

From the data which have been analyzed, it is found that (1) Paul’s personality development can be seen through his personality. His personality develops from sensitive to fearful, dependent, desire for achievement, indecisive, and friendly person. (2) There are two factors that influence his personality development; they are internal factor (Paul’s ability) and external factor (father’s brutal manner, mother’s possessiveness, mother’s ambition, and social-economic class).

Finally, it is suggested for next researchers to investigate other literary works from some objects of analysis or analyze the same works from different points of view.