The idea of the Oedipus complex

The idea of the Oedipus complex has so far passed into common language that many people may use the term without knowing much about what it means, still less what its source is. Thus there is a problem in determining whether or to what extent Oedipal theory could resonate in 21st-century narratives. Two texts are key: Oedipus Tyrannus, a play by Sophocles, and Freud's Interpretation of Dreams. Freud's psychoanalytic theory, including but not limited to Dreams, grafted the dynamics of the Oedipus narrative onto his ideas of the human personality.

Sophocles' play is built around a problem that Thebes is having: a plague, attributed to the failure to avenge the death its king, Laius. The new king, Oedipus, is determined to find the killer and end the plague. The trouble is, he is the killer, though he has no idea. It was just a difficult man he met on his way to Thebes, where he found fortune and married its widowed queen Jocasta and had two children. The revelations of incest drive Jocasta to suicide, and he is obliged to purify himself, which he does by gouging out his eyes.

What begins as a mission in public policy turns into personal disaster. Almost every word Oedipus speaks is loaded with irony: "I order that no one in this land I rule / give shelter or speak word to the murderer / whoever he be" (36). He continues, warming to his sad and squalid theme:

And now, since I hold the power he once held,

Related Essays

SOPHOCLES' OEDIPUS THE KING Oedipus the King by .... an important part of contemporary psychology (witness Freud's "Oedipus Complex" at the .... and Working Through" in which he outlined the idea of Oedipus in the .... (1400 6 )

Sylvia Plath's Personality .... In this book, Rank also talks about the Oedipus complex but he redefines it suggesting .... is the creative and at the same This,, combined with the idea that "only .... (2767 11 )

Vladmir Nabokov .... rhetoric, the argument rings true in his relation of Nabokov's Lolita to the Oedipus complex. .... this seems to be the only one to consider the idea of necrophilia .... (792 3 )

The character of Michael in The Godfather .... That complex accounts in any case for feelings of .... of immemorial antiquity" in the Oedipus legend disturbing .... view of Freud's adoption of the idea of infantile .... (5572 22 )

Clifford Geertz and Bronislaw Malinowski .... by looking at relationships, and even found evidence refuting Freud's Oedipus Complex theory by .... object, a belief, a custom, or simply and idea, fulfills a .... (2112 8 )

Category: Psychology - T