The Oedipus Complex

1749 Words4 Pages

Inspired by Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex and his analyses of his own and patients’ psychological behavior, Sigmund Freud developed the Oedipus complex. Freud believed that dreams are suppressed oedipal urges, and that these urges are universal to humankind. Opposition to the theory’s name is common, since many believe that Oedipus Rex has a profounder meaning than Freud asserts. Through the content of the play, Sigmund Freud supports his complex by shining light on Oedipus’s tragic, yet inevitable prophecy. The Oedipus complex was developed by the famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. The complex describes Freud’s theory of psychosexual stages of development in children, particularly boys. It denotes a boy’s feelings of lust and desire for the mother, and jealousy and envy for the father. The boy views the father as a rival for possession of his mother’s love and affection (Cherry). Likewise, the Electra complex, a term coined by Freud’s student Carl Gustav Jung, describes a similar idea that young girls compete with their mothers for their father’s attention (Wiesen). Freud, however, despised this term since it “seeks to emphasize the analogy between the attitude of the two sexes" (Cherry). Instead, he refers to the female variant of his theory as the "feminine Oedipus attitude" and or the "negative Oedipus complex" (Freud, Sigmund Schlomo).
Freud also delves into sibling relationships concerning his theory. He believes that sibling relationships do not have an independent purpose outside of the Oedipus complex. Siblings of opposite sexes act as doppelgängers of their parents, where a son can desire his sister in place of his mother and vice-versa, whereas same-sex siblings become rivals of each other, vying for their par...

... middle of paper ...

...
C., C. "The Oedipus Complex Theory Explained in Hamlet." Gather. N.p., 19 June 2009. Web. 26 Nov. 2013.
Cherry, Kendra. "What Is an Oedipal Complex?" About.com Psychology. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Nov. 2013.
Dolloff, Lauren. "Oedipus Complex." Oedipus Complex. N.p., 16 Nov. 2006. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. "Freud-Fliess Letters." Freud-Fliess Letters. Ed. J.M. Masson. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Nov. 2013. "The Freud Museum." Freud Museum ~ Education. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Nov. 2013. "Freud, Sigmund Schlomo." Psychologists and Their Theories for Students. Ed. Kristine Krapp. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 2005. 145-173. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. Rubin, Jeffrey B. "The Real Oedipal Complex." Psychology Today. The Art of Flourishing, 1 May 2012. Web. 11 Nov. 2013.
Wiesen, G. "What Is the Electra Complex?" WiseGEEK. N.p., 03 Nov. 2013. Web. 11 Nov. 2013.

Show More
Related

  • Compare And Contrast Kanye West And Jay Gatsby

    987 Words  | 2 Pages

    N.p., n.d. Web. The Web. The Web. 18 Oct. 2014. Messer, Lesley.

    Read More

  • How Have Psychodynamic Therapies Changed Since Freud?

    1295 Words  | 3 Pages

    Freud, S., Strachey, J., Freud, A., Rothgeb, C., & Richards, A. (1953). The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (1st ed.). London: Hogarth Press.

    Read More

  • The Difference Between Girls and Boys in the Oedipus Complex by Sigmund Freud

    543 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Oedipus complex came to my knowledge in my first semester of college, during my English class as we study Greek mythology. The first time I read the story I took it as it was; a story. But later on, on my first psychology class I finally understood the complexity of it and how it was used. Even now after a few more classes on psychology I still have some disagreements and have a hard time accepting it. It is because of my background that I’m facing challenges with t...

    Read More

  • Freud and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

    2600 Words  | 6 Pages

    Freud, Sigmund. New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis. Ed. James Strachey. Trans. James Strachey. Standard. Vol. 22. London: Hogarth Press, 1964.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Indecisiveness In Hamlet

    1463 Words  | 3 Pages

    According to psychologist Sigmund Freud, who is known for his theory of psychoanalysis, the human mind contains “a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories” (Meyers 597). These unconscious desires then resurface and develop into the impulses for one’s actions and thoughts. Moreover, one of the most prominent and often times controversial ideas of this theory is the Oedipus complex. In Meyer’s textbook of psychology, the Oedipus complex is described as affecting young males by causing the development of sexual desires for their mothers and also jealousy towards their fathers

    Read More

  • Psychoanalytic Theory in MacBeth

    921 Words  | 2 Pages

    Psychoanalytic Theory itself has, what seems to be, two contradictory halves: Freudian psychoanalysis and Lacanian psychoanalysis. The first half focuses solely on the author and the unconscious mind; the second considers the unconscious, but prefers to concentrate on outside influences by deconstructing the text itself. According to Freud, interpretation is achieved by examining conflicts and symbols, such as Freudian slips and dream images. These outlets are help to determine whether an individual’s external behavior coincides (or conflicts) with their internal emotion. Freud placed emphasis on sexuality and the Oedipus complex, which is the idea of repressed sexual feelings toward a parent of opposite sex. He also defined three levels of the subconscious mind: the ego, the super-ego, and the id. Barry explains that the stages align with “the consciousness, the conscience, and the unconscious” respectively (93). On the other hand, Lacan, a follower of Freud, concentrated on the relationship between an author and his or her work. He claimed the two were inexorably connected, that objectivity is nonexistent. In an essence: an author’s personality is used to interpret the text and, in contrast, the text is used to gain insight about the author. Regardless of the emphasis, psychoanalytic criticism engages an

    Read More

  • Psychoanalysis of Sydney Carton

    1045 Words  | 3 Pages

    Web. The Web. The Web. 20 May 2011. http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/freud.html>.

    Read More

  • The Complex: A Psychological Concept Of The Oedipus Complex

    1525 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Oedipus complex is an interesting psychological concept. Sigmund Freud first started using the term “Oedipus complex” around 1910 referencing Oedipus Rex by ancient Greek tragedian Sophocles (Wikipedia.org). When introduced to society, the Oedipus complex was greeted by many people as somewhat controversial. The theory was expanded upon by Freud to include female children, as the original Oedipus complex only related to the male sex, by creating the term “feminine Oedipus attitude”, but the term would be forgotten for the most part since Carl Jung’s “Electra complex” was better received. (Wikipedia.org). Jung’s theory was eventually grouped together with

    Read More

  • Archetypes In Oedipus Complex

    2303 Words  | 5 Pages

    Archetypes have been around for thousands of years, dating back to at least Plato discussing his “Theory of Forms”. In a literary contexts we think of archetypes such as the hero, the mentor, the journey, or the initiation. When looked at from these perspectives it appears that there is nothing original to write about, but these archetypes are used over and over with much success. The reason is because the writer and the reader empathize with the archetypes. Take for example the Initiation archetype, also called the Coming of Age story, in it is the struggle of the young against the old in an attempt to obtain individuality, and freedom that reflects what Jungian psychologists call, a “father complex”, a type of subset to the oedipus complex, in the authors.

    Read More

  • Tripartite Theory Of Infantile Sexuality In Fifth Business By Robertson Davies

    1827 Words  | 4 Pages

    “My position was a common one; I wanted to do the right thing, but could not help regretting the damnable expense.” (221) This quote is stated in the novel Fifth Business by ‘Robertson Davies’, this quote is one of the many examples of Sigmund Freud’s theories, this quote shows his Tripartite theory. Freud believed that the majority of human behavior is driven by desires and the restraining of these desires. Freud had many theories, two of the more known of theories are; his theory of Infantile Sexuality is generally explained by the Oedipus complex. Oedipus was an abandoned as a baby and raised by another family, who eventually kills a man on a crossroad, marries and has children, and eventually finds out that he killed his biological father

    Read More

  • The Psychology of King Oedipus

    1027 Words  | 3 Pages

    Oedipus Rex, an ancient Greek tragedy authored by the playwright Sophocles, includes many types of psychological phenomena. Most prominently, the myth is the source of the well-known term Oedipal complex, coined by psychologist Sigmund Freud in the late 1800s. In psychology, “complex” refers to a developmental stage. In this case the stage involves the desire of males, usually ages three to five, to sexually or romantically posses their mother, and the consequential resentment of their fathers. In the play, a prince named Oedipus tries to escape a prophecy that says he will kill his father and marry his mother, and coincidentally saves the Thebes from a monster known as the Sphinx. Having unknowingly killed his true father Laius during his escape, he marries the widowed queen of Thebes, his mother Jocasta. Many events in the story should lead to suspicion of their marriage, but out of pride and ignorance Oedipus stubbornly refuses to accept his fate. Together, these sins represent the highest taboos of Greek society, revealed by Socphocles’s depiction of the already pervasive story. Before the Thebian plays, the myth centered more around Oedipus’s journey of self-awareness; meanwhile, Sophocles shows Oedipus’s struggles with his inevitable desire toward his mother throughout these stages of psychological development.

    Read More

  • Weakness in Sigmound Freud’s Theories

    787 Words  | 2 Pages

    Freud emphasized that early childhood experiences are important to the development of the adult personality, proposing that childhood development took place over five stages; oral, anal. Phallic, latent and genital. The phallic stage is the most important stage which contains the Oedipus complex. This is where the child (age 4 - 6 yrs) posses the opposite sex parent and wants rid of the same sex parent. Freud argued that if the conflict is not resolved in childhood then it could cau...

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Sigmund Freud's Psychoosexual Stages Of Development

    1329 Words  | 3 Pages

    During this stage focus on the development when one starts to show interest in their sexual body parts, gender identity, the first interest in the opposite sex. Freud states that children during this stage often struggle with desires toward their parents of the opposite sex. During this stage children develop a curiosity towards their genitals and my also learn that the there is a difference in size among each individual. Freud developed the term Oedipus and Electra complex, which described the difference in the phallic stage between male and females. Oedipus, which refers to the story of how a man killed his father unknowingly and eventually marrying his own mother that he was also unaware of. Freud states that during the phallic stage boys fall in love with their mothers, they view their mothers as love objects. Though Freud emphasizes that boys saw mothers as love object he had a different opinion of girls and fathers. He referred to the Electra complex as girl seeking for their father’s attentions and openly seeks their father’s approval. I would say Freud might be the cause of the terms mamma’s boy and daddy’s girl. The oral, anal and phallic stage plays major parts of development especially in the development of trust, gender identity, positive and negative emotions. Freud stresses that during this stage it’s important for parents to respond positively to children during this time where sexuality will be

    Read More

  • Joocasta In Oedipus The King

    634 Words  | 2 Pages

    The story of Oedipus the king led to The Oedipus Complex. This is described as, " a desire for sexual involvement with the parent of the opposite sex and a concomitant sense of rivalry with the parent of the same sex" (www.britanica.com).

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Freud And Erikson

    860 Words  | 2 Pages

    Freud’s psychosexual theory and Erikson’s psychosocial theory are two very renowned developmental concepts. Erikson was persuaded by Freud’s ideas but he elaborated on the theory differently.

    Read More

More about The Oedipus Complex

Open Document