In Greek mythology, Oedipus was a prince dedicated to kill his father and marry his mother. “My Oedipus Complex” by the Irish author Frank O' Connor is about a young child named Larry that wants to rid his dad from the home to become more intimate with his mother. When his father returns on his unexpected visits from the war, Larry is hostile and jealous of surrendering his mothers attention to his father and finds himself in a continual struggle to successfully gain that feeling of closeness back.
Frank O' Connor writes in retrospect about the child who has a physiological affect on him called Oedipus complex. An unconscious idea or feeling that posses around the parent of the opposite sex and wants to eliminate the parent of the same sex that usually affects children at either the age of five or six. The story starts out with Larry talking about his “Santa Claus” (p.1) type father only appearing at the house when pleased. His father was a solider in World War 1, which sent him on his trips to battle. He liked his father's visits because of the souvenirs he would leave behind from the war such as bullet casings. However, towards the middle of the story, hestart to realize that he wants his dad to be gone at war so he can have his mothers full attention. Once young Larry realizes his fathers attendance at home all the time he asks the question to his mom if daddy will even go back to war but she replies that the war is over and he is here stay. Larry says, “from that morning on my life was a hell. Father and I were enemies open and avowed,” (p.7). The survinors or toys as Larry called them would play around with the toys irritating his dad, “'those are not toys,' he growled, taking down the box again to see if I had l...
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...f being second hand like that just as he thought when his dad was home from the war. Also with the baby the dad also took second to the mother as she cared for Sonny leaving Larry to say, “After awhile it came to me what he was mad about. It was his turn now. After turning me out of the big bed, he had been turned out himself. Mother had no consideration now for anyone but that poisonous pup,” (p.9). Larry had gained a friend in his father as he realizes what he was fighting him over is now taken.
In Conclusion, “My Oedipus Complex” goes by the old saying when one door closes another door opens. Larry's door closing was the realization that he was unable to marry his mother and have babies with her. The door opening was him seeing that his father wasn't bad at all and he said,”At Christmas he went out of his way to buy me a really nice model railway,” (p.10).
The selfishness that Oedipus possesses causes him to have abundance of ignorance. This combination is what leads to his father’s death. After fleeing Corinth and his foster family, Oedipus gets into a skirmish with an older man. The reason for the fight was because, “The groom leading the horses forced me off the road at his lord’s command” (1336). Oedipus is filled with a rage after being insulted by the lord and feels the need to act. The two men fight, but Oedipus ends up being too much for the older man, and he kills him. What Oedipus is unaware of is that the man was actually his birth father and by killing him, Oedipus has started on the path of his own destruction. Not only does Oedipus kill his father, but also everyone else, “I killed them all” (1336). The other men had no part in the scuffle, but in his rage, he did not care who he was killing.
Kazdin, Alan E. "Oedipus Complex." Encyclopedia of Psychology. Vol. 5. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 2000. 494-96. Print.
Oedipus is abandoned his father, King Laius, because his father hears a prophecy that Oedipus is to kill his father and marry his mother, Jocasta. Oedipus is adopted and later hears that same prophecy, and goes in search for the truth. Along the way he gets in a fight with a man and kills him. The man he killed was his father but Oedipus did not know that. He then solves a riddle from the Sphinx which has been terrorizing a kingdom. For solving the riddle, the kingdom gives him their queen to marry, who is his biological mother. This is the myth of Oedipus.
The term “Oedipus complex” (or, less commonly, Oedipal complex), explains the strong emotions and ideas that the mind keeps deep within the unconscious of where a child, most notably male, is attracted to his own mother in a sexual nature. In society, incest is looked down upon because it crosses the forbidden zone, the desire for sexual relations, which deviates from the traditional parent-to-child relationship. This term was coined after the ancient Greek tragedy, Oedipus the King. The original script was first written around 429 B.C, by Sophocles. He was most famously known to be one of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived to this day. Knowing that he is a playwright who specializes in writing about the human condition
Oedipus at first finds the implications of killing his father and sleeping with his mother difficult to tolerate as a factual manifestation of his past. He disputes the fact that he had caused suc...
The greatest realization faced by a character is that of Oedipus who for many years has come to terms with his situation. The Prophet Apollo’s predictions that he will kill his father and have sex with his mother. The course of his life is shaped by this prophecy. What Oedipus has been told from the beginning of his life shaped his thinking, this also allows the reader to grasp that this myth is relevant to their lives. The physical actions of Oedipus are the results of a man with high principles and probing intelligence. The story can be separated into points where Oedipus gathers more information about himself. The “ignorance” that Oedipus faces is the foundation he was brought up by. He has believed that he lived with his birth mother and father and therefore when he learns of Apollo’s prophecy he leaves home so that it cannot come true. Slowly as the story progresses Oedipus discovers bits and pieces of his true-life story, as Oedipus learns that he killed Laius by the story of the shepherd. He continues on his journey to discovering the truth. When he pieces together what he has done he cannot face himself. The chorus best shows his true emotions
What we consider the “Oedipus Complex” in which a man is at odds with his father and idolizes his mother has been around for thousands of years. In Greek mythology we find some of the earliest instances of it. For example in the beginning Gaia and Uranus ruled the universe and
The fallout of the once blissful mother and son, and husband and wife, is inevitable as it was the predestined fate of the glorified king and savior of Thebes. Through Oedipus’s traits and motivations, interactions with others, and language of others it is evident that fate is not something you can run or hide from.
This analysis of Oedipus’s character shows how Oedipus, the protagonist and the antagonist against himself, dealt with unfortunate situations which sealed his fate. Oedipus was a strange round character that was really interesting and mysterious. Oedipus’s life was a good example of a true Greek tragedy; he worked himself up to be a great king and ultimately in the end he died with only his perception on life. Oedipus was once a man of power who falls impoverished. He goes from having much respect in his great position to being impure, blind, and expelled from the land that he once ruled.
The father’s character begins to develop with the boy’s memory of an outing to a nightclub to see the jazz legend, Thelonius Monk. This is the first sign of the father’s unreliability and how the boy’s first recollection of a visitation with him was a dissatisfaction to his mother. The second sign of the father’s lack of responsibility appears again when he wanted to keep taking the boy down the snowy slopes even though he was pushing the time constraints put on his visitation with his son. He knew he was supposed to have the boy back with his mother in time for Christmas Eve dinner. Instead, the father wanted to be adventurous with his son and keep taking him down the slopes for one last run. When that one last run turned into several more, the father realized he was now pushing the time limits of his visit. Even though he thought he was going to get him home, he was met with a highway patrol’s blockade of the now closed road that led home.
The transitory of the Oedipus complex can be attained if the child develops the "castration anxiety" obviously by seeing the sexual organ of the opposite sex. In a boy's mind, the genitals of girls' have been almost castrated. He is anxious of having the same chance. Owning to the castration concern, both his sexual yearning towards his mother and aggression towards his father will be damaged or depressed. Finally, the Oedipus complex will slowly pass off. This is the most significant and critical factor affecting the transient of the Oedipus
Here is a story where Oedipus the King, who has accomplished great things in his life, discovers that the gods were only playing with him. He has everything a man of that time could want; he is king of Thebes, he has a wonderful wife and children, and great fame through out the lands. He has lived a good life, but in the end everything is taken from him.
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.
Throughout the tragic tale, the troubled young Oedipus is faced with many opportunities to give in to fate and throw his life away- all of which he accepted and executed proudly. After having been informed of his undesirable fate, the young man finds himself at a crossroads, pestered by another traveler. In a blinding flash of rage, Oedipus murdered the very man he was trying to avoid, as he later recounts to his wife and mother, “My stick had struck him backwards from the car and he rolled out of it. And then I killed them all”. While fully aware of the possibility that he may know not the true identity of his parents, he was not at all concerned that he may fulfill his prophecy in any violent act he commits. Oedipus took the prophecy seriously enough to uproot his life and leave his home in Corinth, but not seriously enough to even attempt to take up a life of pacifism. His misplaced efforts placed before him a choice between a bruised sense of self worth and uncalled for brutality, his inability to discern the difference between a necessary evil and an absurd liability lead him to begin fulfilling his prophecy. Since first discovering the foul outcome the divine had planned for him, Oedipus was disgusted with the thought of marrying and taking to bed his mother, but in a moment of excitement and thoughtlessness he mar...
Oedipus is depicted as a “marionette in the hands of a daemonic power”(pg150), but like all tragic hero’s he fights and struggles against fate even when the odds are against him. His most tragic flaw is his morality, as he struggles between the good and the evil of his life. The good is that he was pitied by the Shepard who saved him from death as a baby. The evil is his fate, where he is to kill his father and marry his mother. His hubris or excessive pride and self-righteousness are the lead causes to his downfall. Oedipus is a tragic hero who suffers the consequences of his immoral actions, and must learn from these mistakes. This Aristotelian theory of tragedy exists today, as an example of what happens when men and women that fall from high positions politically and socially.