English 101- Oedipus Complex
Suffering the Oedipus complex I agree with the fact that Sophocles’ Oedipus had suffered from the Oedipus complex because Oedipus has shown that he is part of the triangle of being the young child who is “in love with one parent and hating the other” (Freud 472). If a person is one to not get over this stage in his childhood, to detach from his mother and forgive his father, then the conflict of the triangle has not been resolved leading him to be psychoneurotic. In the next paragraphs, I’m going to discuss why I think the oracle is at fault for Oedipus turning out the way he did, the tragic relationship with his father, and also about the unknowing relationship with his mother. Even though none of us want to acknowledge the fact that our relationships with our parents are one of hate and love, it happens. Most people feel love towards the person who take care of them the most, which is usually the mother, and then the feel that their father is the rival. We feel the need to always have out mother’s attention and when someone gets in the way of that bond we start to feel jealousy towards the father and have the direct instinct to get rid of them. If this behavior is not dropped at an early age by detaching from your mother and forgiving your father, psychoneurotic emotions take place; This leading to why the oracle would become true because of Oedipus’s compulsive actions. I believe that the oracle, that was determined before the birth of Oedipus, is at fault for the way that his life had turned out. No matter what Oedipus did during his life he was destined to turn into the person that the oracle had predicted. OEDIPUS. I can tell you, and I will. Apollo said through his prophet that I was the man Who should marry his own mother, shed his father’s blood With his own hands. (3. 52)
Although Oedipus was unaware that he had killed his birth father and had children with his mother, the oracle still came
Cited: Freud, Sigmund. “The Oedipus Complex.” Trans. James Strachey. A World of Ideas. 7th ed. Print.
Sophocles, .The Oedipus Cycle. Trans. Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald. N.p.: Harcourt, Inc., 977. 43-73. Print