The Oedipus Complex

Solutions or Resolutions?

Rhona M. Fear

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780429921599
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This book focuses upon theories of the Oedipus complex beginning with the theory that Freud gradually developed, starting with his recognition that it is "an integral constituent of the neuroses". It explores the main theories of the Oedipus complex in accessible languages.

Part I
Theory

Chapter One
The legend of Oedipus

Introduction

Freud became interested in the idea of the young person having a phantasy and obsessional feelings about possessing the opposite sex parent, and ridding him/herself of the same sex parent so as to dispose of the rival. He decided to draw on Sophocles’ Greek plays, “Oedipus The King”, and “Oedipus at Colonus”, and so called this cluster of ideas “The Oedipus complex”.

I intend to turn to these plays now (Fagles, 1984) and to paraphrase the relevant parts for the reader in this chapter. While doing so, I want to point out how it is interesting to note that the main protagonists—particularly Oedipus himself and Jocasta—repeatedly demonstrate that they “turn a blind eye” to the truth. They refuse to recognise the reality of their incestuous relationship, and the part they are responsible for playing in the drama as it unfolds. This is highly pertinent because we shall see in Part Two of this book, when we look at case examples of individuals suffering an unresolved Oedipus complex, that several of my patients had a tendency to “turn a blind eye” as well. They can be observed to have ignored warning signs and/or moral imperatives; this occurs repeatedly in real life situations regarding oedipal conflicts. John Steiner (1985, pp. 161–172) has written an illuminating paper on this very subject, and it is well worth studying if one wants to take this matter further. This concept of “turning a blind eye” that Steiner so aptly identifies in the case of the Oedipus legend is an example, I think, of “hubris”—the arrogant pride with which some individuals wilfully ignore the warning signs and meander on their own chosen path, as if they do not need to check the “signposts” that may indicate to them that there should be a change of direction if they are to be mindful for their own safety. We shall see how Oedipus ignores “warnings” time and again; evidence placed before him about his parentage—evidence that should have raised the suspicions and thought-processes of any reasonably intelligent person. Had he taken the time to question and look into these questionable circumstances, he might have avoided the tragedy that eventually befell him and his wife/mother, Jocasta.

The tale of Oedipus’s early life

Laius and Jocasta were the king and queen of the kingdom of Thebes. While they await the birth of their baby, the oracle at Apollo informs them that the baby boy who will shortly be born is fated to kill his father and marry his mother. In order to prevent this tragedy from occurring, when the baby boy is born, they pierce his ankles, and have a shepherd take him into the nearby hills at Cithaeron, where it is intended that he should be pinned to a rock and left to die. However, the shepherd takes pity on the baby, and instead passes him to another shepherd who takes the baby to Corinth, where the king and queen, Polybus and Merope, are childless.

They decide to bring the baby up as their own, and in fact they never tell him of his true parentage. When Oedipus is a young man, he attends a banquet where a person drunkenly tells him that he is not the true son of his parents. Oedipus presses the person for more, but the man reneges on what he has said, and Oedipus is left unsure. He is unsettled, so goes to the oracle at Delphi to seek the truth.

The oracle is evasive about his parentage, but instead repeats the prophecy made earlier to Laius, warning Oedipus that he is fated to kill his father and marry his mother. In an effort to save his parents (whom he assumes to be Polybus and Merope) from suffering great pain, he immediately leaves Corinth and sets off for another kingdom. Note, as I have commented upon, how Oedipus lacks the determination, this first time, to pursue the truth about his parentage. He does not, for example, question Polybus and Merope about his parentage.

On his travels, he arrives at a point where three roads meet. There he meets a carriage, preceded by a herald who pushes him out of the way. He retaliates, killing the occupant of the carriage and three of the four men accompanying him. The sole survivor finds his way back to Thebes.

Oedipus’s life in Thebes

Oedipus journeys on to Thebes. Once again, he misses an opportunity to enquire into a suspicious circumstance: he never again enquires of the identity of the man whom he has slain in the carriage, despite the fact that he must hear when reaching the city that the king has been killed that very same day.

He finds that the city is tyrannised by a Sphinx, who kills anyone unable to solve her riddle. The riddle goes as follows: “There is on earth a thing which is two-footed and four-footed and three-footed which has one voice ... but when it goes on most feet then its speed is feeblest.” Oedipus accepts the challenge, and solves the riddle. It may well be that he is helped by the fact that his very name gives him a clue: “di-pous” means “two feet” and “oe-di-pous” means “two swollen feet”. He was named thus because his feet were pierced at birth. The answer he gives is that man crawls as an infant, when he is at his slowest, and walks when an adult on two feet, and uses a stick as well when in his dotage. The defeated Sphinx commits suicide and the city is so grateful to Oedipus that it offers the hand of its recently widowed Queen Jocasta in marriage to him. Oedipus becomes the king of Thebes.

Seventeen years pass during which time Jocasta and Oedipus rule the kingdom, and Jocasta gives birth to three children. Again, I question the fact that they both “turn a blind eye” concerning the circumstances in which Oedipus arrived in Thebes, reaching the city as he did the very same day that its king was slain. Afflicted by hubris, I suspect, Oedipus does not further question the words of the oracle about his parentage, nor the fact that he has scars upon his feet for which he cannot account.

The revelation of the truth

Then the city is once more afflicted—this time with a plague. Oedipus, as ruler, seeks the intervention of the Delphic oracle, and sends Creon (Jocasta’s brother) to bring a message. Creon tells him that the reason that the city is polluted is that the murderer of Laius is still living within its walls. Oedipus, seemingly unaware that the oracle is referring to Oedipus himself, appears outraged, and declares he will not rest until the murderer is brought to justice, and banished from the land. Teiresias, the soothsayer, is sent for in order to identify the man. At first, out of respect for his master, Teiresias is reluctant to speak out, but then he becomes annoyed at Oedipus’s childish rage and says, “You are the curse, the corruption on the land” (Fagles, 1984, p. 179, l. 401). He also tells Oedipus the truth about his parentage, and in frustration declares: “You and your precious eyes, you’re blind to the corruption of your life, to the house you live in, those you live with—who are your parents?” (p. 183, l. 470–473).

Oedipus arrogantly refuses to accept this as the truth (p. 184). Again, we witness his hubris. We shall see in Chapter Two that such wilful arrogance is a feature of those with an unresolved Oedipus complex. Once again we see that Oedipus “turns a blind eye”, as indeed does Jocasta at this juncture. She declares that the prophets are not to be trusted, remarking that Laius was killed by bandits at a place where three roads meet. When Oedipus hears his wife utter these words, he cannot but make the connection with the place he killed the man in the carriage, and he says, “Strange hearing you just now ... my mind wandered, my thoughts racing back and forth” (p. 201, l. 801–803). He at last begins to ask questions about Laius’s death. He explains how he slew a man on the way to Thebes, along with the prophecy from the oracle, and his own personal doubts about his parentage. It seems as if at last he is taking the blindfolds from his eyes. He sends for the witness to the killing of the king, in the forlorn hope that his fears may be unfounded, saying “I am waiting for the shepherd. He is my last hope” (p. 207). The issue of Oedipus’s parentage remains unspoken, even though there are clearly doubts. Both Oedipus and Jocasta are aware of the scars on Oedipus’s feet.

At that point in the drama, the Corinthian shepherd arrives to tell them of the death of King Polybus. Both Jocasta and Oedipus greet this as if it were good news—choosing to believe that this disproves the oracle’s prophecy that Oedipus was destined to kill his father. The shepherd, shocked that Oedipus possesses so little awareness about his origins, informs him that Polybus was not his biological father. He is sure of this because he was the man who handed over Oedipus to Polybus all those years ago.

The “blindfold” of oedipal arrogance falls at last from Jocasta’s eyes, and she rushes out through the doors in great distress. Oedipus vacillates between insight and bluff. However, soon after Jocasta disappears, he concedes: “I stand revealed at last—cursed in my birth, cursed in my marriage, cursed in the life I cut down with these hands” (p. 232, l. 1306–1310). Shortly after Jocasta has left, Oedipus follows his wife and finds her “hanging by the neck” (p. 237, l. 1395). His mood changes abruptly—he proceeds to berate himself for his shameful actions, and, taking Jocasta’s brooches from her bosom, he blinds himself. This is in itself symbolic—for he has been either consciously or semi-consciously keeping his eyes shut ever since he was at the banquet at Corinth as a young man, and a man put doubts in his mind about his parentage.

It is worthy of note in my opinion that Oedipus prefers blindness, banishment, and exile to death; “public” castigation as opposed to private internal guilt. While at the end of this particular drama, Oedipus has lost his hubris, and takes on his full share of guilt for his part in what has happened, this state of affairs is not sustained. If we are to read Sophocles’ next play, “Oedipus at Colonus”, Oedipus falls into a state of complete denial of his guilt (Fagles, 1984, p. 344–345, l. 1106–1142). He argues that there are three reasons that he is not guilty:

1. He did not know that the man he killed was his father.
2. He killed in self-defence because Laius struck the first blow.
3. He was morally correct to kill Laius because although Laius was his father, this same man had tried to kill him at birth, so it was morally acceptable for him to attempt to seek revenge.

Theoretical underpinnings

We shall see in the next chapter—which focuses on the theories of the Oedipus complex, and also sets the Oedipus complex within its more general theoretical setting—that Freud propounded the concept of drive theory as one of his major theories. This is the idea that the drives towards sex and death motivate all humans to behave as they do. Put into this context, it perhaps begins to explain why Oedipus behaved as he did, both in marrying Jocasta and producing children with her, and in murdering Laius. It is worth remembering, however, that Oedipus was but a character in a play—not a real life patient! It is debatable how far one can apply psychoanalytic concepts to drama, though it is often done. For example, Michael Jacobs presented a seminar at Stratford-upon-Avon in July 2013 on the subject of “Hamlet On The Couch”; I believe this coincides with some research he is undertaking at the moment.

Klein put forward the theory of object relations: she saw the individual as passing from the paranoid–schizoid position where objects are seen as part-objects, to the depressive position, where the whole object is seen and loved, both good and bad parts together. Maybe, we can appreciate that Oedipus and Jocasta were in the paranoid–schizoid phase, and saw only partial truths. As we shall see in the next chapter, had they moved on to the depressive position, they would have been able to mourn the loss of the incestuous object, the wished-for but unattainable object, and come to terms with a less than ideal but real world alternative. They could then have sought to make reparation for what they had done in reality or phantasy. As it is, it seems that Oedipus, when at Colonus, never reached this stage.

While I accept that it is only a play, the playwright may well have unconsciously had these ideas about the mind in his head when writing the drama.

Conclusion

The tale of Oedipus highlights the difficulties encountered when a person attempts to make a relationship with an incestuous object. The legend of Oedipus is an aetiological myth (i.e., an explanatory narrative concerned with causality) that sets out the consequences of breaking with the natural order of society. In western societies, incest has always been vetoed by our dominant norms, mores, and values.

The legend can be taken to exemplify the concept of hamartia—the idea of the individual having a “fatal flaw”. This “fatal flaw” is seen as having been decreed by the gods, before the individual’s birth, and so the individual makes the mistakes he does in ignorance and innocence, not from malice or malign intent. He cannot escape his fate. As such, the fate of Oedipus was decided before he was born, and his fate sealed by his being removed from his natural parents at birth. His personal guilt is therefore attenuated.

Personally, I reject this notion of hamartia as too deterministic and simplistic. One evades the nuances if one simply decides that Oedipus’s fate was determined by the gods. He did, in my opinion, possess free will, and could therefore influence his own fate. He wilfully ignored the warning signs, and was arrogant in not attending to the inconsistencies in his life story, and attempting to solve the riddle of them. He believed, as so many individuals do who have won their parental figures as sexual partners, that “the rules do not apply to (me)”.

Instead, I introduce the concept that he did have a flaw, but I introduce the concept of the fault-line—by which I refer to the way in which an individual, who has been unfortunate enough to have a difficult and traumatic life-experience during his formative years, is left with a vulnerability throughout his life—whether one attends therapy or not—that renders one likely to fall into the same “traps” time and again unless he remains ever consciously on guard. It is here that psychotherapy helps enormously by making what was hitherto unconscious conscious, thus giving the individual choices over how he deals with the stimulus when it presents itself in his daily life. Psychotherapy provides one with the armour to ward off the potential toxic effects of one’s “fault-line”. Without psychotherapy, the individual who has endured a trauma, for example, sexual abuse by a parent during childhood, will forever throughout his life be vulnerable to make the same mistakes when faced with the “stimulus” (i.e., the possibility of an unbounded relationship) time and time again.

In the case studies in Part Two, it appears as if the individuals did not consciously choose their incestuous objects, but I think one can also argue that they were, for much of the time, “turning a blind eye”. This was partially because they were only semi-conscious, partially because they were driven to behave the way they did by the drive towards sex (Freud’s theory), partially because of the arrogance that seems to come with having “won the oedipal struggle”. In almost all cases, the patients persisted in acting out their Oedipus complex for some time after it had been made conscious in therapy, in what seemed to be an act of “defiance”. This “defiance” is really part of the resistance that evidences itself in the analytic process. Thus, change very rarely occurs as soon as insight is offered, even if it is accepted at a conscious level. There is, at first, too much libidinal energy invested in the acting out for it to be given up without a struggle—a psychic struggle within the patient and between the patient and therapist. Also, the person with the illusion that he or she has won the oedipal battle may well believe that “the rules don’t apply to me”, and he need not conform to society’s norms. As I have already said, I see shades of this in Oedipus. As Freud expressed it in one paper, such individuals are “wrecked by success” (Freud, 1916d).

Thus, the individual retains this “fault-line” for the rest of his life. With therapy, the effect of the “fault-line” is minimised, but nevertheless, absolute “cure” is often not achievable, and the individual must remain on guard to deal with his vulnerable area. However, I stress that I oppose the idea of hamartia—the idea of the “fatal flaw”—which puts forward the notion that the flaw is beyond the individual to control or render void. I believe that the “fault-line” is the result of environmental failure—nurture not nature—and as such can be remedied by the individual and worked upon to good effect. This is a much more optimistic stance than that of the “fatal flaw”.

Chapter Two
Freud’s theory of the Oedipus complex

Introduction

At the beginning of the next three chapters, which focus on an exploration of the Oedipus complex theory, I feel it is pertinent to reiterate that one of the central purposes of this book is to make the oedipal theory accessible to us all. I intend to do this by using plain language, purged from the complexities in which it is enmeshed if one attempts to find its roots in Freud’s or Klein’s writings. Another purpose of this book, as I outlined in the Introduction, and which will be shown in this section, is the attempt to set the theories in the social milieu in which they were written and, indeed, thought about by their originators. The authors could not help but be of their zeitgeist—influenced by the dominant value-systems and ideologies of the culture of their century and country of origin. It is also relevant, I feel, to be aware of the nature of the individuals that the psychoanalysts were interacting with most of their time, because this would inevitably have an influence upon the predication of their ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• PREFACE
• Dedication
• INTRODUCTION
• PART I THEORY
• PART II CASE STUDIES
• REFERENCES
• INDEX