Freud’s Oedipal Complex: An Overview

The Oedipus complex In psychoanalytic theory, is a group of largely unconscious (repressed) ideas and feelings which center around the desire to possess the parent of the opposite sex and eliminate the parent of the same sex.

Sexual awakening Child realizes difference between mother and father and that they are more alike to one than the other. Thus, the child acquires gender. Child realizes difference between mother and father and that they are more alike to one than the other. Thus, the child acquires gender. Child may form some kind of erotic attachment to the parent of the opposite sex. Child may form some kind of erotic attachment to the parent of the opposite sex.

Jealousies Primitive desire for the one parent may awaken a jealous motivation to exclude the other parent. Primitive desire for the one parent may awaken a jealous motivation to exclude the other parent. A critical point of awakening is when the child realizes that the mother has affections for others besides itself. A critical point of awakening is when the child realizes that the mother has affections for others besides itself.

Oedipus complex  unconscious guilt. “His destiny moves us only because it might have been ours –- because the oracle laid the same curse upon us before our birth as upon him. It is the fate of all of us, perhaps, to direct our first sexual impulse towards our mother and our first hatred and our first murderous wish against our father. Our dreams convince us that this is so” (Freud).

The Big Questions How might this support Aristotle’s definition of tragedy? According to Knox, is this the primary reason that Oedipus moves both a Greek and contemporary audience?