Oedipal Foundations
A fundamental basis for all of Freudian psychology resides in the Oedipal feelings which Freud believed were common to all men. The major psychological distinction between one person and another was said to come from the way the person handled those feelings and the way that handling was represented in every day life. Freud is categorical about the existence of the Oedipal impuls
He finds it's expression just as categorical in Oedipus Rex. |
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At a point where Oedipus, though he is not yet enlightened, has begun
to feel troubled by his recollection of the oracle, Jocasta consoles
him by referring to a dream which many people dream, though, as she
thinks, it has no meaning: Many a man ere now in dreams hath lain With her who bare him. He hath least annoy Who with such omens troubleth not his mind. Today, just as then, many men dream of having sexual relations with their mothers, and speak of the fact with indignation and astonishment. It is clearly the key to the tragedy and the complement to the dream of the dreamer's father being dead. - Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, tr. James Strachey, Avon, N.Y. 1965. p.297. |