Oedipus against Freud - Term Paper Example

 Oedipus against Freud “Life began with waking up and loving my mother’s face” George Eliot For most of us the earliest of memories is related to our mothers in some way or the other, remembering her face or her holding us in her arms with an unconditional love and eyes that make you feel that you are completely safe with her, holding her hand and so forth. The term Oedipus complex was coined in 1910 by Sigmund Freud and refers to the inherent desire of the son to get sexually intimate with his mother. Sigmund Freud further extended the concept to daughters’ love for their mothers carrying the same connotations. How far the Oedipus complex holds true is still a matter of debate with the various explanations offered for and against the relevance of the concept to date. The idea of the Oedipus complex began with the myth of Oedipus Rex who killed his father and mated with his mother (as he was told by an oracle), it was this myth which Freud sought to further analyze and propose as a psychoanalytical theory. In his book The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud states “His fate moves us only because it might have been our own, because the oracle laid upon us before our birth the very curse which rested upon him,” (Freud, 174). Frued further elaborates by stating that the desire to possess one’s mother is inherent in a child’s nature but this desire is embedded in the unconscious mind and can be interpretted through what we see in our dreams. Freud feels that a child is unaware of his inner desires and feelings towards his mother because it is not amonst the desirable elements of the society, therefore this desire seldom surfaces to the conscious level. Consequently, if a child does become aware of his feelings towards his mother, he is more likely to be in a state of denial and may in most cases successfully manage to shun away his sexual attraction towards his mother and his jealousy towards his father as he grows up. Similarly, Freud with reference to the work of many other philosophers describes Hamlet’s desire to take revenge from his step father as his anger towards the fact that Hamlet’s step father killed his father and possessed his mother which is something Hamlet had wanted to do on an unconscious level (Freud, 176). It is worth mentioning here that such an interpretation of Hamlet’s motives is not made evident by Shakespere but is rather just an interpretation of Freud and his contemporaries. There are five stages of psychosexual development as described by Freud namely; Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency and Genital. The psychoanalytic theory advocates that man goes through a developmental transition in the five psychosexual stages and might become fixated with a particular stage, which would then have developmental implications on his personality (Magnavita, 88). The Oedipus complex develops in an individual in the phallic stage of psychosexual development. In this stage the child is between 4 – 8 years of age and becomes aware of his genitals. It is during this stage that the “Castration Anxiety” stems, that is the fear of the male child that he would be castrated by his father for developing sexual desires towards his mother. Consequently, the child develops feelings of hatred towards his father whom he perceives as an obvious competitor of his mother’s love. The same is the case with female children, who develop the “Electra Complex,” that is the love for their father and hatred towards their mothers. This phenomenon leads to the development of the superego (Magnavita, 91). Fenichel in his book “The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis” goes on to explain the span of retension of the Oedipus complex. Ideally after the Phallic stage the Latency stage begins in which the well developed superego rationalizes the decisions of the iid and moulds the ego into performing more moral deeds rather than the realistically desired ones (Fenichel, 95). As a result, the child normally is able to push back his oedipus complex and move on to the stage of latency. In some instances however, the child gets fixated with the Phallic stage and is unable to make the transition. Such individuals even though may appear to be normal but are actually neurotic. Their fixation with the oedipus complex leads to neirosis. Those who fail to pass on the Oedipus complex experience the disposition in their dreams, the connotations of the existence of the Oedipus complex in some adult artists can be seen through their work (Fenichel, 95). Frued explains that the passing on of the Oedipus and Electra complexes differs in males and females because in males the fear of castration is a stroonger force which makes them effective pass on the Oedipus complex where as there is no strong fear in females and consequently they retain certain traces of the Electra complex in most cases, this according to Freud results in many of the personality differences between males and females (Fenichel, 96). Christopher Bollas in his book Hysteria elaborates on the concept of autoerotism and elucidates its connection with the Oedipus complex (37). Bollas feels that Freud neglected the role played by autoerotism in the Oedipus complex. He says that Freud does not touch upon the fact that once his mother’s sexuality and his own inability to possess her strikes a child, he starts taking pleasure in himself through narcissistic acts such as masturbation. Now the parents try to forbid the child from self-pleasure so that he can look forward to and get attracted by girls his own age (Bollas, 37 - 38). This is the predicament of a child when he is in adolescence that is the transitional phase between infancy to adulthood. During the time that a child undergoes the Oedipus complex, his physical attraction towards his mother makes him approximate his sexual desires but during the adolescence stage, the child is no longer making approximations. He is unconsciously aware of the pleasure he desires. It is for this reason that the child becomes a victim of autoerotism and other such activities. The ability of a child to be able to control himself and direct his interest towards other girls depends on the extent of the development of his superego (Keitlen, 25 - 26). De Schill and Lebovici on the other hand take a different perspective on the Oedipus complex. In fact, they choose to see the complete picture and context of the Oedipus complex instead of just believing in the “truncated” version of the complex given by Sigmund Freud (De Schill and Lebvovici,118). De Schill and Lebovici trace the story of King Oedipus back to his father King Laius and explain that a child’s love for his mother and hatred towards his father as explained by the Oedipus complex is not a one sided story. On the other hand, they believe that if the whole story is seen in totality and in the context of what Laius did to Oedipus after hearing from the oracle that if Laius had a child with Jacosta, the child would kill him and marry Jacosta, our perception of the Oedipus complex as explained by Freud might change a little. King Laius, as interpreted by De Schill and Lebvovici felt threatened by his son, he felt that if his son were to stay alive he would take away his wife from him and consequently wanted his son killed. Consequently, De Schill and Lebvovici put the story of Laius and Oedipus into perspective today and explain that when a married couple has a child their life changes. They do not get to spend as much time with each other as they previously did and thus the father does get envious of his son with whom he has to share his wife’s time now (De Schill and Lebvovici, 118 - 119). It is this mutually jealousy that culminates in the development of the child’s Oedipus complex and not some one-sided jealousy of the son towards his father. There must have been countless examples of cases of children who are unable to pass on the Oedipus complex, which Freud must have solved. Robert A. King, Peter B. Neubauer, and Samuel Abrams have written one such case in detail in the book titled The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child. The book explains how the parents of a young boy had to satisfy his insatiable curiosity regarding the birth of children. Now it is interesting to note here that this is not something new for us, it is very common in children to ask their parents regarding how they were born or how their siblings were born. Similarly, Hans (the boy in the story) plagued his parents with countless questions and his parents used to provide him with satisfactory replies yet were worried about his behavior, which they felt was not normal. In one instance, Hans ripped the legs of a doll apart and left a knife sticking between them at which his father asked him as to whether he thought the knife represented a baby to which the child had no reasonable reply. Hans always wanted the attention of his mother, particularly when his mother used to play with his younger sister of spent time with Hans’s father (King, 105 - 108). This again is a very common phenomenon amongst children yet some children with the passage of time tend to grow out of this stage of psychosexual development while others find it hard to transition and get fixated. The Oedipus complex forms an integral part of the Psychoanalytic theory that explains beliefs, behaviors and attitudes on an unconscious level amongst many other things. The relevance of the Oedipus complex still required validation. On a personal level, I feel that the Oedipus complex is Freud’s interpretation of the tragedy of Oedipus and might not shape the reality of the Oedipus complex, which he has created. The same tragedy could be interpreted in a multitude of ways, the most evident of which would be man’s exaltation of self – interest above any other thing in life. Laius wanted Oedipus killed because the Delphi oracle told him that his son was a threat to him so Laius wanted Oedipus killed and not because he felt threatened to lose his wife to his son (Buchanan, 149). If Laius had felt threatened about something, it would have been of getting killed by his son and of losing his kingdom. This simple and obvious interpretation of why Laius wanted Oedipus killed relates to many of us on a personal level because man is motivated by self – interest. At the same time, Oedipus never spent his childhood with his mother therefore; he could not have felt that level of sexual attraction towards his mother during the phallic stage of his psychosexual development as explained by Freud. Reference to the Oedipus complex is made in literature a number of times for example in Hamlet amongst many other plays. The idea behind all interpretations is that there are hidden connotations of the Oedipus complex amongst certain characters but they are all open to the reader’s interpretation and are not blatantly mentioned by the author. This shows us that we cannot completely nullify the existence of the Oedipus complex. In fact we all know that at a very young age children do become aware of their sexual desires and there love for their mothers is at its height during infancy. Consequently, making a general statement across the board stating that all children feel sexually attracted towards the parent of the opposite sex and hatred towards the parent of the same sex is an exaggeration. The Oedipus complex answers many questions about child psychology and is indeed a fantastic theory. However, even though the fact that to an extent psychology can interpret dreams and their meanings in the real world is a well-substantiated fact, yet I feel we cannot generalize it to all human beings and thus the existence of the Oedipus complex is relative from person to person. Works Cited Bollas, Christopher." Hysteria." London, United Kingdom: Routledge, 1999, December 31. Web. 2011, December 11. Buchanan, Bradley W. "Oedipus Against Freud: Myth and The End(s) of Humanism in Twentieth-Century." Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division , 2010, July 31, . Web. 2011, December 12. De Schill, Stefan: Lebovici, Serge. "The Challenge for Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy: Solutions for the Future." London, United Kingdom: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 1999, January. Web. 2011, December 11. Fenichel, Otto. "The Psychoanalytic Theory Of Neurosis." New York: W. W. Norton & Company, December 17, 1995. Web. 2011, December 12. Freud, Sigmund. "The Interpretation of Dreams." New York City, United States of America: Avon Publishers, 1980, March 20. Web. 2011, December 11. Keitlen, Seymour. "The Oedipus Complex: A Philosophical Study." Texas, United States of America: Virtual Book Worm Publishing, 2003, November 17. Web. 2011, December 13. King, Robert A.: Neubauer, Peter B.: Abrams, Samuel. "The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child." London, United Kingdom: Yale University Press, 2008, January 22. Web. 2011, December 12. Magnavita, Jeffrey J. "Theories of Personality: Contemporary Approaches to the Science of Personality." Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley, 2001, October 25, . Web. 2011, December 13. Read More