A Psychological Approach to My Oedipus Complex - Research Paper Example

A Psychological Approach to My Oedipus Complex Introduction Perhaps one of the most renowned and controversial Freudian concepts is the Oedipus complex, several times used as a fundamental ground in psychoanalysis. The concept is adapted in several literary works, one which includes Frank O’Connor’s My Oedipus Complex. Looking into the short story, it can immediately be distinguished that the literature incorporates a psychological nature in it. The Oedipal complex, as it occurs to a preschool boy, becomes a struggling circumstance for him, as he desires his mother being his love-object at the same time viewing his father as his rival. The behavior of the child thus tends to be aggressive in order to gain his mother’s attention and assert his stand against his father. Nonetheless, this complex can be resolved appropriately and contributes largely to his personality in the coming years. This concept’s main ideas as mentioned are woven into the cited story. This paper thus intends to present My Oedipus Complex in a psychological view, and analyzing its characters in parallel with the series of events as congruent to the process of undergoing the Oedipus complex, delving deeper on the reasons for the main character’s behavior, particularly his resistance to accept his father and brother, his jealousy, and his aggression. Summary of short story Narrated in the first person point of view, Frank O’Connor’s My Oedipus Complex is about a boy named Larry who undergoes the said psychological experience. Larry, approximately a preschooler, likens his father’s presence to that of Santa Claus, who “came and went mysteriously” (O’Connor). All those years when his father served in the First World War, Larry has his mother’s full attention, and has established an early morning routine with her. However, things start to change when his father comes back home as the war has ended. Larry notices that his mother is giving more importance to the presence of his father, evidenced by the reprimands he receives especially when it comes to waking him early in the morning, resulting to a break in his routine talk with his mother. As the story progresses, Larry’s jealousy and conceived rivalry of his father towards her mother intensifies. He views his father’s actions as ways to separate him from his mother, and thus acts defensively. He hypothesizes reasons why his father is precious to his mother such as interest in newspapers, smoking, and making noises with his tea, but rather concludes that it is a result of “being grown-up and giving people rings” (O’Connor). Then Sonny, a new baby, comes into their lives. All the more was his mother’s attention taken away from him, and Larry expresses his disapproval for Sonny. He believes that all Sonny does is unreasonable and does it for pure attention. In the later part of the story, it can be seen that even his father becomes distracted with the baby’s cries at night, and Larry perceives his father’s actions as similar to the jealousy that he went through previously. This situation concludes with Larry and his daddy coming into terms, now with a common rival. The Oedipus Complex The Oedipus complex is described as “a psychoanalytic concept that refers to psychological conflicts experienced by every individual...named by Sigmund Freud...after...King Oedipus” (Weiner and Craighead 1125). The complex is said to have gradually evolved as Freud came to develop additional concepts, but its primary idea is the love of a boy towards his mother and rivalry towards his father, emerging during early childhood, when he is about five to six years old. To put explicitly, it is during this stage where “the aim of all the child’s desires becomes genital intercourse with the parent of the opposite sex,” and “the parent of the same sex becomes a dangerous, feared rival” (Mitchell and Black 15). Because of this, the child wants the sole attention of his mother and gets jealous when his father “interrupts” their time together. However, it is presented that the Oedipus complex is resolved through the concept of castration anxiety. The child feels that the father perceives his sexual interest towards his mother and sees the father as an authoritative figure capable of punishing him through castration. Incorporating Psychology into the story Larry The main character in My Oedipus Complex, Larry, is a child around five years old who did not see his father often until the first world war ended. In the absence of his father, Larry possessed all the attention of his mother, starting from “early-morning conferences” to “a walk in the country” (O’Connor). However, when Larry’s father came back, changes occurred at home to accommodate his father’s presence. He noticed that he was not allowed to interrupt Daddy as he talked to Mummy or make noise while Daddy was reading the paper. The Oedipus complex begins to be exposed in the story when Larry asked his mother in the possibility of God making another war. Another instance is seeing an institution as the appropriate place for his father. Although not stated explicitly, this implies that he wants to get rid of his father. In the same manner, the Oedipus complex involves the child’s wishful thinking of the rival parent’s death, or absence, the latter of which is a more appropriate term. The child perceives that if the rival parent is gone, he will gain the full attention of the love-object and possess her entirely. The rivalry intensifies as the child felt that his established routine in the morning needed to cease to adjust to his father’s sleeping habits. As he bore witness to his father’s anger and his mother’s irritable hushing because father was interrupted from sleep , Larry thought of how prejudiced the situation was. Larry finds it difficult to accept the presence of his father because it would mean that he will be sharing his mother with him. As what occurs in the Oedipal complex, the boy’s desire to possess his mother entirely is so intense that he has ill wishes towards the rival parent. In the story, it can be cited that Larry sees his father as an intruder rather than a part of the household. This is an evidence of trying to deny father’s permanence at home. The presence of his brother Sonny was also an avenue of Larry’s resistance. In a specific part of the story, we read that Larry regarded the baby as a tragedy he imposed upon himself as a product of bringing the matter up. The narration clearly states Larry’s dislike for Sonny, and until the plot ends we cannot see that he came to a point of accepting his brother’s presence. Jealousy is portrayed in several scenes of the plot, for instance, when Larry drank all the tea in his mother’s saucer. In Keitlen’s analysis, the fundamental cause of the Oedipus complex is sexual jealousy (67). She further contends that jealousy comprises two components: 1.) a desire for the exclusive possession of a love object; and 2.) the potential for hostility toward both a disloyal partner and toward any rival (67). Accordingly, Larry’s wishful thinking of eliminating his father from their house vividly expresses the child’s selfishness to own his mother. An appropriate scene to show Keitlen’s second point is after the fight of the father and son, where the narrator states, “...looking as if her heart was broken between us. I hope she felt as she looked. It seemed to me that she deserved it all” (O’Connor). Since Larry saw his mother as an unfaithful character by allowing a guest to intrude into their lives, he has this rebellious tendency towards her. In the story we can see that the attention of Larry’s mother shifted away from Larry twice: first towards his father, and second towards his brother. For such reasons, we can also see that Larry was jealous of these two characters in both instances. A Freudian concept of jealousy is that the matter is enclosed in the unconscious part of the human mind, and begins “in the Oedipus or sibling complex of the first sexual stage” (Freud, qtd. in Baumgart 149). It is thus presented that while the child engages in a competition towards a rival parent to get his mother’s attention, there is also a tendency for “siblings compete for love, attention, preferential treatment from the parents, even perhaps for an exclusive relationship to the parents” (Baumgart 149). To point specific events in the story, Larry’s jealousy towards his father is depicted when he was offended if he was hushed or asked to keep quite when his father was talking to his mother, no matter how hard he tried to change the subject or interrupt them. On the other hand, Larry’s jealousy over his brother is evident when he expressed his contempt towards Sonny for changes again at home that would cater to the latter’s needs instead of his. Larry tried to figure out what it was that made his mother seem to reciprocate the attraction his father had for her. As he hypothesized that it must be the newspapers, smoking, or noises while drinking tea and concluded that it was after all “on being grown-up and giving people rings,” (O’Connor) Larry expressed his desire to marry his mother when he grows up--which is also a known feature of the Oedipus complex. As if to further complicate the plot, a new baby named Sonny arrived into their house and stole all the mother’s attention away from Larry. From viewing the father as his initial rival, he expressed his antagonism for this baby and regarded him as his new “enemy.” Albeit sibling rivalry is not a part of the Oedipal complex, the Freudian presentation of the former is that it is said to be a product of the latter. The concept of sibling rivalry is not given much emphasis in this story, but the primary proposition of Freud is that “the older child will be envious of the younger one and wish to get rid of it” (Coles 70). The “house rules” shifted from prioritizing his father to complying with the needs of Sonny--especially Larry’s very much sought after attention from his mother--and thus molds Larry’s jealousy over Sonny. The aggressive behavior of Larry towards his father and brother acts as a defense mechanism to convey his needs and wants. He perceives that “[my] principal rights and privileges were as good as lost unless [I] asserted [them] at once” (O’Connor), thus leading him to an outburst when his mother asked him to go back to his room because he has awakened his father. Larry displayed his aggression towards Sonny when he pinched him. By doing so, Sonny will stay awake and thus not require him to tiptoe around the house. As he was punished by his mother by doing saw, Larry expressed his hostility towards Sonny by cursing as he was playing in the front garden. In the last part of the plot, we can see that Larry “understood” his father, and perceived his actions as the same jealousy that he once felt toward him. The bond that was created as the father slept beside Larry and placed his arm around him marked their “alliance” towards how they felt for Sonny. Psychologically speaking, this scene most probably marks the resolution of the Oedipal complex. Although because the story is a first story narration, it would seem to the reader that the child’s thought is entirely factual. Implicitly, the picture tells us that Larry is identifying with the father’s role, and is letting go of the mother as his love-object. Larry’s mother Focusing on the role of Larry’s mother, it is evident especially in the early parts of the story that Larry spent so much time with her. His morning habit with her, their walk into town, shopping, et cetera, expose the deep bond existing between them. However, in the emergence of the Oedipus complex in perfect timing with his father’s return, conflict began to arise as his mother paid special attention to his father. In several instances of the story, both in the earlier and later parts, Larry noticed that his mother acted bizarrely upon the arrival of his father and the coming of his brother. She silenced Larry when his father was talking, known to the boy as an action she did in the presence of uninteresting guests. Although this was odd for Larry, it was his mother’s way of disciplining him not to interrupt conversations. She taught Larry how to ask permission in borrowing things indirectly by taking his father’s box from him. He realized that he did not have her mother’s sole attention as she responded both to his father’s demands and his requests. As Sonny arrived, Larry branded his mother’s behavior to be foolish, and portraying that he did not understand yet her role as a mother to a newborn. Thus, in portraying the role as both spouse and mother, Larry’s mother gave importance to her husband and newborn’s needs, and tolerated and disciplined Larry at the same time. Because she is the love-object of her child at this stage, she is mostly interrupted when interacting with her husband. However, “Won’t that be nice?” (O’Connor) in response to Larry’s wish to marry her shows us that she understands the stage he is going through. Larry’s father The arrival of Larry’s father who’s presence was initially inexplicable is the main cause of the plot’s conflict. The perceived rivalry of the son towards his father has been mentioned previously in the earlier part of the essay, which gives us a view of the child’s behavior during the Oedipus complex. Furthermore, because of Larry’s jealousy, he believed that everything his father did was an effort to separate him from his mother. Characterized as a soldier, readers understand that Larry’s father values discipline, especially when he said, “I see he’s better fed than taught!” (O’Connor) and when he threatened to strike Larry’s buttocks. In these instances also we can see that he possessed an authoritative figure in the house. Psychologically speaking, the father has a significant role in the Oedipus complex. His persona is altogether an instrument of prohibition, frustration, and privation (Dor 101). He deprives the child of the mother as the love-object; prohibits the child of satisfying his impulse; and frustrates the child because he owns the mother (Lacan, qtd. in Dor 100-101). Because of these three things that the father is capable of doing, the child perceives in the father’s ability to castrate him, thus forming the castration anxiety, deemed important to resolve the said complex. In the story, Larry “intended [it] as a solemn warning” his father’s approach when he expressed despise for “another bloody baby” (O’Connor) as he was playing in the front garden. This would imply that Larry perceived his father with the capability to punish him, though in a way or ways unspecified. Albeit presented ironically in the story, at the end there is a clear picture of Larry adapting the values of his father, most probably marking the start of the Oedipus complex resolution of the main character. Conclusion The Oedipus complex that occurs in male children during early childhood is characterized by an intense desire for his mother with a view of his father as a rival. However, because of castration anxiety, which is the boy’s perception as the type of punishment his father will impose upon him for desiring his mother, the said complex is resolved. Through this fear, the child gains a restriction for his behavior and leaves behind the mother as a love-object and tends to adapt to the father’s values. In the story, Larry is seen to be experiencing the Oedipus complex as evidenced by his aggressive behavior in struggle to possess his love-object and win against his rival. As discussed previously in the course of the paper, Larry’s mother and father both also play their roles to bring Larry out of this situation gradually and appropriately. Frank O’Connor’s My Oedipus Complex thus tailors the Freudian idea into his literature adequately, both mutually supporting each other to easily comprehend the basic points of the concept. Works Cited Baumgart, Hildegard. Jealousy: Experiences and Solutions. Trans. Manfred and Evelyn Jacobson. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1990. Print. Coles, Prophecy. The Importance of Sibling Relationships in Psychoanalysis. London: H. Karnac, 2003. Print. Dor, Joel. Introduction to the Reading of Lacan: The Unconscious Structured Like a Language. Eds. Judith Feher-Gurewich and Susan Fairfield. New Hampshire: Other press, 1998. Print. Keitlen, Seymour. Oedipus Complex: A Philosophical Study. Texas: Virtualbookworm Publishing, 2003. Mitchell, Stephen A., and Margaret J. Black. Freud and Beyond: A History of Modern Analytic Thought. New York: Basic Books, 1995. Print. O’Connor, Frank. “My Oedipus Complex.” Child and Youth Care Network. The International Child and Youth Care Network, 2001. Web. 13 Dec. 2010. Weiner, Irving B., and W. Edward Craighead. The Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology. Vol. 3. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons, 2010. Print. Read More