Oedipus and the Oedipus Complex

A Revision

Dietmar Seel, Burkhard Ullrich, Florian Daniel Zepf, Siegfried Zepf

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9780367103989
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429916700
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Ancient & Classical Literary Criticism
• Index: Psychology

In contemporary psychoanalytic thought, Freud's concept of the Oedipus complex is inclined to overshadow the interpretation of the myths surrounding Oedipus. The authors counter this situation by reversing it, utilizing the Oedipus myths to interpret the Oedipus complex. In so doing they expose it as a sheer cover story. They unmask the Oedipus complex, revealing it to be a drama staged not by Oedipus but by Jocasta, the mother, and Laius, the father. For neither Sophocles' drama nor the Oedipus myths give any indication that Oedipus is enamoured of Jocasta and born with the intention of killing his father Laius. What the myths do mention are Jocaste's passion for Oedipus whom she loves more than his father and Laius' desire to eliminate Oedipus as his rival from birth. Freud neglected these aspects of the Oedipal myths. In uncovering them the authors come to the conclusion that Oedipus did not have an Oedipus complex.

CHAPTER ONE
Two questions

Myth is already enlightenment and enlightenment reverts to mythology.

—Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno,
1944, p. XVIII

In his five lectures on psychoanalysis published in 1910, Freud emphasises for the first time that the Oedipus complex is the “nuclear complex of every neurosis” (Freud, 1910a, p. 47). Two years later he sees the Oedipus complex as part of mankind’s heritage (1912–1913a, p. 160, pp. 141f.).

It is well known that Freud borrowed the name for this complex from Sophocles’ drama Oedipus Tyrannus with which he had been familiar since 1873 (letter to Emil Fluss, 16 June 1873, 1960a, p. 4). As a reminder: Oedipus frees Thebes from the Sphinx by solving her riddle, becomes the widowed Queen Jocasta as his wife and thereby becomes King, visits Thebes to discover the cause of the plague threatening Thebes. Oedipus sends his brother-in-law Creon to the oracle at Delphi to find out how he might save Thebes from the plague. Creon returns with the message that Thebes can only be spared from the disease if the murderer of the former King Laius is found and expelled from the country.

On his search for Laius’ murderer Oedipus calls for the blind seer Teiresias and questions him to reveal the truth. Teiresias avoids replying, whereupon Oedipus accuses him of being in league with Creon in planning and executing the murder of Laius. This accusation infuriates Teiresias, who promptly accuses Oedipus of being Laius’ murderer and of taking Laius’ wife, his own mother, to be his wife and of fathering children with her.

Creon hears of Oedipus’ accusation and the two argue violently Jocasta, Oedipus’ wife and Creon’s sister, intervenes. She reveals to Oedipus that before the birth of her son an oracle prophesied that this child would kill his father Laius. Three days after the birth Laius accordingly pierced their son’s ankles and abandoned him in the mountains. Many years later, Laius was killed at a place where three roads meet.

Jocasta’s confession sets Oedipus thinking. He says he did hear a rumour that he was not the biological son of the parents he grew up with and to dispel his doubts he had visited the oracle. The oracle had proclaimed that he would kill his father and marry his mother. Fearing that he might harm his parents he had left the country. On his way he had killed a man and one of his companions at a place where three roads meet. The other man fled.

Jocasta mentions that the servant who had fled had asked to be dismissed as soon as he learned that Oedipus was to become king. To clarify this Oedipus decides to talk to this servant. But before he can do this a messenger arrives from Corinth and reports that Polybus, Oedipus’ stepfather, has died, but of natural causes. Oedipus now has hopes that he has not killed his father. However, when shortly afterwards a further messenger reports that after having received the infant Oedipus from one of Laius’ men he brought him to Polybus, Oedipus’ hope is finally shattered.

It turns out that the man who rescued Oedipus is the servant Oedipus sought after. Under threat of torture this man confirms Oedipus’ fears saying that he had orders to kill Oedipus, but that he did not have the heart to do so. Instead he delivered Oedipus into the care of the messenger from Corinth.

Oedipus’ guilt can no longer be denied. Jocasta returns to the palace and shortly afterwards a servant comes out, reporting that Jocasta has hanged herself after hearing the news that Oedipus was none other than her son. Oedipus blinds himself by stabbing his eyes out, admits his guilt publicly, and pleads to Creon, now king, to banish him from the country and to take care of his children.

The universality of the Oedipus complex has been subjected to much critical discussion (e.g., Basch, 1986; Fenichel, 1930; Parin, 1977) and its phylogenetic justification has been questioned with strong arguments (e.g., Mitchell, 1982; Moore & Fine, 1990, p. 147; Zepf & Zepf, 2011). However, with few exceptions, among them Adler, Devereux, Fromm, Horney, Jung, Rank, and Ross (see, Galdstone, 1976, p. 260), Freud’s understanding of the complex that the son competes with his father for his mother and wants to eliminate him as his rival, the daughter competes with her mother for her father and wants to do away with her, has remained basically unchanged in psychoanalysis (see, e.g., Fitzpatrick-Hanly, 2007; Laine, 2007; Reed, 2008).

This is surprising because in his reasoning, Freud refers not just to the name but also to the Greek mythology as shown in Sophocles’ drama and, although he must have been familiar with this drama—in the letter we have cited Freud writes that the “Greek paper, consisting of a thirty-three-verse passage from Oedipus Rex … I had also read on my own account” (letter to Emil Fluss, 16 June 1873, 1960a, p. 4)—, he nonetheless ignores certain aspects portrayed in the myths. For instance, at the 8 April 1914 meeting of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, Federn states, “Of importance also is the parent’s behavior: it is Laius who exposes Oedipus” (Nunberg & Federn, 1975, p. 254). Although Freud (1900a, p. 261) mentions the reasons for Oedipus’ exposure to this treatment as an infant, he did not discuss the cruelty of the parents (Schneiderhan, 1852, p. 25) associated with it or comment on the piercing of Oedipus’ ankles.¹ The same holds true for the supposition arising in Sophocles’ play that Jocasta probably knew the true identity of Oedipus, Stewart (1961) for instance, in consideration of the difference in the degrees of punishment for Jocasta and Oedipus, concludes that Jocasta commits her crimes knowingly, but Oedipus’ actions are not premeditated. Jocasta only commits the crime of incest and her punishment is suicide, whereas Oedipus is guilty of committing the crimes of both incest and parricide but his punishment is only self-blinding and banishment from Thebes. Blanck (1984), Bross (1984) and Naiman (1992) substantiate the idea that Jocasta co-staged the drama by pointing to the following aspects:

• Jocasta lies to Oedipus when she tells him that it was Laius alone who gave her son away
• she tells Oedipus that his appearance is similar to that of Laius
• she tries in vain to persuade Oedipus to abandon his quest for the death of Laius
• she informs Oedipus that her son's ankles were pinioned when Laius gave him away and the scars resulting from this pinioning were visible when Jocasta first met Oedipus as an adult.

Robert (1915, p. 62) argues that the pierced ankles have no practical relevance and are only introduced in the drama as a means of recog-nition.2 It was illogical to assume that Oedipus’ ankles were pierced to contribute to the death of the child because the child could have easily been killed at any time. It was also absurd to assume that this piercing was intended to prevent the escape of a three-day-old infant (Roscher, 1897–1909, p. 705).

Furthermore, when Jocasta consoles Oedipus that in their dreams many men make love to their mothers, but they go about their life without being troubled by the idea,³ Freud neglects looking at the relevance of this for her relationship with Oedipus. He overlooks the fact that Jocasta talks about the oracle Laius has received without mentioning the prophesied incest—she only states “χρησμὸς γὰρ ἦλθε Λαίῳ π οτ’, οὐκ ἐρῶ … ὡς αὐτὸν ἥξοι μ οῖρα π ρὸς π αιδὸς θανεῖν ὅστις γένοιτ’ ἐμοῦ τε κἀκείνου πάρα” (Sophocles, 1991, 711–714)4—and the fact that she commits suicide immediately after the incest comes to light (ibid., 1068). In contrast, Oedipus refers to the oracle always starting with the incest and continuing with the prophesied murder of his father (ibid., 791, 826, 976, 995; see also Halter, 1998, p. 44).

These omissions are worthy of notice. In Freud’s (1925d, p. 69) view, myths are “imaginative creations of groups and peoples”. They have latent content (1901a, p. 685; 1910a, p. 36) which always has to be uncovered (e.g., 1908e, p. 152; 1910a, p. 36; 1924f, p. 208; 1932a, p. 187) and it is surprising that Freud, despite these general views, subscribes to Sophocles’ presentation and even scotomises aspects of the drama.

Additionally, Freud does not take note of a further myth in which Jocasta receives milder punishment than Oedipus. In this myth, Jocasta is thought of in the underworld after her death as having married her son after he murdered his father. The gods discover the incest instantly, Jocasta commits suicide and although Oedipus is persecuted by the Erinyes of his mother, he still remains King of Thebes and after his death in battle he is buried with heroic honours (Preller, 1875, p. 344; Roscher, 1897–1909, p. 701; St. Clair, 1961).

Freud does not consider the differing configurations of the oedipal drama in Greek mythology. Most of these configurations are mentioned in Roscher’s Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie, in Preller’s Griechische Mythologie—Freud quotes both sources in his writings (e.g., Freud, 1901b, p. 218; 1910c, p. 88; 1913f, p. 298)—and in Constans’ (1881) Le Légende d‘Œdipe.⁵ Freud had this book in his library and marked several passages in this work, particularly those which had to do with incest (Roll & Abel, 1988).

In the light of this one may wonder why Freud saw no need to question Sophocles’ drama Oedipus Tyrannus and to look for the latent content in the myths, despite his view that myths are more or less disguised conscious manifestations of unconscious contents (e.g., Freud, 1910a, p. 36). Possibly Freud believed he had already discovered the latent content of Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus, this being the Oedipus complex, so that he had no further interest in this issue. Assuming this, it is understandable why subsequent psychoanalysts have focused their investigations of myths on the question of how they represent the Oedipus complex (for references see Edmunds & Ingber, 1977).

It seems doubtful whether the Freudian version of the Oedipus complex really penetrates to the core of Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyran-nus and whether the Oedipus complex is the only possible direction of inquiry into these myths. Any science has not only to discern the way the essence of the studied phenomena manifests itself, but also to determine what the essence of these manifestations is. Accordingly we need not limit ourselves to Freud’s concept of the Oedipus complex and can proceed to re-examine how the oedipal drama presents itself in the Oedipus myths. Freud notes that the latent content of these imaginative creations belongs to the “unconscious complexes of early childhood” (1925d, p. 69) consisting solely of “a reality experienced by the child” (1918b, p. 55). Thus, in Freud’s conception the myths provide information about this reality in a mystified manner.

CHAPTER TWO
The abandonment of the seduction theory—reasons

The foundation for a neurosis would accordingly always be laid in childhood by adults ….

—Sigmund Freud, 1896c, pp. 208f

The seduction theory was published in 1896 in three essays (1896a; 1896b; 1896c). In these essays Freud put forward the idea that every hysteria goes along with “sexual experiences in childhood consisting in the stimulation of the genitals, coitus-like acts, and so on” (ibid., p. 206) that were “practised … by adults who were strangers … nursery maid or governess or tutor, or … a close relative” and “brother and sister” (ibid., p. 207). A further indispensable “psychologi-cal precondition” for neurotic symptom formation is that these real infantile sexual scenes exist as “unconscious memories” (ibid., p. 211). The “hysterical symptoms are derivatives of memories which are operating unconsciously which … only exercise a pathogenic action later, when they have been aroused … in the form of unconscious memories” (ibid., p. 212; italics omitted).

In his famous letter to Fliess, dated 21 September 1897, Freud admits that his idea that every hysteria is based on real “sexual experiences in childhood” with other persons (1896c, pp. 206f.), was a fallacy. “I no longer believe in my neurotica”, he writes and justifies this change by the “continual disappointments in my attempts at bringing an analysis to a real conclusion”, the “absence of the complete successes”, his “surprise at the fact that in every case the father, not excluding my own, had to be blamed as a pervert” and that “such a widespread extent of perversity towards children is, after all, not very probable,” the “consideration that in the most deep-reaching psychosis the unconscious memory does not break through, so that the secret of childhood experiences is not disclosed even in the most confused delirium” and “the certain discovery that there are no indications of reality in the unconscious, so that one cannot distinguish between the truth and fiction that is cathected with affect” (1985c, pp. 259f.).

“Thus,” he concludes, “the possibility remained open that sexual phantasy invariably seizes upon the theme of the parents” (ibid.). Looking back to these days in 1914 he states the same issue:

If hysterical subjects trace back their symptoms to traumas that are fictitious, then the new fact which emerges is precisely that they create such scenes in phantasy, and this psychical reality requires to be taken into account alongside practical reality

(Freud, 1914d, pp. 17f.).

It was the oedipal drama which was inherent in these phantasied scenes.

Many psychoanalysts are in agreement with Anna Freud who regards Freud’s abandonment of the reality of seduction in favour of seduction fantasies as the birth of psychoanalysis. In a letter, dated 10 September 1981, Anna Freud writes to Masson:

Keeping up the seduction theory would mean abandoning the Oedipus complex and with it the whole importance of conscious and unconscious fantasy. In fact, I think there would have been no psychoanalysis afterwards.

(Masson, 1984, p. 113)

This view seems justified, because Freud’s writings following the rejection of his seduction theory emphasise again and again that statements about sexual seductions are nothing but fantasies. For instance, writing on the subject of childhood seduction memories involving the father in 1916, he states that “there can be no doubt either of the imaginary nature of the accusation or of the motive that has led to it” (1916–1917a, p. 370). In 1933 he asserts unequivocally that the reports of “almost all my women patients … that they had been seduced by their father … were untrue”, and “that hysterical symptoms are derived from phantasies and not from real occurrences” (1933a, p. 120). In this context Freud strongly rejects the ideas that Ferenczi presented in a lecture entitled “The passions of adults and their influence on the sexual and character development of children” (published under the title “Confusion of tongues between adults and the child”) at the Congress in Wiesbaden in September 1932. In this lecture, Ferenczi (1932, p. 227) stated that “especially the sexual trauma, as the pathogenic factor cannot be valued highly enough“, and that “children … fall victim to real violence or rape much more often than one had dared to suppose.” Ferenczi read this text to Freud on 30 August 1932 (Simon, 1992), and three days later Freud addressed a telegram to Eitington (cited in Sylwan, 1984, p. 109) stating “Ferenczi read me his paper. Harmless. Stupid …. Disagreeable impression,” and on 3 September 1932 he wrote to his daughter that Ferenczi “had completely regressed to etiological views which I have been abed in, and gave up, 35 years ago” (cited in Gay, 1988, pp. 583–584).

Without entering into the controversy between Freud and Ferenczi in detail, we want to mention that, according to Simon (1992) in particular, Haynal (1988) believes that Freud’s critical assessment—critical statements with regard to Ferenczi’s lecture can also be found in Freud’s telegram to Eitington, dated 2 September 1932 (cited in Sylwan, 1984, p. 109)—was mainly due to Ferenczi’s technical trea...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• ABOUT THE AUTHORS
• INTRODUCTION
• CHAPTER ONE Two questions
• CHAPTER TWO The abandonment of the seduction theory—reasons
• CHAPTER THREE The invention of the Oedipus complex
• CHAPTER FOUR The myth of the primal horde
• CHAPTER FIVE The myth of the dissolution of the Oedipus complex
• NOTES
• REFERENCES
• INDEX