Oedipus Rex Research Articles

Law on the Other Side of Oedipus: Freud and Lacan on Law and Self-Formation

This article investigates the place of law in the Oedipus complex set out by Sigmund Freud and its later revision by Jacques Lacan. Few accounts of self-formation have been as widely recognised and discussed as the Oedipus complex. Yet the tensions that Freud recovered from Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex were a persistent feature of the theories of schools of psychoanalysis that broke away as much as those who followed Freud. In this article, I outline the Freudian position on the complex and its connection to the law before then examining the two phases of Lacan’s return to Freud’s Oedipus complex in Seminar VII and Seminar XVII.

‘He seems to be at the back of all the stories’: The Subtlety of Narnian Providence

Towards the end of The Horse and His Boy, as Shasta wanders blindly into Narnia, he unknowingly encounters Aslan, who explains to him the various ways that Aslan has watched over him dating back even to the boy’s infancy. It is a beautiful account of Aslan’s care for Shasta. If one were to focus exclusively on this passage, however, one might conclude that Narnian providence is merely a matter of external divine intervention and that creaturely agency plays little role in the way Aslan governs Narnia. An analysis of some of Lewis’s non-fictional writings in conversation with Thomas Aquinas uncovers a more subtle understanding of providence. For Lewis, as for Aquinas, providence incorporates the acts of free agents without compromising their integrity. Virtuous, indifferent, and even vicious acts all contribute in some way to God’s plan for the universe. The same can be said for Narnia, as one can see through representative examples from The Silver Chair, The Horse and His Boy, and The Magician’s Nephew. In these stories Lewis illustrates, to paraphrase his own words about Oedipus Rex, ‘how providence and free will can be combined, even how free will is the modus operandi of providence’.

Oedipus as Myself and as Other: Sophocles’ Tragedy Oedipus Rex in La Violence et le Sacré by René Girard. Part II

Oedipus as Myself and as Other: Sophocles’ Tragedy Oedipus Rex in La Violence et le Sacré by René Girard. Part II

Oedipus as Myself and as Other: Sophocles’ Tragedy Oedipus Rex in La Violence et le Sacré by René Girard Part I

Oedipus as Myself and as Other: Sophocles’ Tragedy Oedipus Rex in La Violence et le Sacré by René Girard Part I

The Women of Trachis Jealousy, Hatred and Revenge in Sophocles' Tragedy Intrafamilial Marriage and the Husbands' Widow's Wills the Famous Oracle

In this tragedy by Sophocles, the real theme is the treatment of "prey women" and their influence on the psychological family situation and society in classical Athens. "The Women of Trachis" as well as "Oedipus Rex" and "Oedipus on Colonus" show what an enormously perceptive, in today's terms, psychologist and sociologist Sophocles was. In the fifth century BC, many wars were waged in Greece and prisoners were turned into slaves. Classical Greece thrived on slavery, which also included so-called prey woman. In The Women of Trachis Sophocles describes the jealousy of a wife, with the resulting actions, when the marriage is overstretched and the jealousy is increased through corresponding insults (over the decades). How hatred and revenge then gain the upper hand, ultimately leading to death. The intra-family marriage policy in Athens, which often leads to emotional and social unhappiness, is also a clear theme in the "Women of Trachis", long before Sophocles' two Oedipus tragedies. In his tragedies, Sophocles dealt with sociological themes and human suffering. The poets changed the mythology according to the requirements of their desired intention of the tragedy. The transformation of the myth consists in its integration into the polis and its new reference systems. The fact that the tragic poet sets the problems of his time in a past contributes to the possibility of the tragedy's reception. In the tragedies Oedipus Rex and Oedipus at Colonus, for example, a reference to the social reality in Athens at the time is assumed. The tragedies that were performed at the Dionysia (festival) are characterized by an interpenetration of present and past. Tragedies were organized as competitions, so that the poets had to take the audience's sensitivities into account. Classical philologists are often prevented from producing realistic text analyses and interpretations by idealizing and glorifying Greek tragedies and thus not taking into account the social customs and laws of the time. If we think, that the Greeks had no interest in such a psychological process as how a decision comes about, we are seriously mistaken and we do not do justice to the great, psychologically astute tragedians. Without a sociological, psychological and medical approach, applied to the tragedies that contain such themes in Sophocles and also Euripides in excellent execution, we will not do justice to these brilliant poets. We are left with interpretations without a sociological and psychological understanding of Greek classicism.

Hubris and Nemesis: the Myth of Oedipus and Identity in Crossed: Wish You Were Here

The themes of past sins have occupied our collective imagination since the dawn of humankind. The ways in which characters are faced with their nemesis have changed throughout history, but the structure of the myth permeates our culture even nowadays. In this essay, Shaky from Simon Spurrier’s Crossed: Wish You Were Here is analysed and compared to Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex to determine if this myth still accurately represents some of our oldest fears, if its structure still serves the purpose of identifying anxieties in our culture, and it the Oedipal process can help explain Shaky’s search for identity.

Spiritual Hermaphroditism or Thinking with the Androgynous Soul

“Oedipus complex and spiritual intelligence: Are men less spiritual than women? Part I” examined Sigmund Freud’s Oedipus complex and Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex in the light of male spiritual intelligence. In it, we argued that men are likely to be less spiritually intelligent than women. We extrapolated the findings of the Pew Research Center 2016 Report which found that women were generally ― but not essentially or universally ― more religious than men. Part II argues that patriarchy and toxic masculinity, have made men less spiritually intelligent by canonising the alpha male. The result is that most men are unable to realise their full potential as created imago Dei or spiritual hermaphrodites. Disavowing patriarchalism enables them to embrace their androgyneity. Utilising the example of South African athlete, Caster Mokgadi Semenya, we argue that wherever we find ourselves on the continuum between the poles of male and female, even as inter-sex, we are all called to realise our spiritual hermaphroditism. In a nutshell, Part II is an invitation to think with the androgynous soul. Methodologically, we asked respondents to answer four questions on spiritual intelligence and gender fluidity. The theoretical framework chosen for both Part I and Part II was Sigmund Freud’s Oedipus complex, interpreted as a power drive in men to dethrone their father. We used online and offline surveys to generate the state of public opinion on the subject in academia. As purposive sampling, the number of returned questionnaires was inconsequential. Part II’s objective is to adumbrate a new theory of human sexuality called spiritual hermaphroditism, which would act as an antidote to toxic masculinity. Part II also required its own methodology, a literary-linguistic-syntactic analysis and hermeneutics of suspicion of Gen 1:26‒28 and 2:7, which was not dependent on informants’ views but addressed spiritual hermaphroditism.

Manque í íªtre: Psychoanalysis in the Dilemma of Constructing Subject in Culture and Literature

Psychoanalysis has been able to assert historically that it is not a closed branch of science to other disciplines. Its contribution to literature and culture makes it able to flexibly explain the dilemma of subject formation both in literature and culture. Freud, the founding father of psychology owes a debt to the Oedipus Rex story that anchors his entire thought. Acrobatically, Freud's thought was then continued by Lacan in order to explain cultural events that were born like language structure events. Language, literature, and culture then have a meeting point where the cultural process that is never final is precisely a signal that the subject always tries to overcome the shortcomings in himself when slaughtered by language. Language is unable to express itself fully, so literature and culture as products are nothing, but an extension of the subject who continues to feel lack. Zizek as the latest thinker from the previous two generations makes a foothold that the back and forth between the author and his work as an attempt to overcome the logic of deficiency or symptoms embodying the self and the fictional world in order to achieve wholeness exactly like the experience of returning to the mother's body or the real.

Oedipus Rex and the Mythology of Psychoanalysis

This article develops an analysis of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex in relation to the mythological and literary-theatrical place the play holds in the history of psychoanalysis from Freud to Lacan, not to mention Foucault’s counter-psychoanalytic reading. How do we see the constitutive relation between this play and the Freudian complex? Does Lacanian psychoanalysis help illuminate the play as a tragedy of desire in alienation? The paper argues for a tragedy of desire’s Otherness in Sophocles’ play, showing how the parental alterity is configured in the shifting dynamics of paternal and maternal signifiers. Be it in the divine oracle or the chorus, the play accentuates the field of Other to activate the tragedy of desire and chanellizes it through affects like guilt, shame and self-reproach, inscribed on the subject’s body in the form of scopic and invocatory drives. The paper concludes by reflecting on the status of the unconscious as knowledge, complicating Foucault’s interpretation and presenting a tragedy of the desire-to-know that produces existence without desire as an experience of suffering.

Sopocles’ Ajax: A Tragedy of Deception

Greek tragedy is a tragedy of fate that brings the downfall of the central figure. Greek playwrights were masters of storytelling and tried to bring purgation of human emotions. Man is indeed responsible for his prosperity and downfall, but no one can deny the role of destiny in man’s life. Sophocles was one of the greatest Greek Playwrights who produced considerable tragedies in Greek literature. Sophocles’ plays were performed on the stage during the ancient time. His most horrible tragedy is Oedipus Rex in which Sophocles presents the cruelty of destiny that brings Oedipus’s downfall. Ajax is a tragedy of the central character Ajax who is presented as a noble warrior in the play but his rivalry with Odysseus for the armour of Achilles invites his downfall. In Ajax, Athena, a Greek goddess is presented as a villain in the play. Athena blurs the vision of Ajax and makes him believe that he has killed his rival Odysseus and Greek leaders but later on, he comes to know that he has killed the innocent cattle under the influence of Athena’s false vision. When Ajax comes to know about his sin, he commits suicide at the end of the play. Athena’s deception brings downfall to Ajax.

Ukrainian Theater After the Full-Scale Russian Invasion: A New Reading of Canonical Plays

The article analyzes the new senses that appeared in the 2021–2022 Ukrainian theater performances of canonical works. Two of the productions in question are based on Ukrainian classical texts, namely Taras Shevchenko’s “mystery poem” “Velykyi Lyokh” (The Great Dungeon) and Lesya Ukrainka’s dramatic poem Cassandra. The other two productions, based on Sophocles’ tragedy Oedipus Rex and Albert Camus’ play Caligula, consciously seek answers to the challenges of the new Ukrainian reality in the canon of world drama. The full-scale Russian invasion has made the well-known meanings in these works more clearly visible and added new ones. Against the backdrop of media discussions about the mental health of the Russian president, Caligula by the Ivan Franko Theater (Kyiv) reflects on the psychology of an authoritarian ruler. Oedipus Rex by the Theater on Podil (Kyiv) shows why the demand for justice is growing in wartime society and the moral side of actions is becoming increasingly important. The Great Dungeon by the Poltava Puppet Theater tells the dramatic story of the Russo-Ukrainian War through the prism of Shevchenko’s historical analogies. Cassandra by the Ivan Franko Theater creates the atmosphere of an vulnerable, open-air space where every inhabitant, except for the protagonist, prefers to protect themselves with fanciful constructions of ephemeral illusions. While the tragic reality of the Russо-Ukrainian War has led to the emergence of a large body of contemporary drama that interprets the new experience of Ukrainian society, the war reality has become a prerequisite for a significant rethinking of theatrical texts from the Ukrainian and Western European canon. Thus, Ukrainian theater is actively engaging with the new reality, intervening in various ways in current public discussions that aim to comprehend the drama of the war, and creating a safe space for a common emotional response to the latest tragic experience.

The Alchemical Oedipus: Re-Visioning the Myth.

The Oedipus myth is foundational to depth psychology due to Freud's use of Sophocles' play Oedipus Rex in the creation of psychoanalysis. But analytical psychology's engagement with the myth has been limited despite the importance Jung also places upon it. The absence of a developed Jungian response to Oedipus means the myth's psychologically constructive elements have been overlooked in favour of reductive Freudian interpretations. I examine whether analytical psychology can fruitfully re-engage with Oedipus by reinterpreting his story as a paternal rebirth. This is achieved by reincorporating those parts of the myth that occur before and after the period portrayed in Oedipus Rex. Such a move reintegrates Oedipus' father, King Laius, into the story and unveils important parallels with the alchemical trope of the king's renewal by his son. Using Jung's method of amplification, Oedipus is recast as Laius' redeemer and identified with the archetype of psychological wholeness, the Self. The contention is that such an understanding of Oedipus supports a clearer recognition of the potentially generative quality of human suffering, restoring to the myth the quality of moral instruction it possessed in antiquity.

Mythological Underpinnings of Feminine Development.

In the manner of Oedipus Rex, the myth of Myrrha-a story about a daughter's initiation of sex with her father-promises to divulge insights about feminine development. Given parallels between these two myths, the author asks why Jung identified Electra rather than Myrrha as the feminine counterpart to Oedipus, and revisits Freud's and Jung's differing interpretations of the incest theme in personality development. To break open the metaphor of Myrrha's incest, the author analyzes a similar account of incest in the Old Testament story of Lot and his wife and finds that they share a theme of female bitterness related to wounding of the mother and its arresting effect on the daughter's maturation. The article then considers the Demeter-Persephone myth, a tale not of incest but rape in Persephone's initiation into womanhood. In contrast to Myrrha, Persephone's development unfolds with strong maternal support tempered by the opposing claims on her by the masculine. The article draws these stories together to illuminate the archetypal forces that drive feminine development as well as the human affairs that resist and complicate them. The article concludes with a case study of a client whose developmental "stuckness" follows the contours of the Myrrha myth.

Oedipus’ Freudian slips: language, kinship and tyranny

This paper deals with the linguistic aspect of tragic irony in the Oedipus Rex. It begins with the observation that several ambiguous expressions in the play telegraph their double meaning through various kinds of linguistic slips. It is argued that these slips occur on three distinct levels: semantics, syntax and pragmatics. There follows an analysis of several examples under each of these three headings. The paper concludes with the observation that when it comes to the question of Oedipus’ familial relationships and the legitimacy of his rule in Thebes, language itself fails the hero and defies his attempts at controlling it.

Création littéraire et littérature schizophrénique : Deleuze et Guattari lecteurs de Freud

ObjectivesThe aim of this article is to show that the critique of the place and function of the Oedipus complex in Freudian psychoanalysis implies a critique of Freudian aesthetics. MethodWe will first propose a reconstruction of what Deleuze and Guattari take from Freudian aesthetics, namely an aesthetics of form, centered on the theater, and starting from Freud's experience as a spectator of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. In a second movement, we will try to identify what Deleuze and Guattari intend to propose to replace this aesthetic of form, and which they name “schizophrenic literature,” situate in the short story rather than in the theater, and explicitly referring to delirium. ResultsThis strategic reconstruction allows us to formulate a hypothesis: that Freud would have implicitly made the theater the matrix of subjectivity, first in its aesthetics, but also in his individual aesthetic experiences and his preferences for a certain type of literary work. DiscussionThis systematic reading of Freudian “creative writing” theory challenges the concept of sublimation as the point of doctrine that rests on the selection of an “Oedipal” corpus and type of art. If the aesthetics of the form can be located in Freud's biography as a “literary effect” whose aesthetic pleasure is found in the economy of the spectator's projections onto the objects on stage, the aesthetics of the formless that is expressed by “schizophrenic literature” mobilizes a violence proper to the sublime: it is not definitively formalizable, and calls for very different feelings that transfigure the coordinates of an aesthetic experience. ConclusionThis schizophrenic tendency of literature leads to an ecological approach to the psychic, attentive to a context where the distinction between nature and culture is never clear.

The Oedipus complex in fiction

This study aims to know The Bookseller’s Notebooks intersects with The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Oedipus Rex. We analyze the novelist’s proficiency at expressing contemporary human issues innovatively and artistically, focusing on the emotional struggle between parents and children. In particular, the study sheds light on the emotional and social struggles suffered by a marginalized, despised, and rejected societal group, namely illegitimate children (foundlings). The study’s findings suggest that more comparative studies of intertextuality between non-local works of literature should be attempted. This way, literature and literary criticism may enhance our understanding of other’s cultures to facilitate acceptance and peaceful coexistence.

The Reception of Greek Tragedies in Eugen O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night

A Long Day's Journey into Night occupies a prominent place in Eugene O'Neill's work because it is full of autobiographical elements. In addition to biographical episodes, the play is rich in literary parallels. generally speaking, O'Neill’s plays are heavily influenced by ancient Greek tragedies. The conflict/s between the main characters as well as protagonists’ struggle with their own selves and the mistakes of the past are the main point in this play. The myth of the son who fights against his father as embodied in the play is associated with the plot of  Sophocles’  Oedipus Rex. Sons see their own mistakes from their birth, but their every step against destiny is also a great tragedy. Euripides’ characters are also reinterpreted in this play. Medea and Meri suffer from the same misfortunes. Meri regrets her past decisions, mourns her lost child and considers herself destroyed as a woman. O Neill’s works are full of allusions to ancient Greek tragedies because modern literature is a kind of rereading and rearranging the great cultural artefacts and/or texts of the past.

The Tragedy of Fate in Oedipus the King

Among the tragedies of ancient Greece, Oedipus Rex is a work well worth exploring in depth. The study of the problem of fate and tragedy in work has been a topic of interest so far. This article focuses on the tragic destiny of Oedipus, manifested in two different forms: the "oracle" and the "eye". The oracle drives the development of the story, leading Oedipus towards a predetermined end and suggesting his ultimate fate, while the eye leads people to experience the world of light and darkness, perceive the deafening impact of fate, and grasp the essence of things with the 'eyes of the heart'. In the end, Oedipus' struggle with destiny is a failure, and he goes round and round in an unavoidable course of destiny that has already been ordained. Although the tragedy is predetermined and fate is dominated by an irresistible mysterious force, the freedom and will of the human being are not to be ignored, and human dignity is as important as fate. This sublime understanding of the tragedy of destiny renews the ancient Greeks' inherent perception of the fixed nature of fate and deepens the connotation of ancient Greek tragedy and the sublimation of its spirit.

A Social Background of Turkish Culture and a Mythical View of Orhan Pamuk’s The Red-Haired Woman

This paper aims to bring the concept of ‘Myth’ and the historical view of Orhan Pamuk's The Red-Haired Woman. This research is based on ‘New Historicism’ and given prominence to textual aspects. For two decades, readers have been inspired not only by the distant past in symbols but also by colors hardly seen in previous texts. It could not be a surprise to learn that the themes of his The Red-Haired Woman are repression and amnesia. The researcher has tried to focus on ‘collective unconsciousness’ through the protagonist’s mythical background. This fiction gives a daring approach to reading canonical works such as Oedipus Rex, Rostam and Sohrab, and its discussion of patricide and paternal filicide, i.e., re-reading the myth to uncover the hidden fact behind the historical text through historical aspects. Furthermore, in the novel The Red-Haired Woman many archetypal images are discussed as history served as torch for this research paper.

DECONSTRUCTING THE CHARACTERS IN SOPHOCLES’ OEDIPUS REX

This study aimed at finding the characteristics of the characters in Sophocles' Drama Oedipus Rex, as well as to deconstruct the characterization of the characters that have been found and brought out the other side of the characteristics of each character. Descriptive qualitative method was used to analyze the data in this study. The data were analyzed by reading and selecting data from the utterances in the drama dialogue. Then the data were analyzed using deconstruction theory on the characterization of the characters in the drama. The theory used was the deconstruction theory discovered by Jacques Derrida. The result of the analysis shows that firstly, the characters are Oedipus, Jocasta, Creon, and Tiresias. Each character has characteristics. Oedipus has the characteristics of being wise, brave, and is also a helpful figure. Jocasta is a kind character, Creon is a fair figure, and Tiresias is a wise figure. However, after being deconstructed, each characteristic has opposite characteristics so that the other side can be revealed. Oedipus is characterized as a silly, a coward, and a betrayer figure. Jocasta has bad characteristics. Meanwhile, Creon has unfair characteristics, and Tiresias has a selfish characteristic.