Rachel Lauve Dr. Miranda Nesler English 230-3 1 May 2014
The Nature and Nurture of Oedipus’ “Complex” and Identity
The Oracle of Delphi and the idea of an Oedipus complex are common knowledge – fragments of mythology and psychology that have made their way into society’s minds. Both the Oracle and the complex are only part of Oedipus’ story, however, and Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex has long been under scrutiny because of these, even in the modern times, and especially
concerning the complex. Popularized by Sigmund Freud, the Oedipus complex was birthed from Sophocles’ tragedy, but it was not Oedipus’ unconscious desire to kill his father and have sexual intercourse with his mother that sparked the plot of the play. It was his fate prophesized by the Oracle of Delphi that sparked the plot, and the truth coming out into the open was the direct cause of Oedipus’ downfall. The indirect causes, however, of Oedipus’ downfall were nature and nurture, in the form of his self-fulfilling prophecy, and Oedipus’ perception of his own identity.
One of the main turning points in Sophocles’ play is when Oedipus learns that Polybus, king of Corinth, is not his father like he previously thought. Before he learns this information, Jocasta is informed of the Corinthian king’s death and says:
Maid, hurry, go to your master and tell him at once. So much for prophecies!
Where are they now? How many years is it
since Oedipus fled his land, fearing he must kill his father—
who now has died quite naturally, not by a son’s hand! (Sophocles 944-949) highlighting the dramatic irony that can be found in every aspect of the play until the truth of Oedipus’ family is totally revealed. Jocasta’s blindness to the truth of the matter also brings
attention to how Oedipus’ understanding of his parents affected the choices he made as an adult. His choices played directly in to the way he was raised, believing that his adoptive parents were his birth parents – the nurture of his predicament.
After her son voices his concern about sleeping with his mother, though, she responds: Why be afraid?
Chance rules us all.
No one can foresee the future.
Best to live in the present, making no plans. And why should you fear the bed of your mother? Many a man has slept with his mother in dreams.
He who dismisses such thoughts lives easiest. (Sophocles 977-983)
Jocasta’s comment here shows her own hypocrisy, as someone who abandoned her child out of fear of fate, trying to avoid the nature of the future. Her comment also plays in to Freud’s own theories concerning the Oedipus complex. The innate qualities that Oedipus finds himself victim to, though, are not Freud’s ideas; Oedipus’ situation is not the “fulfilment of our own childhood wishes,” as Freud would have liked everyone to believe, but instead the repercussions of Greek ideas of fate and its inescapability (quoted in Fletcher 21).
Fate’s inescapability is comparable to genes in the traditional sense of the role nature plays in behavioral traits, and how those affect actions. The essence of fate, though, takes place before the play even begins, showing how nature, as well as nurture, can alter the circumstances in which people live; in Oedipus’ case, his circumstances involve the state of his kingdom, and the revelations that come with it, and the audience is supposed to be aware of the backstory and how the characters ended up where they were. In response to Freud’s ideas about the process of psychoanalysis throughout the play, John Fletcher wrote, “The action of the play takes the form, not of a realization or fulfilment of wishes in the future, but of an uncovering of past scenes and of Oedipus’s implication in them” (27).
Oedipus’ implication in the events leading up to the play is a combination of the role nature and nurture played in his life; while psychologists can take and have taken a particular side on that debate, many agree that it is a combination of the two factors that have the greatest effect on an individual. For Oedipus, nature, in the form of fate, was the most prominent piece of the puzzle, dictating his birth parents' actions and thus dictating the environment where he was raised. The greatest determining factor of fate for the Greeks, though, was Apollo, the god of prophecy. When Oedipus calls upon Teiresias to learn who Laius' killer was, the blind prophet states, after the Theban king calls him mad, “It was not I who has made your fate. / That was Apollo’s task—that is his care” (Sophocles 376-377).
For modern audiences, this calls attention to the nature of the fate, and even an audience that does not believe in the Greek gods can understand the weight of a godly-made fate. Teiresias also calls attention to Oedipus’ blindness to his false upbringing, when he says:
…though you have sight, you cannot see your own evil nor the truth of where you live and whom you live with. Do you know your origin, know that you are the enemy of all your line, those below the earth and those still on it, and that your mother’s and father’s double-edged curse with a deadly step will drive you from this land—
like a light revealing all, before it blinds you. (Sophocles 413-419)
Teiresias also brings focus to Oedipus' parents, rather than just the king himself, although Oedipus refuses to realize that he is in fact Laius' killer in this scene with the prophet.
What is interesting about the unseen relationship between Oedipus and his father, however, is how he actually reacts to learning that the killer must be taken care of. In his edict concerning the killer, Oedipus takes it upon himself to find the killer and rid Thebes of him; on this, Edwin Carawan wrote, “The killing of Laius was also a crime against the state, and Oedipus might have dealt with it as such, by proclaiming the killer an outlaw. But Sophocles chose to
have his tyrant take on the task of retribution as a personal duty, as though for the killing of a kinsman” (204-205). Even after Laius’ death, and even as the cause of his death, Oedipus is unable to fight unable to fight his origin, as Teiresias said, and the part of his identity that of which he is unaware.
Oedipus’ relationship with Laius does not just end there, though, because despite every attempt to avoid doing so, Oedipus became his father by taking his place. Their relationship, ended at their meeting at the crossroads, goes beyond simple kinship, as Oedipus became the king of his kingdom and married Laius’ wife. René Girard argues, “To want to be Oedipus is to desire what Laius desires, it is to imitate Laius at the fundamental level of desire, it is to desire to be Laius…The son is a faithful copy of the father, his mirror image” (28). He also writes, “To possess the throne and to possess Jocasta are two things that always go together in the myth. We must therefore associate them with each other and refer them back to the father” (28). Oedipus’ roles as both the king of Thebes and as Jocasta’s husband are central parts of what makes him who he is, and learning that his wife is actually his mother completely changes the way Oedipus views himself. The overly confident ruler’s world is suddenly turned upside down, and he is forced to deal with the consequences of not knowing who he really was for years of his life, and the consequences of the actions that this not knowing caused.
Van Nortwick shows how Oedipus’ identity leads to the tragic hero’s fate when he states, “The person Oedipus thinks himself to be is not only an incomplete version of the real man, but even in some senses a false one…As the play progresses, we see the increasing strain and momentous consequences of Oedipus’ alienation from his true self” (18). In the context of the play, this is seen as the second messenger recounts what has taken place off stage, conveying:
from each shoulder of her robe, lift them high and plunge them into the sockets of his eyes,
crying out that that they should never see him again, nor what he suffered nor the evil he did,
nor look on those they should not—
but only darkness, forever. (Sophocles 1267-1274)
The dénouement, that Oedipus afflicts upon himself no less, reveals the horrific consequences of Oedipus coming to terms with his identity and those actions. Oedipus was forced to come to terms with his identity as the truth of his situation was revealed, and his perception of his identity caused his actions yet again; not wanting to see himself, he blinded himself to avoid seeing who he really was, a victim who would be seen as a participant in his own terrible fate.
While Oedipus very well may have been a participant in his fate by trying to avoid it, he was at the very least a victim of his situation; the almost biological and completely unavoidable nature of fate determined how he was raised and nurture, which then changed his perception of his identity. Compared to Freud’s idea of the Oedipus complex, the psychological theories of nature and nurture and identity seem to take a backburner, despite the fact that they determine the course of the play. Oedipus Rex is shaped by events that take place before the play and the flaws of Oedipus’ character, and these ideas provide the backing for his downfall, as they also provide the reason for the truth coming out into the open the way it did.
Works Cited
Carawan, Edwin. “The Edict of Oedipus (Oedipus Tyrannus 223-51).” The American Journal of Philology 120.2 (1999): 187-222. Web.
Carawan looks specifically at the nature of Oedipus’ edict, when he calls out for Laius’ killer to be apprehended. By looking at original Greek text and translations of that,
Carawan discusses the details and implications of the edict’s five main provisions, as well as what these mean for the tragic hero and our understanding of Oedipus’ involvement in the crime itself.
Fletcher, John. “The Scenography of Trauma: A 'Copernican' Reading of Sophocles' Oedipus the King.” Textual Practice [serial online]. March 2007;21(1):17-41. Available from: MLA International Bibliography, Ipswich, MA. Accessed April 13, 2014.
Supplemented by the ideas of Sigmund Freud and Jean Laplanche, Fletcher argues about the role that trauma played in Oediupus’ development and thus the role it played in his encounters with his parents. Fletcher also comments on the role that the mythical played in Sophocles’ work, in the form of the Oracle, in comparison to Freud’s ideas concerning Oedipus’ supposedly fulfilled wishes within all of us.
Girard, René. Oedipus Unbound: Selected Writings on Rivalry and Desire. Ed. Mark R. Anspach. Trans. Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004. Print.
Girard’s essays within Oedipus Unbound provide a new look at the myth of Oedipus, putting it under a anthropological philosophical light. His essays discuss the Freudian theories that surround the myth as well as a broader look at Oedipus’ desire and the rivalry that also surround the actions of the story. Girard’s scapegoat theory also provides
a new light as he shows how patricide and incest are symptoms of the hunt for the culprit. Sophocles. The Theban Plays: Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, Anitgone. Trans.
Ruth Fainlight and Robert J. Littman. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009. Print.
Fainlight and Littman’s translations of Sophocles’ Theban plays offer a faithful translation of the works without sacrificing the poetic nature of his words. The book contains, in addition to the translations of each of works in the trilogy, introductions to each, notes, and glossaries that provide historical context. These additions also help to present themes, mythological roots, and other interpretations, while the main focus is still, of course, on Sophocles’ most-well known tragedies.
Van Nortwick, Thomas. Oedipus: The Meaning of a Masculine Life. Normon, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998. Print.
Van Nortwick’s book not only focuses on Oedipus Rex, but also Oedipus at Colonus as he looks at the nature of Oedipus’ life through a gendered lens, as van Nortwick searches for the meaning of a masculine life, as he titled his book. He looks at emotional and spiritual development in the context of characteristics of males, and how Sophocles dramatizes Oedipus’ struggle to finding meaning in his own life.
