Oedipus and Electra Complexes
The Oedipus and Electra complexes are psychoanalytic concepts proposed by Sigmund Freud. These concepts are quite theoretical and have been criticised for the broad-brushing gender assumptions, but they are the initial frameworks used to help gain insight into the human psyche, especially the developmental aspects of the identities of the traditional two genders.
The Tale of Oedipus
Set in ancient Greece, the tale explores themes of fate, tragedy and the human quest for self-understanding.
It starts off before Oedipus’ birth where the Oracle of Delphi prophesies that Oedipus will kill his father and marry his mother. To prevent the prophecy, King Laius of Thebes sorrowfully orders their newborn to be killed by one of his servants. The servant takes the baby away but he could not kill the innocent child and instead leaves him on a mountainside to die.
A shepherd, however, finds Oedipus and rescues him taking him to the neighbouring kingdom of Corinth. The childless king Polybus and Queen Merope of Corinth adopt Oedipus and raise him as their own. Oedipus means “swollen foot” referring to his feet being bound when he was found.
Oedipus grows up to become a young man and learns from a prophet that he will kill his father and marry his mother. Unbeknownst to him that he was adopted he leaves Corinth to avoid killing his (adoptive) father and marrying his (adoptive) mother.
While crossing over a mountain, he fought a caravan of men who tried to force him off the road and killed them all. On his journey, Oedipus encounters the Sphinx, a creature with the body of a lion, wings of an eagle, and the face of a woman. The Sphinx was causing terror in Thebes, Oedipus’ country of birth. The Sphinx poses a riddle to Oedipus: “What walks on four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three in the evening?” “A man!” Oedipus answers. “As a baby he crawls on his hands and legs, and as an adult he walks on his two legs, and as an old man he walks with a cane!”
By solving the riddle the Sphinx drops dead, and thereby Oedipus saves Thebes from the Sphinx. As a reward for saving Thebes, the Theban people makes Oedipus king as the former king had been recently killed, and unknowingly marries Jocasta, his biological mother.
After Oedipus and Jocasta have four children together a plague afflicts Thebes. An oracle proclaims that the plague would not lift until the murderer of King Laius (the former king) is driven out. Oedipus launches an investigation into the king’s murder; but eventually he finds out that it was he who killed King Laius. The shepherd who found the baby Oedipus also confirms Oedipus is indeed the son of Laius and Jocasta.
Cursing his fate, Oedipus blinds himself, as he cannot bear to see the children he fathered with Jocasta, his wife and mother. Jocasta hangs herself after discovering the fulfillment of the prophesy. Oedipus goes into exile accompanied by his daughter Antigone.
Oedipus Complex in Psychoanalysis
As laid out in Freud’s framework, around ages 3-6 a boy starts to develop a special affection towards his mother. This isn’t romantic love as adults experience, but a kind of attachment where the boy desires the mother’s exclusive attention.
As this affection grows, the boy sees his father as a rival for his mother’s attention and may wish to ‘eliminate’ him. The boy then starts to fear that his father will discover his feelings and punish him (symbolically through castration). To cope with this fear, the boy starts emulating his father. This identification helps the boy develop his own male gender role and strengthens his ego identity.
The complex is resolved when the boy begins to identify with the same-sex parent and adopts their sexual norms and values. If not resolved, Freud believed it could lead to neurosis in adulthood.
The Tale of Electra
Like the tale of Oedipus, the tale of Electra is also set in Greece. It explores themes of family, revenge and justice.
The tale starts with a boastful hunter and the king of Mycenae, Agamemnon. He commits an ultimate sacrilege by killing a deer sacred to Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, during the time the famed Trojan war is about to be waged. Artemis as punishment stops the wind preventing Agamemnon’s fleet from embarking their voyage towards Troy. Agamemnon consults a seer called Calchas, and is told that he must sacrifice his eldest daughter Iphigenia, and the sacrifice is performed. Agamemnon departs to Troy and is away for ten years.
Naturally very upset, the wife of Agamemnon and the queen of Mycenae, Clytemnestra, takes Agamemnon’s cousin, Aegisthus, for a lover in Agamemnon’s long absence. Both plot Agamemnon’s demise and the take-over of the kingdom.
After the ten years of war, triumphant, Agamemnon returns to Mycenae with Cassandra from Troy as his bride. She is the most beautiful of the daughters of King Priam of Troy. Armed with another motive for revenge, the queen Clytemnestra and Aeisthus entangle Agamemnon in a cloth net while Agamemnon is in a bath and butcher him with an axe, along with Cassandra.
Following the king’s death, Aegisthus assumes the throne and rules over Mycenae with Clytemnestra as his queen for seven years. Electra is Agamemnon’s second daughter. Realising the danger of Agamemnon’s young son and her brother, Orestes, Electra smuggles him out and he is raised by the king of Phoics.
While distraught with her father’s murder, upon the return of Orestes, Electra encourages and schemes vengeance of their father’s murder – claiming, “blood must match blood, and wrong with wrong.”
Orestes murders both his mother and Aegisthus in their palace supported by Electra.
Electra Complex in Psychoanalysis
As laid out in Freud’s framework and like the boy counterpart, around ages 3-6 a girl starts to develop a special affection towards her mother. Contrary to boys, however, she realises she doesn’t have a ‘penis’, a quality that her father has which grants the mother’s attention towards him. This is termed ‘penis envy’, and the girl blames her mother for her ‘castration’.
Because she wants to possess a parent and perceives that she cannot possess her mother without a penis, she tries to possess her father instead, and develops subconscious sexual feelings towards her father. This makes her fixated on her father.
However, she realises that she doesn’t want to lose her mother’s love and so she becomes attached to her mother again. Just as in the Oedipus complex, the girl eventually identifies with the same-sex parent, which helps form her female gender role and resolve her complex.
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