THE OEDIPAL COMPLEX

 

The oedipal complex is a theory elaborated by Sigmund Freud, an Austrian psychoanalyst. The name of the oedipal complex derives from the Oedipus’ Greek myth, where Oedipus kills his father Laio and marries his mother Giocasta.

This theory states that the child takes both of his parents, but in particular one of them, as the object of his erotic wishes. The child feels desire for the parent of the opposite sex and creates a rivalry with the parent of the same sex.

 

THE OEDIPAL COMPLEX IN HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK

 

In the play Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Hamlet shows great hostility toward his Uncle Claudius because his mother has married him, while he wants his mother’s attentions and so maybe he is jealous of Claudius because, killing the King, he has got what Hamlet wants: his mother’s attention. Besides Hamlet considers his mother’s remarriage as disgusting and sees murdering Claudius a way of freeing his mother of an incestuous marriage as well as avenging his father.

Hamlet’s inner monologues allow the reader to understand better the nature of the oedipal complex within the drama; for example in the first act, scene one, Hamlet, thanks to the use of a soliloquy, states that his torment is caused by his mother’s remarriage and not by his father’s death. He thinks that this marriage is incestuous and he is not worried about his father’s death until he sees the ghost. It goes without saying that with his father’s death he believed that his mother should be his but Claudius takes his object of desire away from him.

Within Act three, scene four it comes on surface that the relationship between Hamlet and his mother is more sexual than the traditional mother son relationship because Hamlet makes numerous sexually allusions, in particular he makes allusions to beds, where most of sexual intercourses occur. The allusions come out in Hamlet’s rage because before he had repressed them and so in this scene Hamlet’s repressed sexual desire for his mother comes on surface as rage in a form of sexual allusions according to the Freudian point of view that states that the complex is doomed to repression but it is influenced by unconscious.

Moreover Shakespeare sets the scene in Gertrude’s bedroom because bedrooms are places where sexual activity takes place. Besides this place allows Hamlet to have a private conversation with his mother.

 

THE OEDIPAL COMPLEX IN FORREST GUMP

 

Forrest Gump is a film directed by Robert Zemeckis. It deals with a man that has not a great brain and an IQ very low. This man through the narration of his life explains thirty years of the American history, from the fifties to 1992.

One of the most important themes of this film is the relationship between Forrest and his mother; she and Forrest’s beloved, Jenny, are the only people which accept him for what he is, she fights to permit his son to be considered a person and not an idiot. She loves her son and she is ready to do everything that permits him to live better, for example she prostitutes herself to permit him to attend a private school. Besides the oedipal complex could come to mind because Forrest in every occasion says: …mum said that…

However, although the relationship between Forrest and his mother seems to be a typical oedipal complex, in my opinion the relationship does not answer to all the aspects of the oedipal complex; for example while in Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Hamlet fights for his mother’s attention against a man, at the beginning his biological father and then his uncle Claudius, Forrest has his mother’s attention without fighting against a man, because he has not got a father. So in Forrest Gump there is the oedipal complex because there is a great relationship between Forrest and his mother, but there is not one of the most important aspects of the Freud’s theory: the rivalry with the parent of the same sex.