The Oedipus Complex

"Being in love with the one parent and hating the other are among the essential constituents of the stock of psychical impulses which is formed at that time and which is of such importance in determining the symptoms of the later neurosis..." [Todayinsci.com. Sigmund Freud. Web.11/25/12] This quote was made by Austrian physician Sigmund Freud, who conducted numerous studies on the development of a humans mind from birth and created what is called the "Freud stages of personality development. The quote at the top refers back to the phallic stage, which is the third out of the five, where a boy develops an unconscious sexual desire for his mother. Many are familiar with the fictional work by Sophocles, Oedipus Rex, however this disorder is real and Irish writer Frank O'Conner tells us first hand of his Oedipus complex.

Before we go into Frank's story we will identify Sigmund Freud's five stages of development. The first stage is the oral stage, where a child is dependent on the oral pleasure of sucking. Too much of this may lead to smoking, drinking, and nail biting. The next stage is the anal stage, where a child is focusing mainly on expelling or retaining feces. Next is the phallic stage, followed by the latency, and genital stages. The latency stage is where a child spends most of their time with same sex peers, and then the genital stage is when a child starts to have attractions to the opposite sex. Frank O'Conner writes about his experience while in the phallic stage.

It can be argued that franks story does not fit Freud's theory of the Oedipus complex. In most ways, however, it does. Franks father was a soldier who was off at war until Frank was five. He explains that his father was like Santa clause, he came and went mysteriously, And that his presence didn't bother him much because of that. In fact, he said, it pleased him because he smoked and when he would crawl in between him and mother in the morning there would be a musty smell. Once his father came home for good it became quite clear to Frank that his mother loved him a lot. He explains how he could no longer go into bed in the morning with his mother and talk to her without getting yelled at for waking his father.

Continuing on, Frank writes about how he became jealous of his father. He would wonder, when his mother would say "be quite I'm