It is very likely that Charles Marsden is meant to exhibit an Oedipal, or Oedipus, complex. He thinks of his mother often, and perhaps most tellingly, remembers how he was thinking of his mother when he lost his virginity in a way he found degrading. He constantly wants to go home to be with her, views Nina through the lens his mother views her, and when she gets sick becomes terribly querulous. Her death plunges him into deep despair. As for his father, the man died when he was six and he only really remembers the smells of the hospital, not the man himself. The Oedipal complex had a major hold on the arts, particularly literature, music, poetry, and film, in the 20th century. We will look briefly at its origins in Greek tragedy and in the work of the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud.
To begin, here is a brief summary of the story, found in Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus. King Laius of Thebes received a prophecy that his son would kill him and marry his wife, Jocasta. To prevent this, Laius ordered the baby to be left on Mount Cithaeron, but a compassionate servant gave the child to a shepherd from Corinth. The baby was adopted by King Polybus and Queen Merope, who named him Oedipus. When Oedipus grew up, he heard a prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother. Believing his Corinthian parents were his real ones, he left Corinth to avoid this fate. On his journey, he killed an older man at a crossroads—unaware it was King Laius. Arriving in Thebes, Oedipus solved the Sphinx’s riddle and became king, marrying Queen Jocasta. Years later, a plague struck Thebes. The oracle revealed it was caused by Laius’s unpunished murder. During the investigation, Oedipus discovered he himself was the killer and that Jocasta was his mother. Jocasta hanged herself, and Oedipus blinded himself before being exiled by Creon.
Sigmund Freud developed the concept of the Oedipus complex during his self-analysis, believing it to be a universal psychological condition. Influenced by the lasting impact of Oedipus Tyrannus on both ancient and modern audiences, Freud argued that all people experience Oedipal feelings. The complex occurs during the phallic stage of psychosexual development (ages 3–7). In its positive form, a child feels affection for the opposite-sex parent and rivalry toward the same-sex parent. In its negative form, the roles reverse. The decline of the complex happens as boys fear castration and girls develop a desire for a baby, leading into the latency period. In normal development, the Oedipus complex is resolved or dissolved. If it is only repressed, it can lead to abnormal sexual development. The son begins to identify with his father rather than seeing him as a rival, and his libidinal desire for the mother is sublimated into non-sexual affection. He then seeks a sexual partner other than his mother. The complex is resolved when individuals redirect these desires toward appropriate partners, but Freud believed it remains an unconscious influence throughout life, linking human desire and moral law.
Jeffrey B. Rubin, a psychologist writing for Psychology Today, says that there is little evidence that the theory as Freud conceived of it is real and applicable to child development, but still thinks there is something to take from Sophocles’ work: “Fewer of us now share the ancient Greek belief that human beings are the playthings of the Gods. But increasing numbers of therapists realize that people are inextricably shaped by the specific relational contexts in which they are raised and later inhabit. In D.W. Winniocott’s evocative words, ‘there is no such thing as an infant’—there are only specific babies/children raised by particular caregivers. If we are not beguiled by Freud’s symptomatic misreading of the play and examine the particular familial context of Oedipus’ life—his parents abandoned him and left him for dead—then what was done to him by his parents, rather than something innate and troublesome inside of him (the wish to sleep with his mother and kill his father), is the real ‘complex’ Oedipus labors under.”
