Why Did Oedipus Want To Kill His Father

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Despite being the namesake of Sigmund Freud’s theory, Oedipus did not possess The Oedipal Conflict. The paper discussing Freud’s theories, “FREUD and the Stages of Development,” describes The Oedipal Conflict by saying, “he wants to kill his father and have sexual relations with his mother.” This description does not apply to Oedipus and his actions within the play for several reasons. The first reason why Oedipus does not have The Oedipal Conflict is the fact that he does not have a conscious desire to murder his father. The theory of The Oedipal Conflict is based on the idea that a son harbors attraction for his mother, but knows that his father has already claimed the mother; the theory claims this is the reason for the son’s desire to kill his father. According to the theory, the only reason the son does not immediately act on these desires is because his father has several advantages over him such as, size, strength, and virility. In Oedipus’ case, he did not know that Laius was his father until later in the play, after Oedipus had already killed him. This fact alone proves that Oedipus did not have The Oedipal Conflict, because he killed Laius during a chance meeting that escalated into a fight, not because Oedipus wanted to kill his father in some attempt to gain access to his mother.…show more content…
The reason he ended up marrying Jocasta was because he earned the right to be king, and marry the previous king’s wife, by passing the Sphinx’s challenge, not because he had some sexual desire for his mother carry over from his childhood (the reason stated by Freud to explain why sons have desire for their mother). In fact, Oedipus was abandoned as a child and adopted by another family; he never had contact with his biological mother until his adulthood when he married

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