The sense of taboo and intrigue that accompanies sex with members of one’s family has made appearances in literature throughout much of human history. Beginning with the ancient prohibitions against sex with various family members in the Levitical laws in the Old Testament, it is clear that the sexual instinct has been driving people to cross family lines just about as long as people have been on the planet. Oedipus Rex is so unrealistic in many of its premises – how would Oedipus have forgotten, for example, that he was prophesied to kill his father and marry his mother when he happened upon the couple in the chariot, killed the older man, and then had desire for the older woman who was with him? – that the story has to have been written to explore the taboo, not relate actual Theban history. Sigmund Freud, in his works about the Oedipal complex and the interpretation of dreams, explains the operation of this strange desire that seems common to much of humanity, at least in some repressed form. His theories explain both the events in Oedipus Rex and in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
The way Freud explains his theory, each of us has a personality divided into three parts: the id, the superego, and the ego. The id represents the basic drives that push us, operating down deep in our subconscious impulses. These drives go all the way back to the beginning of time and only rarely manifest themselves fully in our consciousness. However, these desires are often unacceptable according to the rules of society; for example, the desire to have sex would be considered a part of what goes inside the id. You can’t have sex whenever and wherever you want, though (unless you’re Hugh Hefner or an NFL quarterback), so you have to control this id. This is where the superego comes in: it is the construct of social regulations that limit our behavior. In modern society, for example, marriage is one institution that functions as a superego on the sexual impulse. People who are married are expected to restrict that drive to one person. In societies in which homosexuality is seen as immoral or wrong, the superego points members of that society towards members of the opposite sex.
The Oedipus complex, according to Freud, represents a desire by a son to take his father’s place and have sex with his mother. The fact that Oedipus can overcome so much improbability and end up murdering his father and bedding his mother can be seen as a metaphorical expression of the power of this impulse. The fact that the shepherd took the infant Oedipus far away from Thebes, to keep the baby from being killed (as his father, Laius, had wanted, to avert the prophecy of the Oracle) and that Oedipus was raised in a different area did not keep the event from happening; on a metaphorical level, this can represent the fact that even with a strong superego in place, the deeds that the id wants will occasionally come to pass.
While Oedipus does end up enjoying the desires of his id, his superego makes it impossible for him to revel in this fact. Once he finds out that Jocasta is his mother, he blinds himself and exiles himself from Thebes: in other words, what he has done has made him unfit to live in his own society. Surrounded by his mother/wife and his siblings/children, he cannot function – even the very sight of what he has done fills him with the most extreme sort of revulsion.
What, then, about the story of Hamlet? Shakespeare’s tale has several plots going on at once that may involve some levels of the incest taboo. The elder Hamlet’s murder is closely followed by his widow marrying his brother, Claudius who, it turns out, murdered his brother to take his place. This is not quite an accurate representation of the Oedipal complex, because Claudius kills his brother, instead of his father. The family taboo is still in place, though.
Family members and sex have made for uncomfortable members in the same conversation for millennia – perhaps not even the earliest when Dinah was raped by the Shechemites, leading to the murder of every man in town by her brothers, in the Old Testament. The desires that run inside each of us are strong, deep and often indecipherable. They lead to injury, both emotional and physical, when not checked by the superego, and they definitely add to the sense of risk that informs life. Freud, in his writings about Oedipus and about dreams, talks about the ways these impulses try to fight through our mental and emotional barriers and express themselves in our conscious behaviors. In the case of Oedipus the king, those desires came to fruition, even if unintentionally, leaving a swath of tragedy behind them. In the case of Hamlet and Denmark, a whole country is left without viable leadership because a jealous brother decided to change his family’s entire life – just to satisfy a taboo urge. Once Hamlet decides to take on Claudius, he has a very deadly enemy; Claudius enlists Polonius, Ophelia’s brother, to help him kill Hamlet. Polonius is a motivated enemy, because Ophelia had gone insane and killed herself. However, Polonius discovers only too late Claudius’ treachery. Just as the story ends, the king, the prince and the most powerful noble all lie dying, just as Fortinbras, the prince of Norway, comes to bring war to Denmark. Because of Claudius’ jealousy, the entire country is to lose its independence.
Works Cited
Freud, Sigmund. “The Interpretation of Dreams.” Class notes.
Freud, Sigmund. “The Oedipus Complex.” Class notes.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet.
Sophocles. Oedipus Rex.
