The Modern Day Idea Of Oedipus Complex By Sigmund Freud

The Oedipus complex or Oedipus theory is a psychological concept, created by Sigmund Freud in the 1920s, that explains the unconscious desires and some sexual attractions of pubescent males and females. This theory stems from a cluster of Freud’s ideas about the human subconscious as well as from direct events from the play, Oedipus Rex, and from relationships between characters within the play. All of these factors combined have produced the modern day idea of the Oedipus Complex. Sigmund Freud was a psychologists present during the early 1920s that studied psychosocial psychology and the workings of the human unconscious. Freud is frequently referred to as the “Father of Psychology”, because he is one of the earliest psychologists
The Oedipus complex is frequently studied and picked apart by psychologists to find validity. Freud became famous for his taboo concepts and absurd ideas in regards to human sexuality and unconscious human desires. Freud believed that the human subconscious was filled with and abundance of sexual desires fueled by the human instinct to procreate, and from this central idea, came the theory behind the Oedipus complex. Freud linked the sexual desires embedded in the unconscious to the relationship between children and their parents. Freud believed that the Oedipus applied to both young males and females, although Dorothy Willner explains that “While Freud was convinced that girls as well as boys experience the Oedipus complex, his famous theory focuses on the developing male, on a young boys sexual wishes for his mother and parricidal impulses towards his father”(1982). Freud was drawn to the idea that subconsciously, young males experienced sexual attractions to their mothers which let to an altered and competitive relationship with their fathers. Freud explains how “The boy regards his mother as his own property; but he finds on day that she has transferred her love and solicitude to a new arrival.”(1924). This