Oedipus
Tragic Theban king
Oedipus is a figure from Greek mythology who unwittingly killed his father and married his mother, fulfilling a prophecy he had tried to escape.
Freud borrowed the name for the Oedipus complex—a son's unconscious sexual desire for his mother and rivalry with his father.
Oedipal describes anything evoking this pattern: an Oedipal struggle with his father, Oedipal undertones in the film.
Classical Athenian playwright
- AntigoneTheban princess who honored forbidden burial
- CreonLegendary Theban king
- TiresiasSightless oracle of Thebes
- chorusSingers performing together
Jocasta · hubris · catharsis · hamartia · dramatic irony · fate · prophecy · oracle
Ancient city, two locations
- DelphiGreek prophetic sanctuary
- oracleAuthoritative wisdom source
- ApolloSun deity, moonshot namesake
- sphinxMysterious, unreadable person
riddle · curse · prophecy · Greek · Cadmus · plague · crossroads · Corinth
Absence of vision
- sightVisual perception faculty
- ignoranceAbsence of knowledge
- knowledgeUnderstood facts and skills
- truthAccordance with reality
fate · free will · self-destruction · guilt · shame · pollution · miasma · revelation
Founder of psychoanalysis
- complexHaving many interconnected parts
- motherFemale parent
- fatherMale parent
- unconsciousNot awake or aware
repression · desire · rivalry · castration · libido · Jung · Electra · psychosexual
Sophocles
Classical Athenian playwright
- AntigoneTheban princess who honored forbidden burial
- CreonLegendary Theban king
- TiresiasSightless oracle of Thebes
Jocasta · chorus · hubris · catharsis · hamartia · dramatic irony · fate · prophecy · oracle · patricide
Thebes
Ancient city, two locations
sphinx · riddle · curse · prophecy · Greek · Cadmus · plague · crossroads · Corinth
blindness
Absence of vision
truth · fate · free will · self-destruction · guilt · shame · pollution · miasma · revelation · recognition
Freud
Founder of psychoanalysis
unconscious · repression · desire · rivalry · castration · libido · Jung · Electra · psychosexual · neurosis
- SophoclesAntigone, Electra, Ajax, Creon, Tiresias
- Seneca TragediesMedea, Phaedra, Agamemnon
- ParricidesLizzie Borden, Orestes, Nero, patricide, matricide
- Greek mythologyZeus, Athena, Apollo, Hera, Poseidon
- mythologyZeus, Apollo, Athena, Poseidon, Odin
- Classical FiguresZeus, Apollo, Athena, Poseidon, Hades
OedipusTiresias
Sightless oracle of Thebes
Pontius Pilate · willful ignorance · self-deception · Jocasta · Lot's wife
OedipusMedea
Mythical infanticidal sorceress
Iago · Lady Macbeth · Macbeth · Clytemnestra · Richard III
OedipusOdysseus
Ithaca's long-wandering monarch
Perseus · self-made man · free agent · Prometheus · Jonah
- Oedipus complexPsychosexual attachment to mother
- Oedipus RexAncient drama of prophecy fulfilled
- Oedipus complexesUnconscious maternal romantic attraction