RUKIYE BUSE KAHRAMAN

190401021
PSY/251
ELMIRA AHMADOVA

OEDIPUS COMPLEX IN THE OEDIPUS REX AND HAMLET

Oedipus Complex; Named after Oedipus in Greek mythology, who killed his father
and married his mother instead. In mythology, this event takes place after Oedipus
grows up. However, according to Freud, these urges arise during the "phallic" stage
of his theory of psychosexual development. "Oedipus Complex"; the Oedipus boy
fears that his father will punish him for his attitude towards him. Often there is a "fear
of castration". This fear outweighs the child's feelings for his mother. Thus, the
Oedipal connection gradually weakens, and when the connection ends, the child's
identification with the father gradually increases. In children, this situation is
postponed until puberty relapses. In this essay we will summarise Oedıpus Rex and
Hamlet storıes, and analyse the psychology of both story main characters according
to Oedıpus Complex.

Firstly we will examine Oedipus's psychology. Poor Oedipus keeps facing the
brutality of his destiny throughout the whole story. Oedipus is the victim of his
destiny, written before he was born and announced by an oracle. Oedipus will never
choose with his free will until the end of his life, as his family wants to have him killed
because of his expected destiny and brings his sons closer to his bitter fate. Oedipus
is given to a shepherd who passes by upon the mercy of the servant, who takes it
and gives it to a king in another country without children. Oedipus finds himself on
the road to escape after learning about his bitter fate from an oracle he consulted.
He kills the old man he meets and argues on the way, unaware that this man is the
father he was said to kill in the prophecy. when a creature, a creature half-human,
and half-lion, asked people riddles and punished them with death when they did not
give the correct answer, Oedipus found the riddle correct answer and the sphinx
punished himself with death, so that for saving the country,Oedipus marries the
queen and becomes king. and then the city faces a deadly disease, and while
Oedipus investigates the cause will not disappear until the king's killer is found. He
learns that the murderer is himself and that person he married is his mother. he
decides with his free will and finds himself in his painful destiny and punishes himself
blindly. he had two options in everything he encountered and did, and although he
seemed to be making the decisions with his free will, he was never able to use his
free will. ıt just is shown as if. Oedipus complex, named after this story, is about the
intense love and sexual attraction of boys to their mothers, as you know. it is also the
very anger they feel towards their father. Although at that time this psychological
state was called fatalism, today it is a psychological state and it is clearly observed in
our main character in every line of this story.
 Secondly we will examıne Hamlet psychology, there is also terrible fate and
consequences in our second play, Hamlet, which we will examine. Hamlet's father is
poisoned to death by his uncle, Claudius. And then his uncle made his mother fall in
love by sending various gifts because he knows that if he wouldn't marry her he
would lose his brother's throne. We can say that he is the only person who makes
the decisions of his free will in the play because he desires to win the war so much
that he kills his brother. Hamlet is unaware of what happened until he meets his
father's ghost. When Hamlet finds out that his uncle poisoned his father, he goes
mad with a desire for revenge. At first sight, he seems to have chosen to take
revenge for his free will, but it is nothing more than a dogma imposed by society. For
this reason, Hamlet has not decided on his free will. He so desires revenge that he
kills his lover's father because he thinks he is his uncle. Then his lover goes crazy
and dies by drowning in the lake. Hamlet's mother does not believe that Claudius
poisoned her husband because she fell in love. At the end of the play, she dies by
drinking the poisonous drink prepared by Claudius for his son. Gertrude falls in love
with Claudius as she has never been so pampered by a man before. The woman,
whom we thought at first glance to act with her free will, is completely controlled by a
man. Unfortunately in this story, as in the previous one, even though it was
approached as fatalism. In Hamlet, just like in Oedipus, he is faced with the Oedipus
complex. His real anger is not that her father was killed but that her mother married
another man and her feelings for her mother. This psychological sıtuatıon caused
many people to die.

To sum up, the protagonists in both plays have difficult and painful fates. They both
lose their family members and even if they do not do it freely. They succumb to
feelings of wrath, anger, and revenge, which would be the end of the protagonist.
Unfortunately at that time this psychological disease was seen as a fatalism,
nowadays when after examining both story and main character the result changes to
the complex.