Oedipus the Fallen One

This chapter attempts to explore the oedipal myth and
what it means for sexual difference and gender
differentiation. My establishing trajectory is that masculinity
is in crisis. Oedipus Rex the tragic drama by Sophocles tells a
story of a son that kills his father and marries his mother.
When the oracle is revealed to him he falls. The discovery of
his real identity anguishes him to the extent that he gouges
out his eyes in order to punish himself for what he has
become. He wanders around clumsily without vision and the
ability to recognise anyone. Jocasta, his wife and mother,
commits suicide when she too discovers the real identity of
Oedipus. Oedipus’ fate is implacable. Or is it? Is it possible
within the oedipal myth to re-think and re-imagine the story
in order for the protagonists to survive instead of self-
destructing? The story of Oedipus has come to mean much for
psychoanalysis in that Oedipus Rex has become the analogy
for gender differentiation. An alternate reading of Oedipus
2 CHAPTER TWO
Rex attempts to play with the myth and re-read it in order to
shift the symbolic and imaginary realms of phallogocentrism1
and pose an exit out of the violence and incest in the oedipal
complex. Feminist psychoanalysts have reinterpreted the
oedipal myth with the aim of re-telling this story so that
Oedipus is no longer cut as a tragic figure but that he can and
will remain within the circle of love of his family. This re-
telling of the story of Oedipus stands within the game of
displacing classical Freudian psychoanalysis in the hope that
Oedipus and his family can survive. Subsequently, in the
displacement of classical Freudian psychoanalysis Oedipus’
story has a very different impact on gender differentiation. It
is in this hope for change that Oedipus the fallen one must
have significance for a more nuanced gender differentiation
that shifts the gender binary to a more inclusive
understanding of gender and sexual difference.
Gender and the Oedipal Complex
In classical Freudian psychoanalysis, the oedipal complex
is about the intrapsychic development of gender identity and
how that contributes towards sexual identity formulation or
sexuality by constructing the boy child into masculine and the
girl child into feminine and hence maintaining gender polarity
and hierarchy. Jessica Benjamin (1988), American feminist
psychoanalyst, is rooted in the school of ego psychology and
object relations theory. According to Benjamin, ego
psychology focuses on the child separating from the union
with the m/other.