LITR 4370 TRAGEDY Final Exam Samples 2015 (final exam assignment) Model Answers to Part 3. Complete Research Report

Part 3. Complete Research Report: Write at least 8-10 substantial paragraphs with four sources to complete your Research Report on selected special topic.

Nona Olivarez

Family Problems: We All Have Them

Incest. The word alone creates a look of disgust among everyone’s face because the thought of sexual relations with another family member is more than disturbing. The mere idea of incest is extremely taboo and for good reason. Thinking of a blood family member in any sexual way remains bizarre to the world because family is supposed to be just that, family, not potential lovers. Despite the word’s ability to create an uncomfortable feeling that smothers the room, incest or at least the question of potential incestuous relations stands prevalent in tragic story lines and is hard to ignore.  In the essay, “Families in Tragedy and the Oedipal/ Electra Complex”, Umaymah Shahid states “Throughout Greek Tragedy as well as modern Tragedy families are seen to be intimate on two extremes: hate and love; where both hatred and love lead to their demise”. Families of Tragedy appear to be engaged in constant war against one another whether hate prevails between wife and husband, mother and son, or mother and daughter there is a continuation of betrayal, death, and revenge. But where there lives extreme hate there also lives extreme love, and this is where the lines blur from a normal, healthy relationship to a somewhat obsessive relationship that raises questions of an underlying romantic love for a mother or a father, thus introducing the Oedipal/Electra Complex. 

So what purpose does the Oedipal/Electra Complex have in Tragedies? Perhaps it is because families are something that everyone has and in reality no one has a perfect family. Aristotle’s Poetics proclaims, “[T]he best tragedies are founded on the story of a few houses [i.e., families]”. Displaying struggle among family members makes the members of the family seem substantially more real and in the same sense more relatable. Furthermore, the Oedipal Complex defined means when the son covets his mother, and has an antagonistic relationship with his father. This Freudian psychology originates from the play, Oedipus the King, as the character Oedipus infamously kills his father and marries his mother; however Oedipus does these things unknowingly. If he knew that was his father he fought he may have not killed him, and if he knew who is mother was he definitely wouldn’t have married her. When Oedipus realizes what he has done he stabs his own eyes out as an act of self-punishment for the wrongdoing he committed against his family.  The family struggle is created by Oedipus unintentionally and as a result questions the significance or better yet the credibility of the Oedipus complex.

Upon researching the Oedipus complex specifically dealing with the play, Oedipus the King, I found a promising academic journal by Margaret Clark who analyzes the Oedipus complex, and argues that the Freudian sexual theory “conveys psychic truth of no greater or more central importance to human development than do the stories of many other myths” (233). The academic journal pertains to the psychological aspect of the Oedipus complex, and openly criticizes the already questionable Freudian theory. Clark raises a good point when she discusses the fact that the play’s central focus is the struggle between fate and free will, and not the taboo family relations that Freudian psychology takes particular interest in. Yet the dynamic family struggle is hard to ignore because of how bizarre it remains, and how unique it is to the story. According to Clark, Freud believes what occurs with Oedipus is our “childhood wishes” being fulfilled, which I found an interesting concept as Freud is relating the Oedipus complex all the way back to the innocence of childhood where the feelings of love/hate for the mother/father, according to Freud, originate (234).  Furthermore, an article by Joseph Lichtenberg discusses in great detail the different development stages a child goes through when concerning different types of love, including parental, and the overall effect different patterns of love have on the psychology of a person. It was interesting to learn more about the psychology behind the Freudian theory from both Clark and Lichtenberg, and both psychologists make interesting points concerning the Oedipal Conflict, however I feel that the Oedipal Conflict remains significant to literature, whether or not it has any real psychological meaning, because of the fact it seems to keep popping up throughout other works of literature and further because it plays such a large part in the conflict that arises between family members which is central to a good tragedy.

As I just mentioned the Oedipal Conflict does not end with the tragedy Oedipus the King because “familial love and conflict” is a reoccurring theme found in other Greek tragedies, like Hippolytus and Phaedra” (Shahid). In the play, Hippolytus, by Euripides the central conflict lies between father, son, and step mother. This time, however, the step mother is the one who desires the son instead of the other way around as one would expect from the Oedipal Conflict. Still, the family conflict arises because of prohibited love between family members. When Hippolytus does not return feelings of love toward Phaedra, Phaedra commits suicide and leaves behind a wooden tablet as a written accusation of Hippolytus’ lusty behavior towards her. According to Phaedra she committed suicide because should could not bear the weight of Hippolytus’ inappropriate actions any longer.  As a result, Theseus curses Hippolytus leading to Hippolytus’ death at the end. In Cassandra Rea’s essay, “Families & The Oedipal/Electra Complex,” she states “this story shows how the misfortunate love that Phaedra has for Hippolytus affects an entire family because in the end no one came out a winner and the family was destroyed.” I would have to agree with Rea, Phaedra’s love for Hippolytus is nothing but destructive and the outcome is death for both of them. More importantly, in the play Hippolytus, Aphrodite is the one who causes Phaedra to love Hippolytus, so there exists and outside force that acts as an explanation for her irrational and taboo behavior. On the contrary, in Racine’s play Phaedra, there exists no outside force instigating Phaedra to behave in the manner she does, it is simply her own free will and her own impulses that motivates her to make a sexual advance towards Hippolytus, but like in the play Hippolytus the love triangle does not end well and death is the result.

In the same way that I did research over the Oedipal Conflict for the play, Oedipus the King, I decided to do the same for the plays Hippolytus and Phaedra. I was unable to find anything of relevance for Racine’s rendition but was successful in finding an interesting article for Euripides’ original, although the article is more of a psychoanalysis of the character Phaedra more than it is a criticism of the Oedipal Conflict like Clark’s article or a background of the Oedipal Conflict like Lichtenberg’s article. Regardless the article, “The Fantasies of Phaedra: A Psychoanalytic Reading”, by Justin Glenn gives an interesting insight into the character Phaedra and describes how not only her actions are erotic towards Hippolytus but her language is as well. Glenn states, “Phaedra has drifted away from the world of reality, where her passion is frustrated, to a world of fantasy where it is assuaged with wish-fulfillment” (Glenn 436). I found this interesting since the Freudian concept deals with childhood wish-fulfillment, which is something that Clark mentions as well, and it appears that Phaedra is experiencing that same unrealistic fantasy that a child would. In short, the article is an interesting read especially when concerning the psychological behavior of Phaedra, and Glenn generates a compelling observation about Euripides’ as a playwright and about Phaedra as a character through analyzing the subconscious and conscious motives throughout the play, Hippolytus. To conclude, “Euripides [is] a masterful observer of human behavior and psychology, the tragedian who (to paraphrase Aristotle) truly depicted men as they are, and not as they ought to be” affirms Glenn, and I could not possible agree more as Phaedra is a prime example of the reality of impulsive or better yet Dionysian human behavior (Glenn 435).

As we have seen in the plays, Phaedra and Hippolytus, the Oedipal Conflict never comes into full fruition because the step mother and step son never share a mutual love for one another as Hippolytus loves another woman, Aricia, in Phaedra, and in Hippolytus he isn’t really interested in love at all, but of course where Euripides and Racine do not complete the circle, O’Neill does. In Desire Under the Elms, O’Neill secures the love between step son and step mother as he quite obviously reinforces the Oedipal Conflict throughout the play. As Shahid points out in her essay, there is a strong Oedipal tone in the scene when Abbie and Eben kiss and Abbie professes ““I’ll kiss ye pure, Eben--same’s if I was a Maw t’ ye--an’ ye kin kiss me back ‘s if yew was my son” ( O’ Neill 39). This scene is more than strange considering that through kissing they are “trying to enact a mother and son relationship (Shahid). Accordingly the kiss turns into something of passion and what is supposed to be maternal love transitions into pure unpredictable desire (Shahid). Unlike in Phaedra and Hippolytus, the forbidden love actually takes place and the wish is fulfilled, yet similarly to Phaedra and Hippolytus, the play doesn’t end well as Abbie and Eben are sent to jail to spend the rest of their lives locked up or even worse hanged. Again we see that taboo familial love leads to the overall destruction of the family and therefore nothing good can come from irregular passion between family members, biological or not, only conflict can arise from something so disturbing.

In contrast the Electra complex defined means when the daughter and mother are in complete opposition of one another and in competition for the father/husband’s love (Dr. White’s course website). The play, Mourning Becomes Electra, displays the rivalry between mother in daughter in the form of the characters Christine and Lavinia. From the very beginning Christine and Lavinia’s relationship appears to be severely strained as they come into constant odds with each other. Although Lavinia looks in appearance like her mother she does everything she can to conceal any similarities by wearing plain clothes and pulling her hair back tightly. The source of hatred is revealed when it becomes evident that Lavinia never felt loved by her mother, and as a result turned to her father for her main source of parental love as child and through her teenage to young adult years. Both of these elements together in the story demonstrate the Electra complex, which lends to the dramatization of families. Despite the fact the Electra complex is evident in the play Mourning Becomes Electra, it is important to note that the Electra complex is almost obsolete when concerning psychology as psychologists have discovered other more credible forms of mother-daughter relationships. So why does the Electra complex exist at all in literature? Perhaps because “tragedy expresses a combination of humanity's creative or formal impulses with its destructive or wild impulses”; a concept taken from Nietzsche’s, The Birth of Tragedy (Dr. White’s course website). For instance in Agamemnon, Electra loves her father so intensely she convinces her brother to murder their mother in an act of revenge, which easily can be said to be a “wild impulse” based alone on pure emotion. After all Tragedy’s real purpose is to imitate real life and likewise human nature, and so the Oedipus/Electra complex do not necessarily have to be taken literally but perhaps symbolically as they represent human impulses and family problems.

Although it is true that the Oedipal Conflict originated in the play Oedipus the King we have seen that it also pertains to other Greek tragedies as well, and even exists in more modern tragedies like Desire Under the Elms. Naturally, Desire Under the Elms is not the only more recent work of art the contains the Oedipal Complex. In Professor McNamara’s American Novel course we read The History of the Luminous Motion by Scott Bradfield in which the character Phillip appears to have an Oedipal relation with his mother when he states “With mom I easily forgot Dad, who became little more than a premonition, a strange weighted tendency rather than a man, as if this was Mom’s final retribution, making Dad the future. Mom was now” (Bradfield 8). The Oedipal Conflict seems to progress throughout the novel as he continues to crave his mother’s attention and has opposing views of his Dad. This is just one example of a somewhat recent text in which the Oedipal Conflict has some significance. Another example, Cassandra Rea draws attention to in her essay, is the movie Psycho where the character Norman Bates kills his mother and her new boyfriend so that no one else but him can love her, which is quite disturbing indeed and takes the Oedipal Conflict to a murderous level. On the whole, even though the Oedipal Conflict began in Greek tragedies doesn’t mean it ceases to exist now ways quite the contrary as The History of the Luminous Motion and Psycho are just a two examples of present day works of art where the traces of the Oedipal Conflict are present.

As a result of my research I learned a great deal about the Oedipus complex and the psychology behind it that you do not get from the readings. It’s a very intriguing topic and I wish to explore it more in depth as I was limited to scholarly information via web because it is such a taboo topic. I couldn’t find anything concerning the Electra complex because it does not have the same prestige in the psychology community as mentioned before. However I do wish to further research both topics, and as well as reviewing the background psychology of the Oedipus complex I want to further explore the purpose the Oedipus/Electra complex has in literature and the relation to families in tragedies each complex has, especially if I were to teach the subject. Additionally before doing my research paper I remained unclear on how I exactly felt about the Oedipal Conflict. Upon first hearing about the complex I have to admit I was pretty grossed out as I’m sure is expected from most students considering it involves incest, yet after delving further into the subject I realized that, while it still has a gross out factor, it does have a significant role in literature due to the importance of displaying family conflict so that literature can be more relatable even if it is done so in a dramatized way such as the Oedipal Conflict. As Melissa King states in her essay, All in the Family”, perhaps [the Oedipal Conflict] exists because the twisted and seemingly disgusting dynamics in the familial relationship make for a very effective tragedy.”