The Adam Complex

Poor Oedipus! Fleeing his home to avoid a prophecy that he will kill his father and marry his mother, he comes to Thebes and does precisely that.

There are, however, extenuating circumstances.

He never knew he was not his adopted “father’s” son. 

And, in probably the first example of road rage in literature, he unknowingly killed his biological father in a dispute over right of way.

When he entered Thebes, he did marry his mother, the widow of the man he had killed, and sired four children by her. 

But he was completely ignorant that she was his mother.

When a plague mysteriously decimates Thebes, he is told by a prophet that something evil is polluting the city.

His attempts to find the polluter lead to his own downfall: it is he himself.

Who has not heard of Freud’s famous Oedipus complex?

However, the myth may contain a deeper wisdom than Freud realized.

Oedipus from the beginning tries desperately to do the right thing.

But the circumstances of his life are so ambiguous that he winds up

being an abomination to himself and others.

And, as Sophocles’ play progresses, we see his personality becoming more and more headstrong.

Thus he both is and is not responsible for the prophecy’s fulfillment.

I am reminded of the Garden of Eden.

So, too,  Adam and Eve’s intentions were innocent, but the fall was inevitable.

And perhaps we must accept that, in a fallen world, human perfection is

not possible.

Yet God does not abandon Adam and  Eve, but lovingly stitches clothing for the outcasts to wear when they leave Eden.