오이디푸스적 욕망에 관한 비교연구: 소포클레스, 셰익스피어, 셰퍼드의 경우

Abstract

This paper tries to show how differently Oedipal desire works in Shakespeare, Shepard, and Sophocles, based on the three categories of Freudian psychoanalysis: super-ego, ego, and id. For the purpose of it, first I inquire into the mechanism of formation of Oedipal desire. Oedipal desire is just the cultural product of super-ego, not that of libido of primitive desire. In the process of mental development of a child, he experiences the cultural shift from imaginary stage to symbolic stage and the split between id and ego as well. This cultural shift leads a child to identify himself with Father and choose Mother as his Oedipal object. In relation to Oedipal desire, Sophocles’s Oedipus the King, appropriating the Apollonian oracle as the sign of Nom-du-Père or super-ego, consolidates the curse of the family on the circuit of the Moebius strip. Since the oracle of super-ego works as the base driving Oedipal desire to symbolic order, the deeper Oedipus pursues his identity, the deeper he drowns himself in the Oedipal desire, which is followed by the fatal catastrophe. On the contrary, Shepard’s Buried Child deconstructs the circuit of the familial, genetic curse by elevating Oedipal desire from id into dynamism of life. Through the mythical character Vince accompanied with rain and the sun, the barren outback of the family resurrects, producing a lot of crops. Hamlet, the symbol of a wandering ego between super-ego and id, identifies himself with his father and his uncle Claudius at the same time. It is most remarkable that Claudius is the mirror image of Hamlet himself in the imaginary stage, who desires for his mother Gertrude. This Oedipal desire explains the fact that Hamlet cannot avenge his father on the incestuous uncle Claudius until he recognizes the absence of his mother Gertrude.