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Replies | Post Reply | Shakespeare Queries & Replies From Everyone Else 3.15.97: Top | Help
Scroll down on this page and the serious student page for comments on this subject. The common concept of the Oedipus Complex (You want to sleep with your mother) is a gross oversimplification and sensationalizing of what is a subtle and respectable concept. (To oversimplify: infants think the world exists for their benefit, and every child goes through some turmoil when he/she first realizes mother has a life apart from serving baby. Most of us get through that trauma. Some still carry scars, and if an adult experience scrapes that wound, we find ourselves inexplicably overreacting. By this theory, Gertrude's remarriage at a time that Hamlet needed her emotional support was a replay of the childhood trauma, and some of his problem functioning comes from that fact. It's just one interpretation, but it isn't ridiculous. Read the very short book HAMLET AND OEDIPUS by Ernest Jones.Posted by Hamlet on March 23, 1997 at 12:22:12
In Reply to "Oedipus therory a sham!!!!!" posted by Michelle on March 22, 1997 at 15:03:50
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