The 'Passing of the Oedipus Complex' in Greek Drama

The attention focussed by Freud on Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus has not been transferred, strangely enough, to the sequel, Oedipus at Colonus, which is integrally related to the problems of the earlier play. Whereas Oedipus Tyrannus confronts men with the disastrous results of their fundamental unconscious drives, Oedipus at Colonus depicts the process of restitution and social application of the same forces in a manner which anticipates and closely resembles Freud's own formulations as to the passing of the Oedipus complex through super-ego development.

The career of Oedipus did not end when he blinded himself after discovering that he had inadvertently carried out the prophesy that he would murder his father and marry his mother. He later went into exile from Thebes, the city he had ruled, and for twenty years (a generation!) wandered miserable and homeless through many lands, accompanied only by his daughter Antigone. Oedipus at Colonus deals with the refuge and peace which he finally found, and with his death.

At the beginning of the play, Oedipus and Antigone rest momentarily in a grove at Colonus, outside Athens. The natives warn them that they have committed sacrilege in entering the holy place of the Eumenides and are completely horrified when they discover that the stranger is the notorious Oedipus. The exiled king feels, however, that his accidental intrusion into the haunts of the Fates, or Eumenides, is a signal which he has awaited from the gods that his trials are over, and implores the alarmed populace to summon the Athenian king, Theseus. While awaiting Theseus, a second daughter of Oedipus, Ismene, arrives with the message that oracles have recently proclaimed that the grave of Oedipus will have great powers and that consequently rival disputants for the throne of Thebes will seek to gain possession of him. Oedipus rejoices that 'the gods who overthrew him now sustain him' but entertains only bitterness to the Thebans who drove him into exile.