The crucial parts of the Oedipus legend are examined in reverse order. The finish of the legend in death is only the beginning of the return to the mother (Earth). Various parts of the story recount adventures with mother substitutes, good and bad, all of which attempt to deal with the traumatic separations from the mother at various times during development. The author compares and contrasts the Oedipus story with the myths of Orestes and Tantalus in a way that seems oversimplified. If the Oedipus story deals mainly with the threat of expulsion at birth, then the Orestes story represents the trauma of the primal scene which is an exclusion or an attenuated expulsion, and the Tantalus story is a representation of weaning.