ABSTRACT
Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus is due to an identification with the parental projections and the camouflage of warded off aspects, whilst in the other myths the scenery existing before such an identification is portrayed more or less obviously. In S. Freud’s concept of a primal horde, the “violent and jealous father” drives away or kills “his sons, being dangerous to him as rivals”, and the sons unite to kill their father. Moreover, the myths reveal Freud’s phylogenetic justification of the Oedipus complex to be a natural misunderstanding of a pseudo-natural relationship. In the most cases however, Oedipus’ self-blinding is understood as a symbolic castration. In the light of all these myths, Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus is, as Pilikian indicates in our introductory quotation to this chapter, not a story “about the revelation of truth but about the cover up of truth”.
