ABSTRACT
Freud’s use of the Oedipus myth illuminated more than the nature of the sexual facets of the human personality. The developments of psychoanalysis make it possible to give more weight to other features. First, the myth by virtue of its narrative form binds the various components in the story in a manner analogous to the fixation of the elements of a scientific deductive system by their inclusion in the system: it is similar to the fixation of the elements in the corresponding algebraic calculus where that exists. Sex, in the Oedipal situation, has a quality that can only be described by the implications conferred on it by its inclusion in the story. The riddle traditionally attributed to the Sphinx is an expression of man’s curiosity turned upon himself. Self-consciousness or curiosity in the personality about the personality is an essential feature of the story: psychoanalytic investigation thus has origins of respectable antiquity.
