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Jocasta's Masculine Rationality

Jocasta, the primary female character of Oedipus Tyrannus, comes across as more “masculine” than Oedipus himself in occasional moments of the play. Although Oedipus’s desire to know more fits into masculinist ideals, i.e., rationality above all else, Coming across as more rational and modern than her husband, Jocasta shrewdly discerns Oedipus’s reliance on the ravings of Delphic oracles and the exaggeration of a normal Oedipal desire. Jocasta fits into post-Enlightenment-era secularism when she notes that “instead of thinking you leave everything to Fate and oracles” (Theodoridis), criticizing Oedipus for his almost foregone desire to believe that he has aligned himself with what an oracle predestined him to do; furthermore, Jocasta says something that fits into Freud’s modern (in comparison to the play) conception of the Oedipus complex when she says, “for your mother, many have gone to bed with their mothers in their dreams! Give no further thought to such things and live an easier life” (Theodoridis). Jocasta’s easier life also seems as if it is a somewhat less suspicious and more rational one, too.

Normalizing the incestual feelings, Freud’s popularization of the Oedipal complex as a psychological element to every person’s psyche, along with his belief that many mothers have an implicit desire to sleep with their sons (see Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis), rejects the "need" of Jocasta’s suicide (Freud 170-171).

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Maud Ellman’s Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism

Maud Ellman in her book Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism takes such critical stances on the foolishness of Freud and the obtuseness and priapism (yes, perpetually erect penis) of Lacan that I see (along with the abstruse articles collated within the book) why it is in the “For Advanced Readers” section on Psychoanalytic criticism in Lois Tyson’s book Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide (Tyson 50). Ellman says, “it is worth remembering that psychoanalysis frequently deserves the scorn with which it is repudiated” (2), arguing that classical psychoanalysis is reductive, not considering meaning beyond the “misadventures of the penis” (4). Ellman’s view that Freud is sexually focused is correct. In Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, Freud mentions that all dream symbolism has an underlying sexual component (201), and considering that the dream portion in these introductory lectures takes up an entire part of a 3 part book indicates the centrality of sexuality to Freud’s psychoanalysis as an entire concept.

Ellman’s criticism about Lacan’s obtuseness is less scathing than her criticisms of Freud’s sexual reductivity, but it still exists. Ellman contends that Lacan’s ideas as regards (“as regards” is a sadly underused version of regarding or concerning) as the ultimate signifier is “less than lucid” (19). And she notes Lacan’s fear of those who do not accept the phallus as psychotic with sarcastic contempt (Ellman 19-20). I love Ellman’s disdain, and her later framing of Julia Kristeva as a worthwhile arguer against a total acceptance of the phallic signifier makes me want to read more Kristeva (though the Kristeva sample in this collection of psychoanalytic essays made me less interested).