알레고리적 변용의 오류: 소포클레스와 프로이트의 오이디푸스

The Graeco-Roman thinkers and dramatists played a significant role in Europe, providing an important source of raw material for modern arts, science, and literature. Their influence in modern appropriation continued developing and postulating comparative relationships between the original, pre-existing objects and the newly adopted forms either in the same area or in an interdisciplinary one. In this article, I try to show a case which created distorted perceptions of comparative relationship in terms of appropriation: the Freudian theoretical formulation of the “Oedipus complex” based on Sophocles’s Oedipus the King within the framework of family relationships. Firstly, I examine how Freud formulated the metaphoric nature of oedipal concepts from a Greek tragedy to assume that his scientific field will have its ‘universal’ interpretive framework with respect to the “Oedipus complex” occurrence conditions of in-family relationships. Secondly, I’ll examine how Freud’s premise of the theory is misplaced in light of the Greek tragedy to demonstrate the analogy between the plot of Oedipus the King and his theoretical framework of psychoanalysis as inappropriate to be defined as scientifically “universal.” Finally, I’d argue that how this intercultural, interdisciplinary appropriation can be read as false analogy in which Freudian claims, defined as scientifically “universal,” are presented in an inappropriate context. Thus, a conclusion may be obtained for further possible arguments in the interpretation of the theory by looking at another facet of the problem: we discuss how the act of a Freudian formulation of the “Oedipus complex” may be observed in terms of human desire (“machines désirantes”).