My Oedipus Complex

“Ours was the only house in the terrace without a new baby, and Mother said we couldn’t afford one till Father came back from the war because they cost seventeen and six. That showed how simple she was.”

Central to Mother’s work as provider and homemaker during the war was the paradox that if she is doing her work well, her child doesn’t notice how she is struggling. Larry insulting Mother as “simple” by suggesting such a specific amount, not only adds to the humor that she alone can share with the reader, but it also confirms her characterization as practical, hardworking, and a person with connections and relationships outside of Larry.

“The window overlooked the front gardens of the terrace behind ours, and beyond these it looked over a deep valley to the tall, red-brick houses terraced up the opposite hillside, which were all still in shadow, while those at our side of the valley were all lit up, though with long strange shadows that made them seem unfamiliar; rigid and painted.”

The vivid imagery places the narrator and his family’s home in a place of importance by having them looking down at all the neighbors in the valley. The metaphor of his home being placed in sunlight, but made to be “unfamiliar” represents how Larry has come to feel within the family.

“He either ignored the wrenching and pummelling entirely, or else glanced down with a grin of amusement from his peak. I had never met anyone so absorbed in himself as he seemed.”

The irony of Larry resorting to violence to get his father’s attention reinforces the commonalities between the two characters when his Father also reacts physically to Larry later in the story. Besides comparing the two characters, Larry’s obliviousness in calling his father self-absorbed shows how unreliable he can be as a narrator. By combining both irony and comparison, the reader learns more about Larry by how he responds to his father.

“It was clear that she either genuinely liked talking to Father better than talking to me, or else that he had some terrible hold on her which made her afraid to admit the truth.”

By being unable to accept the truth that is made “clear,” the narrator is setting up dramatic irony where the audience knows something that the character does not. Since he refuses to believe in his mother’s feelings for his father, his ability to narrate information truthfully to the reader becomes suspect.

“Dawn was just breaking, with a guilty air that made me feel I had caught it in the act.”

As Larry learns new boundaries and begins to grow emotionally, this personification of dawn being guilty pairs with his own guilt that early morning brings. Like dawn, Larry is waking up each morning less sure of what he is doing, but like the rivalry he has with his father, Larry perceives himself as the one in the right.

“I settled back comfortably in the warmth of the bed with my thumb in my mouth.”

The imagery of Larry nestling into the bed while sucking on his thumb makes sense for his age. By describing the action mechanically like this, the reader is reminded of the age of the narrator despite the mature tone of narration. By ending the paragraph with this image, the text reinforces the motifs of sleep and guilt.

“‘Like a cup of tea, dear?’ asked Mother in a meek, hushed voice I had never heard her use before. It sounded almost as though she were afraid.”

The aside Larry makes about his mother “almost” sounding “afraid” points to the tension that Larry is starting to grow up and understand. Even in this moment, when he is sure he’s “never heard” her like that before, he is tentative about how to describe the way she sounds. These kinds of revelations and uncertainty reinforce the theme of children growing into empathy. Larry is unpracticed but is learning to identify subtleties in his mother.

“I simply longed for the warmth and depth of the big featherbed.”

The word choice emphasizes not only the appeal of the parent’s bed as illusive and comforting, but by choosing to emphasize the size by citing its “depth” and how “big” it is reinforces how small Larry is. While he may see this desire as “simple,” it is the area for a much larger battle over the power dynamic of the family now that the father is home. The symbol of the bed represents victory for Larry as he navigates the rivalry he has with his father, as well as the kind of permanent change the family must undergo as children grow up.

“‘It’s early yet,’ she replied soothingly. ‘It’s only the child. Go to sleep again…Now, Larry,’ she added, getting out of bed, ‘you’ve wakened Daddy and you must go back.’”

Mother’s repeated choice to separate “the child” versus “our” child or even calling Larry by his name to his father reinforces how archetypal the three main characters are in their roles. By exclusively calling the parents “Mother” and “Father” and similarly not giving any specificity to the narrator, the tension over the family dynamic feels more dramatic and high stakes. It also obscures the personality of the three, which limits the emotional connection that Larry could be making with his parents, especially his father.

“I shrieked and shrieked, and danced in my bare feet, and Father, looking awkward and hairy in nothing but a short grey army shirt, glared down at me like a mountain out for murder. I think it must have been then that I realized he was jealous too.”

The symbolism that when his father least understands him, he is wearing an “army shirt” shows the juxtaposition of the two characters. Larry is being loud, having “shrieked and “shrieked” while Father is silent and glaring. While Larry is full of movement, Father is compared to a mountain. The two characters are placed as opposites and yet that is when Larry makes the connection that the two share their jealousy for the other.

“I let on not to notice him; instead, I pretended to be talking to myself, and said in a loud voice: ‘If another bloody baby comes into this house, I’m going out.’ Father stopped dead and looked at me over his shoulder.”

Larry using both vulgar and uncharacteristic language like “bloody” and choosing to say it out loud greatly affects Father. Father’s response and Larry’s imitation of a grown up resenting a child reinforces the parallel between how the Father initially reacts to Larry as Larry in turn reacts to Sonny.

“Even at mealtimes she’d get up and gawk at him in the cradle with an idiotic smile, and tell Father to do the same. He was always polite about it, but he looked so puzzled you could see he didn’t know what she was talking about.”

Father attempts to copy the mother’s doting on the child but can’t quite replicate it enough to fool Larry. While he is going through the motions, he doesn’t choose to ask any questions despite looking “puzzled.” Instead, he uses physicality to try and imitate the mother.

“[B]ut she only got cross and said that Sonny never cried except when there was something up with him—which was a flaming lie, because Sonny never had anything up with him, and only cried for attention. It was really painful to see how simple-minded she was.”

By repeating the insult “simple” in regard to his mother, and questioning how she indulges Sonny, the narrator is demonstrating a contradiction with how he used to behave and how he expects the new baby to. The passion in calling this a “flaming lie” heightens the irony in Larry condemning someone for loudly acting out for attention, when he was shown doing that very thing throughout the story. Mother sticking up for Sonny instead of Larry shows this cycle beginning again.