Can't Stand the Heat

RIP Sigmund Freud, you would have loved The Bear

Two things happened in the past two weeks:

1. I finished season two of The Bear.

I had never gotten around to starting the show. Everyone told me I’d like it. I was convinced it wasn’t for me.

2. I posted this piece about Freud and the funny nature of influence.

If you missed it, go ahead and catch up there instead.

One section was left on the cutting room floor, but I want to appreciate the humor of it here. It’s the example of Oedipus.

Oedipus is a man of Greek myth who unknowingly fulfills the events of a tragic prophecy, despite every attempt to avoid his fate. The Oedipus myth, appearing in countless retellings, explores the tension between free will and destiny.

Until Sigmund Freud got a hold of him.

Ask many today, and their concept of Oedipus has more to do with the Oedipus Complex, Freud’s famous theory stating that a young boy will possess unconscious sexual desire for his mother and (subsequently) violent hatred for his father.

Freud uses the myth to support his theory—and to title it. In the story, Oedipus receives the prophecy that he will kill his father and marry his mother, and so it happens.

But there’s an interesting angle I was unaware of. It falls to one detail, pointed out by the professor in my recent class: Oedipus didn’t always marry his mother.

Photo by Dan Cristian Pădureț on Unsplash

Most variations of the myth feature Oedipus’ killing of his father, Laius. It generally happens late in the story, and in most versions of the tale, this is a pivotal scene.

It’s a later version of the tale, a play written by Sophocles, which extends the prophecy to include marriage to his mother. This extension ratchets up the stakes; it’s already a tragedy, but now even more so. It makes the playground tale into a Marvel movie.

By the time Freud is finished, he’s rebranded the myth entirely. When people think of Oedipus, they think of attraction to parents, not fate and destiny. Not only does Freud choose Sophocles’ telling of the myth—he zeroes in on one added detail as if it’s the play’s entire premise.

The Oedipus Complex has many issues, not the least of which is a lack of scientific credence. Psychology is a scientific field, and so it’s often dismantled from that vantage point.

Photo by João Marcelo Martins on Unsplash

But as a literature guy, what Freud did to Oedipus is super funny.

Imagine you came up with the Oedipus myth. It begins taking off in your lifetime—retold around the Greek world. You die satisfied, knowing your work has reached many.

From the life beyond, your influence continues to grow. Your story is retold.

A guy named Sophocles adapts it for new audiences, but they’re true to the heart of the original.

Until about the nineteenth century. Some German shows up, and he’s a bit of a weirdo. He cites your creation as a reference. No big deal. Your story’s been retold for centuries. He’s surely not the first individual to get it wrong. People remember, you tell yourself.

Not the case. For some reason, this weirdo becomes a preeminent weirdo. And your story is now synonymous with his theories—for the rest of history.

It’s kind of hilarious.

Maybe that’s fate.

What does any of this have to do with The Bear? Not much. Freud would have loved the final episode, but that’s for another day.

If anything, Oedipus is a reminder: you can’t control the effects of your actions in life—or from the grave.

Freud’s twisting of the tale, centuries delayed, demonstrates how little control we have over our ultimate legacy. Who knows how anything you say or do will be twisted and turned in the future?

Kind of hilarious. Maybe fate.

Worth trying anyway.