Oedipus Rex and that deal with the story of Oedipus, "Oedipus Rex" was the second to be written. However, in terms of the chronology of events that the plays describe, it comes first, followed by "Oedipus at Colonus" and then "Antigone". Prior to the start of "Oedipus Rex", Oedipus has become the king of Thebes while unwittingly fulfilling a prophecy that he would kill his father, Laius (the previous king), and marry his mother, Jocasta (whom Oedipus took as his queen after solving the riddle of the Sphinx). The action of Sophocles' play concerns Oedipus' search for the murderer of Laius in
Greek mythology in popular culture denotes the emotions and ideas that the mind keeps in the unconscious, via dynamic repression, that concentrate upon a child's desire to sexually possess his/her mother, and kill his/her father. In his later writings Freud postulated an equivalent Oedipus situation for infant girls, the sexual fixation being on the father. Though not advocated by Freud himself, the term 'Electra complex' is sometimes used in this context. A "Medea complex" is sometimes used to describe parents who murder or otherwise harm their children. Romans would frequently keep statuary of the Greek god Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and pleasure, in