Oedipus complex envy. "Oedipus" refers to a 5th-century BC Greek mythological character Oedipus, who unwittingly kills his father, Laius, and marries his mother, Jocasta. A play based on the myth, "Oedipus Rex", was written by Sophocles, ca. 429 BC. Modern productions of Sophocles' play were staged in Paris and Vienna in the 19th century and were phenomenally successful in the 1880s and 1890s. The Austrian psychiatrist, Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), attended. In his book "The Interpretation of Dreams" first published in 1899, he proposed that an Oedipal desire is a universal, psychological phenomenon innate (phylogenetic) to human beings, and the cause of much
Oedipus Rex widely-known version is, ""what is the creature that walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three in the evening?"" Oedipus correctly guesses, ""man"", who crawls on all fours as an infant, walks upright in maturity, and leans on a stick in old age. Bested by the prince, the Sphinx throws herself from a cliff, thereby ending the curse. Oedipus' reward for freeing Thebes from the Sphinx is its kingship, and the hand of the dowager queen, Jocasta; none then realize that Jocasta is Oedipus' true mother. Thus, unknown to all of the characters, the prophecy