Laius complex the words of Sophocles) "some wicked spell … . Saying the child would kill its father". Whereas Freud had laid stress on Oedipus’s filial violence against his father, George Devereux in 1953 introduced the term 'Laius complex' to cover the corresponding feelings on the part of the father – what he called the "'counter-oedipal' (Laius) complex". Later explorations of masculinity have placed the aggressive aspects of the Laius complex within the broader frame of mammalian aggression against their young: what Gershon Legman called "the killing of the male (i.e. sexually uninteresting) children by the father". Two specific psychosexual aspects of
The Infernal Machine (play) of the Ghost of King Laius, when the Officer arrives. The Officer questions the two about the ghost sighting and leaves them to their duties. Tiresias and Jocasta enter and question the soldiers about the ghost sighting as well. As Jocasta begins to believe more and more, the ghost of King Laius appears. Despite his calls for his wife, he cannot be seen or heard by anyone else. After the cock crows in the dawn, Tiresias and Jocasta exit. After the two leave stage, the ghost of King Laius becomes audible and visible to the two soldiers. Laius struggles, apparently