Electra complex

Abstract: According to the Freudian psychoanalytic theory, earlier traumatic experiences highly influence the psychological development of personality Freud also affirms that the earlier years of childhood development play a crucial role in the formation of personality He states that all normal infants go through specific stages of psychosexual development that are naturally progressive, namely: oral, anal and phallic stages Any disruption of or delay in the progress of any of the psychosexual stages or failure to cope with them causes the fixation of the libido at a particular stage Martha, the central figure in Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, suffered from painful emotional experiences during childhood which gave her an unbalanced personality and a fragile ego She lived a lonely and troubled childhood because she was abandoned and rejected by her father, a matter that has left a deep scar on her psyche Martha also has a phallic fixation owing to the unresolved sexual conflicts during the phallic phase of the psychosexual development, a matter that negatively influences her personality Applying Freudian psychanalytic theory, the aim of this study is to investigate the influence of past traumatic experiences of childhood on Martha’s behaviour and her psychological wellbeing The study also seeks to uncover the impact of the unresolved Electra Complex on the development of Martha’s personality and her sexual maturity

Abstract: This paper aims at exploring the symptoms of Electra complex in Benazir Bhutto through her autobiography Daughter of the East (1988). As developed by Freud, psychoanalysis provides an insight into the conflicts that are believed to lie at the roots of people’s problems. His discovery of the unconscious mind led him to believe that all dreams, jokes, slips of tongues, thoughts, behavior and action have hidden meanings, and suggest the psychic structures of the mind shape the personality. The researcher uses this theory to explore the symptoms of Electra complex in Benazir’s personality. This paper proves that Daughter of the East contains evidence of certain symptoms which prove that Benazir suffered from Electra complex. Specific strategies of narratological analysis are selected for analyzing and interpreting textual evidence. This paper throws light on the deep-seated anxieties that exerted continuous pressure on Benazir’s mind. Through this analysis, the researcher has found symptoms of Electra complex in Benazir Bhutto. Benazir was so deeply in love with her father that she was unable to focus on her own life in her autobiography. She was obsessed with her love for her father and revered him as a saint. Benazir even developed a sense of competition with her siblings for the love of her father. The researcher argues that Benazir recreated her traumatic past, her father’s images, and his memories by writing her autobiography.

Abstract: In psychoanalytic theory, Oedipus complex denotes the emotions and ideas that the mind keeps in the unconscious, via dynamic repression, that concentrate upon a boy's desire to sexually possess his mother (Freud.1900). In the course of his psychosexual development, the complex is the boy's phallic stage formation of a discrete sexual identity; a girl's analogous experience is the Electra complex. Freud first mentioned the Oedipus complex in 1897. After his father's death, he began to make self-analysis, then the formation of the concept. The Interpretation of Dreams, published in 1900, it is the official presentation of the concept. Oedipus complex has always been a cornerstone of psychoanalytic theory. In classical, Freud's psychoanalytic theory, the child's identification with the same-sex parent is the successful resolution of the Oedipus complex and of the Electra complex; his and her key psychological experience to developing a mature sexual role and identity. Sigmund Freud further proposed that girls and boys resolved their complexes differently — he via castration anxiety, she via penis envy; and that unsuccessful resolutions might lead to neurosis, paedophilia, and homosexuality. Hence, men and women who are fixated in the Oedipal and Electra stages of their psychosexual development might be considered "mother-fixated" and "father-fixated" as revealed when the mate (sexual partner) resembles the mother or the father. This paper uses analysis and comparison method, through comparing the prototype of the Oedipus complex in Greek mythology, the similarities and differences between Oedipus King and the literatures contain the Oedipus complex--Hamlet, Sons and Lovers, Thunderstorm and A Dream of Red Mansions. It discusses the main reason for the formation of their differences. It further reveals the Oedipus complex which impact on generations and promote the study of it.