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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Guide Weather Subscribe Contact Us February 7, 2005 Connecting Freud and Sophocles In the gap between seasons of the Shakespeare festival, while browsing the Ashland library, I noticed the pronouncement "He Loved His Mother" emblazoned across the September 2004 edition of the Ashland Theater Review, introducing a review of "Oedipus Complex." The cover photo placed the spotlight on Freud; but was Freud, like Sophocles, trying to turn the light on us? By delving into the human psyche, were these legendary thinkers trying to tell us something about ourselves? Something, perhaps, that we wouldn't want to see while we saw ourselves through the eyes of others, through the shame that society induces when a person's surface appearance is valued more highly than his/her feelings inside? If all matter is energy, as Einstein said, then inner feelings are made of an energy which we do not see with our eyes so much as feel with our bodies. However, do most modern cultures tend to be ashamed to feel the body? When someone demonstrates the courage to admit to his inner feelings, like Freud did, do we tend criticize that lone soothsayer in an effort to deflect the glare of shame from illuminating the feelings inside ourselves? As Director Galati commanded playgoers with a large sign that swung down like a thud: "You are requested to close the eyes." The theater review that dropped the burden of the Oedipus complex squarely in Freud's lap declared that "obviously Freud has a high opinion of himself." Do people who admit to shameful vulnerabilities really hold themselves highly? The review deems Freud arrogant right after it repeats these words from the play: "The fate of Oedipus moves us only because we know it might have been us." Are we also arrogant to try to separate ourselves from the feelings that Freud embraced? I often wonder why so much talk after a play surrounds the costumes or setting, while the magnificence of the story, and the insights into the human mystery it reveals, remain almost unspoken, as though unseen. Are our eyes so open to fears of how others might see us that we can't even see the play, whose purpose is to show us ourselves? So, let's take a look: What human fear is so strong that Oedipus can't stand to see it? The fear of separation from the mother. All humans experience this through the trauma of birth. Who wouldn't be shocked to be yanked out into the cold from a warm, cozy bed? Who wouldn't want to crawl back inside? Taoism teaches that a man's energy is sexually centered. Thus, a feeling of love might be experienced as sexual to a man. If a man is not ashamed to let himself imagine sensing how a woman would feel if he acted out his emotion, he feels less compelled to do so in disregard of her feelings. If shame is the weapon through which sexual abuse wreaks havoc, could we regain the paradise where we "were naked but were not ashamed" precisely by following Galati's directive to "close the eyes" and feel from the inside? Can we respect Freud as we would a Greek playwright of old who said the same thing, just in a different way? Irene Dickson Sacramento, Calif. DailyTidings.com Home Page Archives | Revels | Classifieds | Real Estate Guide | Weather | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2005 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Slippers Women's & Men's Slippers Ceramic Piggy Banks heloc libor rate Calenders 2005 Calender 2005 Accelerate Weightloss Products Memory Foam Mattress afsa studentloans home equity loans teleconferencing W2 Forms fasa student loans Matchmaking & Dating Scripts African Safari Conference Calls - $50/Month Security Systems student loan consolidation wholesale diamonds Currancy Exchange web conferencing Online Casinos Community Click Here Site Search: .:Advertisements:. RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams