Created at 10am, Mar 5
Ms-RAGFolklore & Mythology
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The Alchemical Oedipus: Re-Visioning the Myth
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Reginald Ajuonuma, London, UKAbstractThe Oedipus myth is foundational to depth psychology due to Freud’s use of Sophocles’ play Oedipus Rex in the creation of psychoanalysis. But analytical psychology’s engagement with the myth has been limited despite the importance Jung also places upon it. The absence of a developed Jungian response to Oedipus means the myth’s psychologically constructive elements have been overlooked in favour of reductiveFreudian interpretations. I examine whether analytical psychology can fruitfully re-engage with Oedipus by reinterpreting his story as a paternal rebirth. This is achieved by reincorporating those parts of the myth that occur before and after the period portrayed in Oedipus Rex. Such a move reintegrates Oedipus’ father, KingLaius, into the story and unveils important parallels with the alchemical trope of the king’s renewal by his son. Using Jung’s method of amplification, Oedipus is recast as Laius’ redeemer and identified with the archetype of psychological wholeness, the Self. The contention is that such an understanding of Oedipus supports a clearer recognition of the potentially generative quality of human suffering, restoring to the myth the quality of moral instruction it possessed in antiquity.

An implication of the androgyny and consubstantiality I posit for Laius and Oedipus is that any treatment of the son as female can be extended to the father. On this reading, it is now Laius who is identied with Beyathus becoming the renewing womb of his own transformation. And whilst this claim might seem far-fetched, there are versions of the myth that support it. Devereux (1953) notes that in the Oedipodeia, Oedipus removes Laius sword and belt after killing him; according to Devereux, in ancient Greece, the undoing of a womans belt is a preliminary to intercourse (p. 134). Thus, he contends that by removing Laius sword and belt, Oedipus engages in the symbolic castration and feminization of his father. This allows Devereux to posit an identity between Laius and his wife through the prism of Oedipus sexuality, so that the latters marriage to Jocasta is not only cohabitation with the mother as a woman, but also with the mother as the representative of the now feminized homosexual pat
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134). Here, Oedipus takes the male role and is identied with Gabricus; thus, we might understand his tragedy in Oedipus Rex as a similar account of dissolution and death (albeit not literal, but of ego). And just as Jung (1944, para. 436) calls Gabricus demise punishment coniunctio oppositorum [union of opposites] with his sister, so Oedipus self-blinding is the dreadful consequence of his own incest in the womb of his father-mother, whom, here, I identify with Beya.
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The parable states that Rex marinus banishes Arisleus and Beya to a hothouse under the sea for their role in Gabricus death. This act recalls the Theban regent Creons decision to banish Oedipus, who is accompanied on his exile by his sister-daughter, Antigone. The mythology suggests the banishment may have been enacted on the conrming word of Apollo after the revelation of Oedipus crimes (Watling, 1947, p. 69). The key point, here, is that the Delphic oracle remains implicated in events. We have previously identied the oracle with Arisleus; but Oedipus could also 17 15 Lvi-Strauss (1958/1963) argues that Oedipus and Laius chthonic aspect extends to the latters father, Labdacus, whose name means lameness, thus repeating the motif of difculty walking. 16
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Devereux (1953) argues that although Oedipus and Laius quarrel as to whom should pass rst over a narrow road is part of the best-known version of the myth, it is a somewhat bowdlerized and symbolic version of certain far more explicit accounts of Laius death that reference the homosexuality of father and son (p. 134). 17 Willard (2015) identies the hothouse under the sea with the alchemical vessel in the heated bath. 14685922, 2023, 5, Downloaded from by Test, Wiley Online Library on [07/11/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions ( on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License 818 Reginald Ajuonuma
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