"My Oedipus Complex" by Frank O'Connor

The Oedipus Complex is a psychoanalytic term used to describe a boy’s sexual desire for his mother and unconscious hatred of his father.

In the short story, My Oedipus Complex, Frank O'Connor writes of a young child who is forced to deal with issues of confusion and jealousy through a first person point of view.

Through O'Connor's elements of facetiousness and truth, he explains how such issues create a sort of ironic domins effect and, in this case can actually bring people closer together.

In the beginning, the young boy displays signs of excitement and contentment when his father arrives unexpectedly on his visits from the war. His "pleasant musty smell" and "Santa Claus entrances and exits" intrigue him. As long as his daily routines are uninterrupted, he remains in a state of appeasement. The juvinile knows nothing of the problems the mother and father are facing. He is confined to a world all his own.

If the point of view were changed in such a situation, then the father may tell of how naive and innocentthe child is or how oblivios he is to what a horrible condition they are faced with.

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The plot would change drastically. If the point of view were changed to the third person objective, or dramatic point of view, then the readers would assume their own emotion which would absolutely change the tone of this short story. Other elements such as theme could also be altered if this was seen in third person. The child's feeling of hostility toward his father could only be seen through this example first person point of view.