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Volume 1 Issue 9 |
February 2015 |
| Oedipal Connotations in Tim Winton’s An Open Swimmer | |
| Ms. P.M.S. Renuga, Guest Lecturer, Department of English, L.R.G. Government Arts College for Women, Tirupur, Tamil Nadu, India |
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| Abstract | |
| Oedipus Complex has brought a lot of controversies in the field of modern psychology and literature. Sigmund Freud suggested the term Oedipus Complex in The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) and described it as a feeling of intense love of a child toward the mother. The intense love and touch of the mother gradually develops a sexual desire in the mind of the child and it clings abnormally with the mother. The other symptoms that are associated with Oedipus Complex are repression, guilt and dreams. Dreams act as a sign of concealed and conflicting desires. Oedipal symptom plays a crucial role in the life of Jerra Nilsam, the protagonist in Tim Winton’s An Open Swimmer. Tim Winton is an Australian writer and as a child prodigy, he wrote his first novel An Open Swimmer at the age of 21. The main theme of the novel is the metamorphosis of Jerra from childhood to adulthood. Jerra searches for a meaningful life but he is plagued with repressed guilt about sexual depravity. His relationship with Aunt Jewel (mother next door) and his dreams to conceal his sexual desires appear to correspond to Oedipus Complex. | |
| Keywords | |
| Sigmund Freud; Oedipus Complex; Dreams, Australian Literature; Tim Winton; An Open Swimmer. | |
| Article | |
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