Reading in the Dark by Seamus Deane features a variety of references to Oedipus Rex in its plot and characterizations. Several critics have discussed these similarities in psychoanalytic interpretations of the novel, but the Oedipus parallels serve a more pragmatic purpose aligned with the Aristotelian narrative structure of Greek tragedy. These parallels also indicate how one family's problems are a microcosm of their nation's problems. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay In “Oedipus in Derry: Reading in the Dark by Seamus Deane,” Daniel Ross discusses the parallels between Reading in the Dark and Oedipus Rex. The most obvious parallel he evokes is between the characters in these texts. Ross compares Crazy Joe Johnson to Tiresias and the narrator's mother to Jocasta; rightly pointing out that Teiresias and Crazy Joe Johnson show how “seeing too much and hearing too much” (Ross 37) leads to madness, or even the perception of madness. Like Oedipus' blind prophet, Crazy Joe is described as "twirling [a] cane." (Deane 81) Although Crazy Joe is not blind, the cane conveys similar images. Additionally, Joe's face is described "like a mask" and he speaks with Shakespearean references. These performative characteristics evoke parallels with classical theater more obviously than most of the other characters. Since Crazy Joe is seen researching people's pasts in the library, it is implied that he would have the same prophetic wisdom as Tiresias when he names Oedipus as Laius's murderer. Ross also mentions how the mother figures in both texts attempt to distance the narrator. of the truth. He points out that "the tragic irony of the story of Oedipus and Reading in the Dark is that the seeker's attempt to repair a trauma of shame only brings more shame to the family - while forcing the researcher to be exiled.” » (35). Ross explains how "once the boy in Deane's novel is suspected of being an informant, the family and community use various strategies to punish his quest for knowledge" (35). After Ena's funeral, the narrator asks his mother to tell him about the feud, and she responds by telling him to "let bygones be bygones" (Deane 42). This is similar to Jocasta's plea that Oedipus would ignore the Corinthian messenger before his suicide, knowing that his revelation would shame their family. For Ross, the relationship between the narrator and his mother has more to do with the Oedipus complex than with Greek legend. He cites the "Oedipal connotations" of the mother's birthday scene where she asks the narrator to move away so that she can "take care of [her] father properly for once, without [his] eyes” on her. (Deane 22) Ross contrasts this with Stephen Dedalus' mother who wants her son to stay at home. Drawing on the Oedipus motif, Ross explains that the “protagonist of Reading in the Dark does not choose exile; this sentence is imposed on him. » Other critics have discussed the Oedipal nature of the narrator's relationship with his mother. In “Reading in the Dark: Irish Literary Identity,” Dragana Maovic explains how “the author of a literary work can use the store of traditional techniques at his disposal to symbolically illuminate the social, historical, cultural and intellectual phenomena of his time . » (Maović 101). In this article, Maovic explains the different historical and cultural angles from which the text can be studied, discussing the narrator's mother in "The Politico-Patriotic Oedipusof Aisling-Deane. This section discusses how the narrator reading The Shan Van Vocht lends itself to a Freudian reading of the text. Since The Shan Van Vocht depicts a “mythical goddess… presented as a dominating woman” who calls “men to fight for her” (105). Maovic highlights what the narrator thinks about his own mother while reading this book. Maovic explains how this "ancient myth" is "the symbol of a collective rather than individual experience." In this myth, “the father dies in ignorance and shame, the mother preserves her family through secrecy and lies, the son discovers the truth, but, following his mother's wishes, he must bury it” (105). The symbolic and collective experience experienced by the narrator while reading this book could also refer to the Oedipus complex, which all men are supposed to experience in psychoanalytic theory. Conor Carville also uses The Shan Van Vocht to make a comparison with Oedipus. After mentioning the "Oedipal quality of reading in the dark, with the child rebelling against a weak but prohibitive father and ambivalent towards a distant and mysterious mother" (Carville 416), he argues that The Shan Van Vocht is “an extension of the original.” maternal body” (416). Carville argues that the narrator has a sexual fascination with his mother's book. Both interpretations of Deane's Shan Van Vocht reference are valid, but I disagree with Carville's argument that the narrator has a sexual fascination with his mother. His fascination seems more linked to knowing that his mother had another life before marriage. When talking about "the first novel he ever read," the narrator points out that his mother "had written her maiden name" (Deane 29) on the cover, which "represented someone she was before to be the mother of [he] knew." Like Oedipus, the narrator knows that his mother's previous life will give him insight into her family troubles, inextricably linked to the Irish Troubles of Northern Ireland. The personal is political to both in Oedipus Rex and in Reading in the Dark, a topic discussed in Hedwig Schwall's article Like other critics, Schwall discusses Reading in the Dark from a psychoanalytic perspective in "Reading in the Dark: Flying by the Nets of Politics and Psychoanalysis,” and unlike Ross, she correctly identifies Derry’s role in her comparison to Oedipus Instead of calling Ireland “Mother Ireland,” Schwall explains that “like Thebes, the Troubles. of Derry are built on Oedipal disorders which take on mythical proportions (Schwall 218). Schwall explains how the Freudian elements of Deane's text, such as "the question of parental desire, that of the wish-granting mother, the Oedipal triangle, and the fear of castration", can all be attributed to "the fallacy fatal crime committed by grandfather Doherty. » (218). This interpretation is useful because it bridges the gap between the intertextuality discussed in Ross's article and the Freudian readings of Mašovic and Conor. Schwall argues that the narrator's family is “marked by the pangs felt during the violent birth of Northern Ireland” (Schwall 219). This fits with the narrator mentioning that he comes from a "marked family" for having "cousins ​​in prison for being in the IRA" (Deane 29). Since Schwall's analysis focuses more on psychoanalysis than the Oedipus myth it inspired, she does not mention that Thebes is a cursed city in Greek mythology because of its founder, Cadmus. But like Ross, Schwall discusses the importance of Crazy Joe Johnson. Without comparing him to Teiresias, she explains that he “wants or cannot express the family history” (225). Instead, he. 218-19, 225.