La EsfingeFreud, la escena primaria y la castración

Abstract

This paper starts from the observation of the symptomatic absence regarding the interpretation of the mytheme of the encounter with the Sphinx, both in Freud's analysis of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex and in his theory of the Oedipus complex. A detailed study is made of the allusions to the figure of the Sphinx in Freud's work and in the Sophoclean text, as well as their repercussions in the biography of the founder of psychoanalysis. A critical review is also made of later approaches to the subject, with particular emphasis on the work of Marie Delcourt and Didier Anzieu. Following a review of the concepts of castration and the primary scene in Freud's work, it is proposed to interpret the mytheme in question as a mythological manifestation of the primary scene, promoted to the status of gateway to the Oedipus complex and seen as the castration scene of the phallic mother. As the psychoanalytical reflection is developed, simultaneously the anthropological one is created. Freud's reflections on matriarchy are reviewed and the thesis is formulated that Sophocles' version of the Oedipus myth constitutes a precise manifestation of the patriarchal revolution, which put an end to a previous matriarchal regime in the Mediterranean world.