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 in line 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 Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayIn "Oedipus in Derry: Seamus Deane's Reading in the Dark," Daniel Ross discusses the parallels between Reading in the Dark and Oedipus Rex. The most obvious parallel he mentions is between the characters in these texts. Ross compares Crazy Joe Johnson to Tiresias and the narrator's mother to Jocasta; correctly pointing out that both Tiresias and Crazy Joe Johnson show how “seeing and hearing too much” (Ross 37) leads to madness, if not the perception of madness. Like the blind prophet of Oedipus, Crazy Joe is described as “twirling [a] walking stick.” (Deane 81) Although Crazy Joe is not blind, the walking stick conveys similar images. Additionally, Joe's face is described "like a mask" and speaks with Shakespearean references. These performative characteristics evoke parallels with classical theater in more obvious ways than most 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 the murderer of Laius. Ross also mentions how the mother figures in both texts try to keep the narrator away. from the truth. He points out how “the tragic irony of the Oedipus story, and of Reading in the Dark, is that the seeker's attempt to undo a trauma of shame only brings more shame to the family, while causing the seeker to be cast out as an exile. "(35). Ross explains how “once the boy in Deane's novel is suspected of being an informer, the family and community use a variety of strategies to punish his quest for knowledge” (35). After the Funeral of Ena, 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 for Oedipus to ignore the Corinthian messenger before his suicide, knowing that his revelation will bring shame on their family, the relationship between the narrator and his mother has more to do with the Oedipus complex than the Greek legend in which she asks the narrator to leave so she can "take care of [her] father properly for once, without [his] eyes" on her (Deane 22) Ross contrasts this with Stephen's mother Dedalus who wants his son to stay at home. Building on the Oedipus motif, Ross explains that “the protagonist of Reading in the Dark does not choose exile; that 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 archive of traditional techniques at his disposal to symbolically illuminate the social, historical, cultural and intellectual phenomena of his time (Maovic 101). In this article, Maovic explains the different historical and cultural angles from which the text can be studied, talking about the narrator's mother in “Aisling-Deane's political-patriotic Oedipus”. This section discusses how the narrator reading The Shan Van Vocht lends itself to a Freudian readingof the text. For The Shan Van Vocht features a “mythical goddess…presented as a domineering woman” who invites “men to fight for her” (105). Maovic highlights how the narrator thinks about his mother while reading this book. Maovic explains how it worksThe “ancient myth” is “symbolic 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, must bury her” (105). The symbolic and collective experience experienced by the narrator while reading this book could also refer to the Oedipus complex, which all men supposedly experience in psychoanalytic theory. Conor Carville also uses The Shan Van Vocht to draw a comparison to Oedipus. After mentioning the “Oedipal quality of Reading in the Dark, with the child lashing out against a weak but forbidding father and ambivalent towards a remote and mysterious mother,” (Carville 416) he argues that The Shan Van Vocht is “a 'extension of the original maternal body' (416). Carville claims that the narrator has a sexual attraction to 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 attraction to his mother. His charm seems more related to the knowledge that his mother had another life before marriage. When talking about “the first novel [he] ever read,” the narrator points out how his mother “had written her maiden name” (Deane 29) on the cover, which “represented someone she was before she became a mother [he ] knew." Like Oedipus, the narrator knows that his mother's former life will provide insight into his family problems, which are inextricably linked to the Irish problems of Northern Ireland. The personal is political in both Oedipus Rex and Reading in the Dark, a topic discussed in Hedwig Schwall's article, 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, he correctly identifies Derry's role in his comparison to Oedipus. Instead of characterizing Ireland as “mother Ireland,” Schwall explains that “like Thebes, Derry's turmoil is built on Oedipal issues that take on mythic proportions (Schwall 218). Schwall explains how the Freudian elements of Deane's text such as "the question of parental wish, that of the wish-fulfilling mother, the Oedipal triangle and the fear of castration", are all traceable to "the fatal mistake made by Grandfather Doherty" (218) This interpretation is useful because it bridges the gap between the intertextuality discussed in Ross's article and Ma?ovic's Freudian readings and Conor argues that the narrator's family is “marked by the suffering experienced by the violent birth of Northern Ireland” (Schwall 219). This is consistent with the narrator stating that he comes from a “scarred family” for having “cousins ​​in prison for being in the IRA” (Deane 29). Schwall focuses more on psychoanalysis than the Oedipus myth it inspired, he does not mention that Thebes is a cursed city in Greek mythology because of its founder, Cadmus like Ross, Schwall discusses the meaning of Crazy Joe Johnson. Without comparing him to Tiresias, he explains that he “will or cannot give voice to the family history” (225). Instead, he sometimes comes up with a "confused mess of things", which pushes the protagonist to look for other sources of information. The plot of Reading in the Dark is similar to the structure of Aristotelian drama. While Deane does not strictly adhere to this format, the. 218-19, 225.