How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #7
It is not my belief, however, that psycho-neurotics differ sharply in this respect from other human beings who remain normal—that they are able, that is, to create something absolutely new and peculiar to themselves. It is far more probable—and this is confirmed by occasional observations on normal children—that they are only distinguished by exhibiting on a magnified scale feelings of love and hatred to their parents which occur less obviously and less intensely in the minds of most children. (5.5.42)
Despite the fact that Freud's thoughts on the Oedipus complex had been shaped by his work with "neurotic" and "hysterical" patients, Freud insists that these experiences are not unique to patients who are "abnormal." In his view, all children experience the same love for one parent and hatred for the other—for him, the difference between "normal" children and "sick" children is simply a matter of degree.
Quote #8
His [King Oedipus'] destiny moves us only because it might have been ours—because the oracle laid the same curse upon us before our birth as upon him. It is the fate of all of us, perhaps, to direct our first sexual impulse towards our mother and our first hatred and our first murderous wish against our father. Our dreams convince us that this is so. (5.5.46)
One of the reasons that Freud's work has appealed so strongly to literary and cultural critics is that he obviously values literature very highly, taking it for granted that literature can teach us a lot about ourselves.
Quote #9
King Oedipus, who slew his father Laïus and married his mother Jocasta, merely shows us the fulfilment of our own childhood wishes. But, more fortunate than he, we have meanwhile succeeded, in so far as we have not become psycho-neurotics, in detaching our sexual impulses from our mother and in forgetting our jealousy of our fathers. Here is one in whom the primaeval wishes of our childhood have been fulfilled, and we shrink back from him with the whole force of the repression by which those wishes have since that time been held down within us. (5.5.46)
Earlier in this chapter, Freud had suggested that the main difference between "psycho-neurotic" and "normal" people is that "psycho-neurotics" experience hate and love for their parents more intensely than "normal" children. Here, Freud makes the additional distinction that "healthy" children and adults are the ones who succeed in detaching their sexual impulses from their parents and directing them toward other love-objects—such as intimate partners or spouses—instead.