Short Story Analysis

SHORT STORY ANALYSIS

“MY OEDIPUS COMPLEX” by FRANK O’CONNOR

Larry as the major character of short story “MY OEDIPUS COMPLEX” is an ordinary boy like another little boy. All of his behavior show that he is a child who doesn’t know much about live and adult’s mind. Larry is just 5 years old so we can’t call as odd things if he always does childishness thing. In this discussion, I will try to analyze one of Larry’s characterizations especially his “childish” which furthermore it brings up another child behavior.  Almost in every part of the story, Larry’s character is described clearly trough his perception and attitude.

The first reason why i conclude if Larry is a childish boy is because he is always negative thinking with his entire father’s do when father beside his mom. We can see when he pretends that every time mother and father have a conversation, he thinks father steals all mother’s affection and attention. However, father and mother just talk about common thing, but Larry thinks it just the way for father gets closer with mother.

“Naturally, I disliked her looking anxious, because it destroyed her good looks, so I interrupted him”. (line 55)

“several times I tried to change the subject without success”. (Line 90)

The second reason is because he can’t differentiate whether this one is true and the other is wrong. One day he said to his mother that he will marry her when he grows up without think anything that will be happened in the future. He doesn’t know if a child is doesn’t allowed to marry one of member of a family because when they married and have a children, sometimes the baby got physical defect.

“I’m going to marry you” (line 270)

“… Because we’re going to have lots and lots of babies …” (line 280)

Then Larry’s childish also develops into another behavior such as jealous and stubborn. I say it is develop because jealous and stubborn appear after Larry jealous with his father.

A quite similar with similar explanation , the evidence if Larry is jealous when he disturbed father and mother’s conversation, besides when father made a cup of tea for mother and none for him and then he drank the tea it all.

“I wanted to be treated as an equal in my own home … I drank it all and left none for her” (line 150)

Evidence if Larry becomes jealous when mother didn’t allow Larry to sleep beside her, but one day he saw mother allowed father to sleep beside her on mother’s bed. Moreover Larry kicked father to make him move from the bed.

“Full of spite, I gave father a kick ..” (line 200)

Stubborn is also one behavior which is appeared because of larry’s childish. Children will do same thing/activity over and over when they feel happy and comfort with it, and larry do it! Larry feels comfort everytime when he falls asleep on mother’s bed. After father comes back from war, larry still do the same thing when father in a war. After sew around from a window in the attic, he would come to mother’s bed and do the same things no matter there’s a father was sleeping on it. Actually mother have warned Larry for don’t come again to her bed because it will disturb father’s sleep. Larry already comforts with his habitual activity in the morning so it makes him stubborn and doesn’t hear mother’s warning.

“At last I could stand it no longer. I went into next room” (line 185)

In additional, larry also didn’t care with mother’s warn when Larry disturbed their conversation many times just to make them annoyed.

“…so I attached no importance to it and went on talking” (line 60)

 In conclusion, in my perception one characterization of one character of person can develop into two or more than 3 other characters.