Oedipal subtext

A lot of things are mixed together in the kid's mind. That was my take.

He is bound to his mother to an extreme degree, with no father and facing constant relocation or institutional space because his maladjustment. All this happening during the most intense hormonal surges of sexual awakening. He feels his sexual power and at the same time he is probably terrified of losing his mother.

I feel like the story pretty carefully described how his oedipal moves can largely be traced to an impulse to keep his mother from abandoning him. A very deep, instinctual drive that veers between healthy and pathological from moment to moment. He can't quite comprehend much broader societal forces that are gonna remove him from that relationship. From the very beginning of the movie, his mom can see that coming. She struggles to hold onto him until his brain can catch up to what's happening... but he can't grasp it.

We know he did some serious harm to another kid, probably permanent disfigurement, but he is nearly as disconnected from that violence as the audience. If we didn't know Steve from such an intimate perspective, doubtless we'd immediately want him locked up.




http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087239/

Asking why there's an oedipus complex in the film is like asking why the oedipus complex exists at all. Where's the father in this film? Exactly.

Later that day, after tea... I died, suddenly.