The Price of Oedipus

The Oedipus Complex, as coined by Sigmund Freud, is the psychoanalytic theory defined by a child’s “attachment . . . to the parent of the opposite sex” and is characterized by “these feelings [becoming] largely repressed . . . because of the fear of displeasure or punishment by the parent of the same sex” (Dolloff). In Patricia Highsmith’s The Price of Salt, we see how this theory is simultaneously present and subverted by Highsmith in order to indicate the nature of Therese and Carol’s relationship. While the Oedipus Complex (as ascribed to men) and the Electra Complex (as ascribed to women) were theorized in terms of conventional, compulsory heterosexuality, it is still applicable to the lesbian relationship which forms between Therese and Carol throughout The Price of Salt. It is the idea, then, that these theories reign true within the novel that successfully subverts the typical conception of Freud’s notions.

We learn throughout the novel of Therese, the 19-year-old protagonist, whose father “had died of pneumonia” when Therese was six and whose mother “[brought] her to the [boarding] school in Montclair when she was eight” and then remarried two years later (68). It bothered Therese that her mother “[claimed] her at all” when she rarely wrote or visited Therese at the school, and Therese often thought she “would have been happier to have no parents, like half the girls in the school” (69). When Therese turned 17, she took the two hundred dollars that her mother had given her per the request of the school and decided that she no longer wanted any relationship at all with her. Here, it becomes clear that Therese’s “mommy issues” are prevalent and would become even more so later on in the novel. Similarly to Therese’s situation, Carol is extremely absent in her daughter Rindy’s life. Like Therese’s mother, Carol’s pursuing of relationships outside of her marriage renders her more of an idea than a tangible figure in her daughter’s life, just as Therese’s mother’s remarriage created both a physical and emotional distance between her and Therese. The difference, however, is that Carol does not necessarily want to be absent in Rindy’s life, but is because of the circumstances: Harge, Carol’s husband, doesn’t let Carol see their daughter on the grounds that Carol’s sexuality and involvement with women would be somehow detrimental to Rindy—a claim bolstered by law at the time. It is the consolidation of these two women’s experiences which then suggests notions of Freud’s Oedipus and Electra Complexes.

Carol is obviously not Therese’s mother, and Therese is not Carol’s daughter, yet their respective situations along with their age gap is suggestive of Freud’s theories. They are in love, certainly, but the age difference suggests a kind of reconciliation between each of the women and their relationships with their daughter and mother, respectively. Carol loves Therese, yet sees her for her young age, and so this becomes an opportunity for Carol to influence and have a “daughter” (though this isn’t the correct word given the nature of their relationship). Therese, on the other hand, may be attracted to Carol beyond queerness due to her age, as Carol gives her the love and nurturing that she lacked from her mother. In viewing Carol as a sort of “motherly” figure, Therese successfully subverts and embodies the idea of Freud’s complexes in the context of a homosexual relationship.