2006/01/01 by Ming Dong Gu
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Japanese History and Culture #Literary Theory and Cultural Hermeneutics #Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies
paper · doi:10.1002/j.2167-4086.2006.tb00036.x
crossref issued 2006/01/01 · crossref published 2006/01/01 · crossref published-print 2006/01/01 · openalex publication_date 2006/01/01 · crossref created 2012/12/22 · crossref published-online 2017/09/11 · crossref deposited 2023/06/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · crossref indexed 2026/07/29 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
The Oedipus complex is central to Western tradition, but not to Chinese culture. Occurrence of oedipal themes in Chinese literature is almost negligible. This phenomenon seems to support a contra-Freud claim: that a theory of European origin, the Oedipus complex, is not universal to human experience in non-Western cultures. However, this article suggests that powerful moral repression may cause the Oedipus complex to undergo structural transformations in some cultures. Through studying a sample of Chinese literary and film representations, the author argues that the Oedipus complex in Chinese culture has been transformed into a filial piety complex. Some conceptual issues are considered from a cross-cultural perspective.