My Oedipus Complex Read Online Free PDF Page A

marry, you see, and I want to get married.’
    That seemed to surprise her quite a bit. I was quite prepared to continue discussing my plans for the future, but all the children talked together. I was used to planning discussions so that they went on for a long time, but I found that whenever I began one in the Dwyers’, it was immediately interrupted so that I found it hard to concentrate. Besides, all the children shouted, and Mrs Dwyer, for all her gentleness, shouted with them and at them. At first, I was somewhat alarmed, but I soon saw that they meant no particular harm, and when the party ended I was jumping up and down on the sofa, shrieking louder than anyone while Una, in hysterics of giggling, encouraged me. She seemed to think I was the funniest thing ever.
    It was a moonlit November night, and lights were burning in the littlecottages along the road when Una brought me home. On the road outside she stopped uncertainly and said, ‘This is where little John Joe was killed.’
    There was nothing remarkable about the spot, and I saw no chance of acquiring any useful information.
    â€˜Was it a Ford or a Morris?’ I asked, more out of politeness than anything else.
    â€˜I don’t know,’ she replied with smouldering anger. ‘It was Donegan’s old car. They can never look where they’re going, the old shows!’
    â€˜Our Lord probably wanted him,’ I said perfunctorily.
    â€˜I dare say He did,’ Una replied, though she showed no particular conviction. ‘That old fool, Donegan – I could kill him whenever I think of it.’
    â€˜You should get your mother to make you another,’ I suggested helpfully.
    â€˜Make me a what?’ Una exclaimed in consternation.
    â€˜Make you another brother,’ I repeated earnestly. ‘It’s quite easy, really. She has an engine in her tummy, and all your daddy has to do is to start it with his starting-handle.’
    â€˜Cripes!’ Una said, and clapped her hand over her mouth in an explosion of giggles. ‘Imagine me telling her that!’
    â€˜But it’s true, Una,’ I said obstinately. ‘It only takes nine months. She could make you another little brother by next summer.’
    â€˜Oh, Jay!’ exclaimed Una in another fit of giggles. ‘Who told you all that?’
    â€˜Mummy did. Didn’t your mother tell you?’
    â€˜Oh, she says you buy them from Nurse Daly,’ said Una, and began to giggle again.
    â€˜I wouldn’t really believe that,’ I said with as much dignity as I could muster.
    But the truth was I felt I had made a fool of myself again. I realized now that I had never been convinced by Mother’s explanation. It was too simple. If there was anything that woman could get wrong she did so without fail. And it upset me, because for the first time I found myself wanting to make a really good impression. The Dwyers had managed to convince me that whatever else I wanted to be I did not want to be a priest. I didn’t even want to be an explorer, a career which would take me away for long periods from my wife and family. I was prepared to be a composer and nothing but a composer.
    That night in bed I sounded Mother on the subject of marriage. I tried to be tactful because it had always been agreed between us that I should marry her and I did not wish her to see that my feelings had changed.
    â€˜Mummy,’ I asked, ‘if a gentleman asks a lady to marry him, what does he say?’
    â€˜Oh,’ she replied shortly, ‘some of them say a lot. They say more than they mean.’
    She was so irritable that I guessed she had divined my secret and I felt really sorry for her.
    â€˜If a gentleman said, “Excuse me, will you marry me?” would that be all right?’ I persisted.
    â€˜Ah, well, he’d have to tell her first that he was fond of her,’ said Mother who, no matter what she felt, could never bring herself