Skip to main content

Hot Off The Press

ECPE Writing - Sample Article (Banning Cars from the City)

This is the fourth sample article that conforms to the writing section requirements of the ECPE (Examination for the Certificate of Proficiency in English) of the University of Michigan.  My first post to deal with articles , explains what needs to be present in the piece of writing candidates compose. Examiners are looking for articles that elaborate on ideas and have solid arguments; are well organized; make use of a wide lexical and grammatical range; have an original ring to them (in other words,

Frank O’Connor – My Oedipus Complex (Overview & Questions)

https://argutelegacy.blogspot.com/2018/05/my-oedipus-complex.html
Relationships between parents and their children are never easy. All families have their ups and downs, their moments of crisis, periods of serenity, intervals of strife and discord. Children's development sees to it that nothing remains static for too long.

In My Oedipus Complex, O'Connor portrays precisely such a moment in a child's life when awareness grows and the canvas of life begins to acquire dabs of disappointment. Poor Larry realizes he has a father and a baby brother to contend with. 

Unlike what one might expect from a coming-of-age tale, the maturity of the story is not found in its characters but in O'Connor's ability to leave aside his traumatic childhood and focus on a constructive message. He could have easily depicted the father as the drunk in his life who couldn't keep a job but was supported by a wife who cleaned houses so the family would not starve. He could have idolized the mother or fashioned her after his own, suffering in silence from chronic appendicitis for many years but never seeking medical help for lack of money. Instead, he limited her to being a soothing, practical, no-nonsense woman. As for the father, we cannot but remark a certain resemblance to our own fathers, to an uncle, or a grandfather, in other words a run-of-the-mill adult male who grumbles, is often away from home, leaves child-rearing mostly to the mother, and doesn't feel the need to ingratiate himself with his son.


With its bittersweet taste and instances of irony, My Oedipus Complex reminds us of our own childish narrow-mindedness and selfish demand for attention, which, I fear, we may not have outgrown exactly

The notes that follow should help guide you through this story and lead the way for class discussion, research and analysis for assignments.




Read the story here.

Click on the picture for explanations of literary terms

http://argutelegacy.blogspot.gr/2018/04/literary-terminology-list-2.html



Frank O’Connor – My Oedipus Complex



  • life 
    • 1903-1966 
    • Irish
    • wrote more than 150 works
    • 1918 joined IRA (Irish Republican Army = dedicated to Irish Republicanism = want all of Ireland to be independent; support political violence as means of attaining independence) 
    • served in IRA during the Irish War of Independence vs. British 
      • 1918 election: Sinn Fein (Irish Republican Party) won + declared independence of Ireland from the British 
      • next day 2 officers of the British Armed Police in Ireland shot dead by IRA members (acting on their own initiative)
    • was imprisoned 1922-1923
    • childhood: father= alcoholic, in debt, abused family
    • loved his mother, resented his father for the way he treated them
 
  • plot 
    • about a family 
    • father comes back from WWI 
    • son feels left out as father is stealing mother’s attention 
    • antagonism between father + son grows 
    • birth of younger brother, Sonny, makes son hate brother more than father 
    • son feels sorry for father who also doesn’t get mother’s attention anymore 
    • father seems to soften to son as well



  • stages of antagonism (all due to a break from routine) 
    • happiness of mother that father is back from war for good 
    • father talks to mother son interrupts 
    • son goes on walk with father: can’t go where he wants; father doesn’t wait for him to follow; son’s usual tricks with mother don’t work on father
    • father reads newspaper + tells news to mother: steals mother’s attention away from son 
    • morning talks with mother in bed disrupted: son must be quiet because father’s asleep, tired from work (= start of open enmity) 
        • son wants father to sleep in separate bed 
        • promised to stay quiet + play with his toys, but got bored after a while 
        • father: “Shut up, you little puppy.” son: “Shut up, you!”
    • son declares he’ll marry mother when he grows up
    • baby arrives = end of antagonism 
        • son feels sorry for father 
        • father comes to sleep in son’s bed 
        • both are ignored by mother: son calls mother “simpleminded” for not seeing through Sonny’s schemes to attract attention

  • characters
      • Larry (son) 
        • changes through the course of the story 
        • at the start: stubborn, self-centered, self-indulgent, sees mother’s positive traits only 
        • understands rudimentary dynamics of a family: every son is ‘deposed’ as king / center of attention 
        • feels compassion for father in the end: realizes what father must be feeling (= process of maturity), sees mother’s negative traits (realizes she has flaws as well) 
        • by transferring his hatred to Sonny he demonstrates he’s still not mature enough (so his change of character is incomplete)


      • Mick (father) 
        • described as bony, had common accent (= common worker, possibly lower class) 
        • grumpy, tired, impatient, abrupt 
        • hard-working, provides for family 
        • doesn’t get on well with children (“If another baby comes into this family … I’m going out.”): other interpretation = shirks father’s responsibility 
        • stubborn, doesn’t let Larry push him around (when they go on walk) or play with his regimental badges, Gurkha knives, button sticks (used by soldiers in WWI and WWII to keep their uniform clean when polishing the brass buttons) = pride in accomplishments 
        • prepared to use violence to be obeyed: “Larry, if you don’t behave, I’ll give you a good slap.” “He wants his bottom smacked.” 
        • similar to Larry in many respects


      • mother 
        • sweet, mediator, keeps balance 
        • patient: explains to Larry, not cross with him immediately 
        • is stern but doesn’t threaten violence: “Now once and for all, you’re to be perfectly quiet or go back to your own bed. Which is it to be?” = gets her way but allows Larry the privilege of making the decision 
        • pacifies situation before father explodes on Larry 
        • has a way with children: her explanation why father is tired + needs to work is easy for Larry to understand (story about Miss MacCarthy + getting pennies)


      • Sonny (new baby brother)



  • point of view 
    • 1st person point of view (Larry) 
    • unreliable because young 
    • this unreliability creates humor in story (irony of situation reader knows more than Larry does) 
    • written through the perspective of older Larry (past tense used)


  • themes 
    • family dynamics 
      • father-son relationship 
      • mother-son relationship 
      • sibling relationship
 
 
    • childhood 
      • innocence lack of critical judgment 
      • egocentricity 
      • dependence on adults

    • maturity
    • fatherhood vs motherhood



  • tone 
    • humorous 
    • ironic



  • title 
    • Oedipus complex = psychoanalytic theory coined by Sigmund Freud 
    • based on 5th century Greek mythological character of Oedipus 
      • kills father (Laius) 
      • marries mother (Jocasta) 
      • doesn’t know they’re his parents

    • Freud’s belief: 
      • unconscious sexual desire of child for opposite-sex parent 
      • this stage of childhood must be overcome successfully: child must identify with same-sex parent 
      • if stage not successfully overcome: leads to neurosis, pedophilia, homosexuality







http://argutelegacy.blogspot.gr/



My Oedipus Complex: Questions 





1) Describe the father-son relationship.


2) What is the mother's role in the story?



3) How does O'Connor build up the plot?



4) How does the author use point of view to his advantage? (ie how does the point of view help the overall effect of the story?)



5) What message do you think O'Connor wants to send out to the reader through this story?



6) Why is the choice of title a good one?






https://s14-eu5.startpage.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=https:%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FkAA-2NsRcZ8%2Fmaxresdefault.jpg&sp=5e082e3d53e77464832cf7c7919156fb


All I know from my own experience is that the more loss we feel the more grateful we should be for whatever it was we had to lose. It means that we had something worth grieving for. The ones I'm sorry for are the ones that go through life not knowing what grief is.

Frank O'Connor

(1969) “A Set of Variations: Twenty-seven Stories”






Popular posts from this blog

Writing Letters of Complaint - Useful Phrases

Whether it's to complain about something you bought or a service you found was unsatisfactory, as part of your job or because you are preparing to take an exam in English at B2 or C2 level, it is a fact that you should know the basics about writing or even orally expressing your dissatisfaction.  The following post should help you organize your letter or email (even an oral statement, if necessary) as well as give you some useful phrases you can use.

Virginia Woolf - The Legacy (Overview)

When a wife dies and leaves her husband her diary, all is possible. In Gil bert Clandon's case, the legacy his wife leaves him is much more than he could ever have imagined.  Virgi nia Woolf signs an exceptional short story which questions the foundations of marriage, people's need for communication by any means possible a nd their inclusion in a mutually beneficial partnership . When one reneges on that contract, the other will seek new outlets to grow , as p ersonal d evelopment in any marriage is inevitable. If that development is undertaken without any consideration for one's spouse, then problems will unavoidably ensue.

Tobias Wolff - Powder (Overview)

"Powder" is a short story intended to quickly state the obvious - a father's bond to his son is always a difficult thing to forge when parents aren't on good terms with each other. The level of difficulty in achieving this increases as fathers aren't used to explicitly explaining to their sons that they are trying to forge a stronger bond at a particular moment in time to begin with. Accordingly, the complications the father in this particular story is required to overcome are not only the time constraints the mother has placed on the trip as a whole or the mistrust towards her husband she has allowed her son to bear witness to which the father feels he must compensate for, but also the disparity in character traits that father and son exhibit. Having read the story for the first time, students predominantly respond to the query "What was the story about?" either with "I didn't get it. Some father and son skiing" or "S

Nadine Gordimer - An Intruder (Overview)

The short story An Intruder was incorporated in Nadine Gordimer's short story collection Livingston's Companions, published in 1970. As such, it must be read and viewed through the prism of her somewhat earlier works which dealt with South African society's inequality and the problems arising from the diseased status quo of the times. An Intruder focuses on relationships between characters and how perceptions of a situation differ in the eyes of each individual based on a combination of nature and nurture, or at the very least that is what Gordimer would have the reader gauge. What made James Seago what he is? Why is Mrs Clegg, Marie's mother, such a typical depthless wishful socialite with an exaggerated respect for higher social status? Couldn't Marie judge the merit of the man who treats her like a child or is she turning a blind eye to his behavior because it suits her? Whatever the answers to these questions, the one certainty we have is that the noti

C2 Sample Essay 8 (Parenting)

Writing at C2 level (Proficient User) on English language examinations is the same no matter the awarding body when it comes to writing essays. If you are a candidate giving an exam in English (IELTS, CPE, ECPE, CELP, LRN, ESB, TOEFL), make sure you read my earlier post What do I do with the sample writing found on this blog? to get the most out of the sample essays provided on Argute Legacy .     The topic of this essay is to discuss what the responsibilities of parenting are. If you are not taking an exam but need to discuss this topic, then read on and note down what you deem useful. If you intend to use this essay as part of an assignment, remember to paraphrase so as not to plagiarize. The topic is similar to what candidates expect in any other C2-level examination in that examiners want to see a well-organized, coherent and cohesive discussion of the issue with arguments and examples written in approximately half an hour. Whether or not you agree with the