The Importance of Family Lineage in the Manifestation of the Oedipal Complex

           Chris Ware’s graphic novel Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth explores the importance of family lineage and how the failures of one generation are inherited by subsequent generations. The text links the importance of familial bonds to an individual’s development and well-being, and in doing so offers the quality of upbringing as an explanation towards why Jimmy exhibits an exacerbated, more manifest form of the Oedipus complex.

            The visual component of the graphic novel allows the presence of family lineage to be clearly communicated through the use of images, as each of the Corrigan men possess identical facial features. These common traits – such as their sunken eyes, round head, and plain features – clearly mark them as a Corrigan, and resurface through generations of the family. The most compelling example of this appearance occurs as Jimmy and his father meet for the first time. Characterized by beady blue eyes, vacant expressions, and identical outfits, the narrative presents each Corrigan in succeeding frames to highlight the similarities between the two men (37). In effect, this passage cements the importance of one’s origins and genealogy, and seems to offer an explanation of why Jimmy is who he is. Beyond the use of physical appearance to communicate the importance of lineage, the text uses issues of fatherhood and abandonment to explore the cyclical nature of family heritage and its impact on the next generation. Patterns of abuse and neglect resurface through each generation, as Jimmy’s great-grandfather is depicted abusing his grandfather through corporal punishment (159) and lying to him about returning home (268). Following these actions, the narrative explores the subsequent consequences of Jimmy’s grandfather’s upbringing, as Jimmy’s own father is also depicted as an absent and unlikeable man who was absent during Jimmy’s childhood (190). Through detailing the failure of two father-son relationships, the narrative communicates the important role of fatherhood and family lineage in shaping one’s development. The destructive effects of abandonment and neglect are exhibited in two identical scenes in the narrative, where Jimmy and his grandfather are each depicted lying in bed with their eyes wide open - anxious, isolated, and restless (57; 166). The explicit similarities between these two generations highlight how the behavior and mistakes of one generation have a cyclical effect on the subsequent generation, and demonstrate the integral role of family lineage and parenting on an individual’s development.

            Through emphasizing issues of family lineage and the inheritance of a prior generation’s mistakes, the narrative sheds light on why Jimmy exhibits a more manifest form of the Oedipus complex. Sigmund Freud argues the Oedipus complex is a universal urge present in all human beings, and the only difference is that psychoneurotics “are only distinguishable by exhibiting on a magnified scale feelings of love and hatred to their parents which occur less obviously and less intensely in the minds of most children” (Freud 814). Accepting Freud’s claim that certain individuals express stronger and more visible degrees of the Oedipus complex than others, the text offers family lineage as a contributing factor that might explain these individual differences between those who do and do not overtly express Oedipal urges. The importance of family lineage and ancestry is symbolically represented through Jimmy’s crippled leg. In Oedipus Rex, Oedipus is marked with a swollen foot because he was bound and abandoned as a baby. Symbolically, Oedipus’s limp marks him as an outsider, and is a physical representation of the crippling effect of his past on his own identity. Comparable to Oedipus himself, Jimmy is depicted waiting for his father in the airport with a limp and a bad leg, and uses crutches for a majority of the narrative (30). This image reveals Jimmy as a marked, Oedipal individual, and the presence of his crippled leg symbolically illustrates the debilitating effects of Jimmy’s family’s history and its role in shaping his Oedipal urges. The extent of these desires are revealed through the graphic novel’s form, which enjoys the ability to use both text and images to communicate a story. In the first meeting between Jimmy and his father, the text and images of the narrative diverge to reveal Jimmy’s manifest and latent construals of the encounter – as the dialogue details the awkward conversation between father and son, the images of Jimmy’s parents having sex reveal his latent thoughts and worries (37-38). The graphic novel’s ability to communicate both the explicit and latent construals of the situation expresses Jimmy’s Oedipal desires, as he proceeds to imagine himself viciously killing his father while remaining on the bed with his mother (37). Therefore, understanding the importance of parenthood and family lineage ultimately sheds light on the nature of Jimmy’s obsessive relationship with his mother (13; 231). The origins of Jimmy’s Oedipal desires seem to emanate from the Corrigan lineage, as Jimmy’s great-grandfather is depicted before a mirror, fantasizing about killing his own father (231). Here, the mirror plays a symbolic role – as Jimmy’s grandfather imagines himself shooting his father, the mirror allows him to take the role of the father, fulfilling his Oedipal desires to assume the role of the patriarchy. In exploring the importance of family lineage and the cyclical consequences of past generations, the narrative offers the impact of one’s ancestry as an explanation for the evident, heightened presence of the Oedipus complex within Jimmy.

Works Cited

Freud, Sigmund. "The Interpretation of Dreams." The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch, William E. Cain, Laurie Finke, Barbara Johnson, and John McGowan. 2nd ed. New York City: WW Norton &, 2011. 814-845. Print.