'Killing Lizards': Novelleanalyse og Ødipuskomplekset

The short story follows a twelve-year-old boy named Gavin, who is about to reach puberty and finds out about his mother’s infidelity, while he is out killing lizards. Gavin suffers from the so-called Oedipus complex. In a few words, the Oedipus complex is a mental stage in life, which is based on the Greek myth about Oedipus, who kills his father and marries his mother. Gavin wants his mother to himself, and he knows that his father is in the way – he is stealing the attention from Gavin’s mother, and so is his sister. The Oedipus complex shows in the childhood, but will be repressed by age. Page 2, l. 25-27: “It was a variation of the theme of his sister’s death, but this time it also included his father”. This shows how eager Gavin is to get his mother to himself.

Gavin’s family moved to Africa so the father could become a professor, instead of a lecturer. Gavin was just ten-years-old when they moved to Africa, and I doubt that Gavin at the time understood, how much it might have meant to his father – that he could be promoted. As I mentioned before, the dream about his sister’s death also includes his father, but only sometimes. On page 4, l. 104-108: “Gavin’s father looked thoughtful. “What’s your mother doing?” he asked his son. Gavin replied sullenly, “She’s going to her play rehearsal or something. Drama, drama, you know”. “Today? Are you sure?” his father asked, seemingly surprised”. This sentence shows how Gavin’s father does not seem to know, what Gavin’s mother is up to during the day, so maybe Gavin’s parents have slipped away from each other, since they moved to Africa. The father’s job is obviously a bit more important than it was in England, and he probably has to spend more time working than before, which gives him less time to spend with his family. This could be the reason for the mother’s infidelity – she does not feel quite as appreciated as she used to, and the father does not seem to notice. Gavin knows that the family moved to Africa because of his father’s job, and that might have an influence on Gavin’s dreams about his father’s death. Gavin must think, that his mother loves his father more than she loves him, otherwise she would not have agreed on moving to Africa with his father, and knowing this has provoked Gavin’s Oedipus complex.