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The Oedipus complex comes from the trilogy of plays, "The Oedipus Cycle", beginning with "Oedipus Rex" (Oedipus the King).
In the play, Oedipus' parents (a king and queen) learn that their son will grow to bring doom on their kingdom. He will kill his father, sleep with his mother, and curse the whole kingdom with his sin. So, his parents pin him to a hillside (through his ankles) and leave him exposed to die. Of course, he is rescued by a kind shepherd, and raised into a strong young man.
He goes to seek his fortune in Thebes, a city under the oppression of a Sphynx. On his way there, he kills a man in a cart travelling the same road. In Thebes, he answers the riddle of the Sphynx, and thus frees Thebes and becomes its benevolent ruler. In time, he marries a widow, Jocasta and fathers a son and daughter.
Eventually, though, he learns most horrible things. The man he killed on the road was his father, travelling ingocnito. The woman he marries was his own mother.
What is interesting about this story is that he doesn't *want* to kill his father, or schtupp his mother. He doesn't even know it is them. Where does the idea of the Oedipus complex come in, then?
Through a pun. You see, Oedipus, in ancient greek, sounds about the same as the phrase for "knows his feet". Oedipus had swolen feet and ankles, from being pinned to the rock as a child. So, the play implies that inside, he knew who he was all along, and thus knew what he was doing. Pretty direct parallel to the Freudian idea that the desire to kill your father and fuck your mother is subconscious.
Neat, huh?
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