My Oedipus Complex

The large bed that Larry and Mother shared before the return of Father from the war symbolizes the battle for attention going on within the story. As a physical representation of the positive attention Larry values, Larry sees being allowed into the bed as direct proof of his mother’s love. From Larry’s perspective in the bedroom, “There was no room at Mother’s side so I had to get between her and Father” (15). To be competing for literal space with his father matches the emotional battle Larry is waging. In fact, Larry does not acknowledge Father’s right to the bed at all. He wishes for his father to leave the house or stop being married to his mother. The battles over the bed parallel fights they get into outside of sleeping. The narrator states, “[Father] was taking up more than his fair share of the bed, and I couldn’t get comfortable, so I gave him several kicks that made him grunt and stretch. He made room all right, though” (15). Within the story, neither of the two get to sleep in the bed, but both make room for the other.