So far I have only heard of this story, and have not referred to the first hand sources, so I can only retell what others have taught about this Freudian idea. What I have heard so far. - [[Joseph Campbell]] saw this as [[Sigmund Freud|Freud]]'s hero journey. - [[Keith Campbell]] taught in his lecture that this at puberty, the subject or the hero falls in love with and wants to marry his own mother, but is intimidated by his own father. He is not strong enough, thus not worthy of his beloved—his mother. An attempt to win her love would result in being castrated by the father. From there, he identifies with his father, and becomes somebody like his father to be worthy of his mother—practically ending in him marrying somebody like his mother. - [[Jordan Peterson]] looks at this story focusing on the role of the mother. The mother falls in love with the child and seduces him so that he does not go out into the world and leave her side. By keeping him close and constantly providing unconditionally, she effectively castrates him so that he is always powerless and forever in need of her. This is used as a negative exemplar as the [[Female Crucifixion|ideal role of a mother]] is to voluntarily give her child up to the world and let him go on his hero journey. - I am pretty sure [[Carl Jung]] speaks of this as a form of regression, like climbing back into the womb for comfort. He would probably relate the mother here to the archetype of a mother instead of the personal one. [[Eric Neumann]] would expand on that with the archetype of the [[Great Mother Archetype|Great Mother]]. The lowest common denominator commonality here seems to be the two-way unhealthy incestuous relationship between mother and son.