Who is Freud and Oedipus from Portnoy's Complaint and what is their importance?

Sigmund Freud was a pioneering psychoanalyst whose writings define many of the grounds upon which psycho-therapeutic perspectives and treatments now in common usage are based. Many of his theories are grounded in consideration of sexuality, both individual and relational. One of his principal theories is based on the classical Greek myth of Oedipus, the ancient king who killed his father and married his mother. Freud suggested that on some level and to varying degrees every man wants to do what Oedipus did—the mother is, after all, the primary and primal source of love in a man's life. On several occasions throughout the narrative, Alex clearly and deliberately insists that his actions are not Oedipal.