A Glance at a Twisted Mind: A Psychoanalytic Approach to Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray

Abstract

The Picture of Dorian Gray (Wilde, 1890) is a novel that has aroused the interest of many scholars because of this darkness and the complexity of the character in the title. Dorian Gray is presented as a handsome young man who is easily corrupted by his friend Lord Henry into a life of pleasure which stands in contrast with the Victorian morality of the time and which Wilde himself pursued, connected in his case to the Aesthetic Movement of which he was part. This character is particularly interesting to analyse because of his peculiar philosophy of life and his notorious behaviour. His later attempt at redemption at the end of Wilde’s novel is also remarkable. The aim of this dissertation is to analyse from a psychoanalytic perspective the psyche of the main character and how it stands in conflict with the Victorian morality of late-19th-century London. For this, I will have recourse to central concepts of psychoanalytical theory such as paranoia, neurosis, and narcissism that in Dorian may be said to achieve pathological proportions and that, in a way, explain his tragic ending. Freudian notions of the double and the triad Ego-Id-Superego will further serve to offer a wider picture of Dorian Gray, particularly in relation to the influence that Lord Henry and Basil exert over him. Major works by the father of psychoanalysis such as The Ego and the Id (1923) or On Narcissism (Freud, 1914) will be explicitly referred to and commented upon