The Narcissism of The Picture of Dorian Gray

As a core concept in modern psychology and psychoanalysis, Freud’s theory of narcissism offers a crucial perspective for exploring the complex human mental structure and bears profound connections with the myth of Narcissus in literary contexts. Oscar Wilde’s classic novel The Picture of Dorian Gray is regarded as a modern reworking of the Narcissus tradition. Through the psychological alienation of its characters caught between aestheticism and extreme egocentrism, the work vividly reveals the pathological traits and destructive consequences of narcissism. However, this has not attracted enough academic attention. While recent scholarship has extensively examined Wilde’s gothic features (Robinson, 2021) and his aesthetic sublimity (Behroo, 2024), the precise application of Freud’s developmental model of primary and secondary narcissism to adult character pathology in the novel remains underexplored. Drawing on Freud’s theory of narcissism, this paper conducts a systematic analysis of the underlying mental structures and cognitive predicament embedded in the novel.