University Seminar Paper on "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (Patreon)

The reason I'm uploading academic work here is because this is the shit that contributed to me getting an arm cramp and having to go to physiotherapy, so its just as much a part of my story as anything else. I passed a course with this essay, but I want to double dip its usefulness by also uploading it here as a pretend tactic that I'm actually prolific as a writer. The picture of Dorian Gray is genuinely one of the best books I've ever read, so give it a try (uncensored version if you can).

As you all doubtlessly know I am attending the university of Zürich for a bachelor's in English Linguistics and literature with a minor in philosophy. This is an essay I wrote for a literature class I took, and it got the grade 5/6 (Which in the swiss system is about 80% of the grade)

Self-destruction: The Freudian Death Instinct Directed at Parts of One’s Externalized Self in Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray.”


Oscar Wilde was an Irish poet and playwright who was sentenced to prison for the crime of gross indecency in 1895. Gross indecency was the code-word for homosexual relations (Bristow). It is ironic that Wilde wrote a novel which dealt with this very same moral repression of Victorian society only a few years before his sentence. It is in "The Picture of Dorian Gray," that he plays around with the idea of an aesthetic life-style which goes beyond the conventional moral boundaries of the time. Wilde died in 1900, which made him for a brief time a contemporary of Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis. The two were further connected due to the fact that they both explored in their works, be they fictional or academic, the psychology of repression and desire. The most essential theorem posited by Freud is that the human mind is guided by a variety of subconscious drives. Freud divides these drives into Eros, the life drive and Thanatos, the death drive. It is the various expressions of these drives that are repressed to allow the human entity experiencing them to participate in society and benefit from its advantages (Freud, 1961). One example of how these societal demands can be arbitrary for the time period is the fact that in Victorian England homosexuality was illegal, while today non-heterosexual couples can marry in most European countries. Victorian England in general exerted a harsh dictate on behaviour and morality on its citizens, which meant that one had to abstain from many sensual pleasures to retain one’s reputation (Kidd). This spawned many cultural countermovements, one of which was aestheticism. Aestheticism denounced the sober morality and middle-class values that characterized the Victorian Age and embraced beauty as the chief pursuit of life (Quintus). It is Dorian Gray, the protagonist Wilde’s novel, who discards these moral values to the extreme, indulging in any sensual pleasures he desires, for example, sex with the same gender. The novel was so scandalous for the time that it was used as evidence against Wilde in court for his charge of gross indecency. It is perhaps due to this focus on sexuality and hedonism that Wilde’s contemporary critics in read the novel merely as a corrupting tale of a young man seduced by the older Lord Henry Wotton to lead an immoral and sexually scandalous life deprived of any social norms (Neumann). However, this oversimplified reading fails to appreciate the fact that "The Picture of Dorain Gray" is also a gothic novel. Gothic literature puts a focus on supernatural events, overwrought emotions and psychology (Mulvey-Roberts). While “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” is an aesthetic work reflecting through its prose and in the character of Lord Henry, on questions of sensual pleasures and social standards (Neumann). The novel’s genre of gothic also allows for a reading less focused on questions of aestheticism. Gothic writing tends to present a fantastic world of indulgence and boundary-crossing. This works in tandem with aestheticism, which recognizes the terror within beauty (Riquelme). It is in this Gothic context, that the Freudian death instinct, Thanatos, becomes of particular interest. While Dorian Gray certainly indulges in the activities associated with the life instinct, it is the death instinct, or rather, the aggression within it that finds a most fascinating victim. The victim of Dorian's sadism and aggression becomes in part the very portrait which serves as a reflection of the status of his soul, which is the supernatural object allowing him to commit these immoral deeds without societal consequences “To see my soul!” (Wilde, 216). This suggests that the death instinct is so strong in humans, that it may even be directed at an externalized part of one’s identity.

"The Picture of Dorian Gray," was a contemporary novel at the time of its release in 1890, which means that the social values and moral standards inherent to Victorian society depicted within it should be a reflection of the historical period. One of the examples of how Victorian morals in reality mirrored those in the novel is the fact that homosexuality was at the time a criminal offense. The plot-line in the novel that mirrors this social reality is the character of Alan Campbell, a chemist with homosexual proclivities that had been intimately involved with Dorian, the protagonist. When Dorian murders Basil Hallward, the painter of his portrait, it is to Alan whom he turns for help in disposing the corpse. Dorian threatens to reveal Alan's sexuality to the public in a note if he does not help him get rid of the body. “If you don’t help me, I must send it,” (Wilde, 236). The fact that Alan accedes to the blackmail, rather than having his sexual proclivities become public, indicates that the act would have led to similarly disastrous consequences as Wilde’s own sentencing did in reality.
Victorian society was also very focused on public image, which was easily tarnished by scandal. Special focus was put on personal appearance (Lennox). An example from the novel is a conversation between Henry and Basil. Basil notes that: "With an evening coat and a white tie, as you told me once, anybody, even a stock-broker, can gain a reputation for being civilized,” (Wilde, 78). This sentence establishes that Victorian society was going to judge him based on how he dressed. This consolidates the importance of appearances. This point is further underscored by the fact that during the narrative, Dorian is free from suspicion for the crimes he has indulged it, simply because he did not look like a criminal. Basil for example, like many others, refuses to believe any rumours circling around Dorian simply because of the latter’s innocent face (Wilde, 215). The third indication of the strict standards of Victorian society as depicted in the novel is the character of Lord Henry. According to Freud, human identity is composed of the ego, the ID and the super-ego. The ego is the mediator between the base and impulsive desires of the ID and the societal pressures enforced by the internalized super-ego (Daniel K. Lapsley). If a group of people can be seen symbolically as the societal ego, there will always be people either enforcing moral standards as substitute for the super-ego or rebelling against them as a stand in for the ID. In this novel urge to rebellion is represented by Lord Henry, who expounds eloquently on the virtues of a life spent pursuing sensual pleasures instead of repressing them. In the words of Dorian, Lord Henry proposes, “a new Hedonism that was to recreate life… save it from the puritanism,” (Wilde, 192). It can be concluded that if Victorian society did not in the first place repress these sensual pleasures, Lord Henry would not need to rebel against their repression. The other main influence on Dorian is Basil Hallward, who sexualizes Dorian as an aesthetic object at the very beginning and throughout the novel (Wilde, 172). Basil and Lord Henry serve as outstanding figures in Victorian society who do not fit into the constraints of Christian social norms: Basil struggles with his homosexuality and Lord Henry tries to lead a nihilistic life free from social pressure and responsibility. They are two individualists, each of them trying to shape Dorian according to their own ideals (Neumann). It is these two characters who have the largest influence on Dorian's transformation from innocent young man to experienced sinner. Basil influences it by introducing him symbolically to gross indecency through his aesthetic desire and lust and Lord Henry by giving him the theoretical background and justification of an aesthetic lifestyle and creating in him the desire to live a life spent disregarding social expectations rather than being shackled by them. However, while it is these influences that grow Dorian’s desire to live a life of debauchery, it is his portrait created by Basil that allows him to actually do so without the repercussions that would have otherwise made it unattainable.

Dorian Gray’s portrait is super natural in how it takes on the physical attributes of his age and sins, which leads to him externalizing it from his identity. Dorian notices the supernatural properties of the portrait, after his unjust handling of his betrothed Sibyl causes it to develop a cruel mouth (Wilde, 148). In addition to the value that Victorians put on appearance, it was also commonly believed that one's outer appearance reflected one's character. Physiognomy posits that one’s character can be read from the body (Lennox). It was this contemporary preoccupation with the pseudoscience, that allowed Dorian to evade retribution for his actions for so long. No Victorian can conceive that his unaltered angelic appearance could hide such sins (Wilde, 215). The portrait thus serves Dorian as the perfect alibi and becomes his chief enabler, shielding him from the societal consequences that his deeds would have otherwise resulted in. While Basil and Lord Henry partially serve as the motive for Dorian's fall from grace, it is the portrait that makes such a life possible at all. However, while Dorian views the portrait as his soul given physical appearance, “I will show you my soul,” (Wilde, 217) and this should rightly mean that Dorian should consider it a part of his own identity, Dorian instead alienates himself from the portrait. This phenomenon can be analysed through the lens of the mirror stage theory in Lacanian psychoanalysis. The theory posits that infants perceive themselves as fragmented and diffused before the onset of what is called the mirror stage. They are unaware that they exist in direct relation to their surroundings and their identity is closely tied to that of the mother. Infants do not yet realize that all the parts they see as separate, such as their limbs, constitute a unified entity. It is only when they see for the first time their specular image, that they begin to see themselves as complete. Through entering this mirror stage, the ego is formed. The reflection is extremely powerful as it appears to be everything that the infant wants to be. The gestalt is autonomous, stable, and has a complete form. This discrepancy between the perfect specular image and the imperfect subject evokes feelings of adoration resulting in narcissism, but also hate and aggression, since it cannot conceive reaching the ideal of the image. The most crucial part of the mirror stage is the child's identification with their specular image, which paves the way for the child's inevitable self-alienation along with establishing the ego as being dependent upon the Other. The child does not realize that the reflection is merely a reflection of its true self. It falsely believes that the image is its actual self, constituting thus the ego. (ŠUBERTOVÁ) (Lacan). Like all toddlers Dorian underwent this mirror stage at some point in his childhood, falsely identifying himself with the mirror-image, making the self-identification, the ego, dependant on the reflection. It is already in a conversation between Basil and Lord Henry that a reversal of this process in Dorian is preluded. Basil says: “You really must not say things like that before Dorian, Harry.” Lord Henry’s answer is: “Before which Dorian? The one who is pouring our tea, or the one in the picture?” (Wilde, 105). At the time the picture was recently painted and thus still perfectly reflected Dorian’s appearance. It is when the portrait first shifts after Sybill’s death and no longer shows a perfect rendition of Dorian as he is, that this mirroring process undergoes a reversal in Dorian’s eyes as well. He looks into the portrait and sees his face altered. It is no longer him. He moves it from his bedroom into the attic, symbolically distancing himself from it (Wilde, 154). The portrait becomes externalized to Dorian's self and with it, Dorian also alienates his own soul, which is reflected an object that he sees as foreign. What remains is the aggression, and Dorian can finally destroy the mirror that once mocked him by holding over him an image of unattainable perfection. Destroying one’s soul is a horrendous choice most do not actively make. Dorian has gotten the opportunity to destroy a portrait, however, which just so happens to be a reflection of his soul.

The aggression derived from the death instinct is not typically exerted on the person it belongs to as if they were an external entity. The death instinct is generally internalized. The aggression serves the superego in punishing the ego when it is not following the idealistic goals of perfection instilled into a person when they were a child. The superego is the source of moral censorship and conscience and the internalized death instinct is the enforcer of these ideals (Daniel K. Lapsley). The aggression drive is internalized according to Freud when a child's father withdraws their love, generally as a punishment for misdeeds. The child aggresses against the father due to this lack of love, but feels guilty because it still loves the father. The child's subconscious eventually uses this interplay to internalize the aggression into its superego, directed now at the acts that caused the withdrawal of love in the first place. The child becomes sensitised to societal norms and punishes itself for failures of conformity (Freud, 1961). When Dorian first begins experiencing what would later be the privileges of the portrait, the cruelness of the mouth appearing on the portrait, not him, he does not immediately reject all those years of social conditioning which had internalized his aggression drive and thus shackled his expressions of the life instinct. At first, after Sybil's death he feels incredibly guilty and does not wish to repeat an act like this, “I was terribly cruel to her,” (Wilde, 160). However, a curious development occurs. Despite the fact that he acted callously and created the circumstances for the death of the young girl, nobody truly sees the criminality which he feels is so clearly depicted on his face and the inquiry into her death never even finds out his involvement as her betrothed (Wilde, 182). Rather than just taking on the consequences of the physical change, the portrait has taken on any suspicion that could have come Dorian's way. The withdrawal of love from society for transgression against commonly held moral beliefs mirrors in part the withdrawal of love from the father which caused the internalization of the death instinct into the superego. The portrait causes Dorian’s life to undergo a paradigm shift in the context of which none of his bad deeds are punished by clear-cut consequences from society, such as a jail sentence. Society's implicit approval in the face of misdeeds, by not punishing them, becomes a reason for the death instinct to once again become externalized. Freud had a pessimistic view on humanity, similarly to Schopenhauer, who famously thought that even if humans were to live in utopia, they would still find reasons to kill one another (Schopenhauer). Both of them would thus agree with the suggestion that if a human were to experience no negative consequences for their misdeeds, either from society or their superego, they would not be sufficiently motivated to stop committing then as long as these continued to provide them with pleasure. This is exactly what happens to Dorian, who accordingly begins living a life of unfettered sensual pleasures. He falls into the depths of aesthetic materialism, collecting exotic and expensive items (Wilde, 195). He abuses drugs such as opium (Wilde, 201). He also engages, as seen through the example of Alan Campbell in promiscuity. These expressions of the life instinct are not however enough out of the norm to require further analysis. It is clear that if alcohol had no negative consequences on the health or social stigma, many more people would drink it. However, the aggression inherent in the death instinct is something which would preferably remain contained even if there were no consequences. That is because aggression requires a victim and if for no other purpose, a victim can testify against their aggressor in court or take revenge themselves, thus making aggression a risky pleasure. Thanatos, the death instinct represents the human urge to return to the state one had before one was born. Its expressions are often counteracted by eros, the life instinct towards the non-suicidal. This diffusion can lead to the discharge of death instincts towards objects or people which then takes the form of aggression, destructiveness, or sadism (Daniel K. Lapsley)

Dorian first expresses the desire to dominate others by wishing to control Sybill's identity and being dissatisfied to the point of verbal assault when she works against his desires to own a wonderful actress “, you would have belonged to me,” (Wilde, 145). This verbal assault partially leads to Sybill's suicide and while Dorian fears being involved in the inquiry about her death, he remains uninvolved in the consequences of his deeds. An issue becomes apparent as Dorian falls into a life of hedonism. While the portrait can take the fall for these mostly victimless acts of eros, considering that drug-dealers and prostitutes are unlikely to go to the police to report the illegality of their own services. Thanatos always leaves a victim, be it dead or disfigured. While those men with whom Dorian engages in homosexual acts with might rather be blackmailed than reveal the truth, as shown in the case of Alan Campbell (Wilde, 23), victims of his aggression would have all the reason to reveal his misdeeds despite the supposed alibi granted by the portrait. Dorian is likely not consciously aware of his desire to live out his aggression drive as well as his life instinct. However, as he spends more and more time gazing and finding the new faults he has managed to carve into his image through his deeds, he begins to experience a sort of sadistic satisfaction at degrading the portrait “more and more interested in the corruption of his soul,” “he mocked the misshapen body and the failing limbs” (Wilde, 188). It seems inevitable in hindsight that this now externalized part of him would become the perfect victim for the more aggressive side of his desires. The portrait is inanimate, cannot speak, cannot escape. If someone were to find it, they would, not knowing its original state, they would simply presume it to be a very ugly portrait, rather than a victim of abuse. Through this victim and its offsetting of the consequences, growing uglier with every pleasure, Dorian can play with his death instinct by living out the life instinct. This represents a perfect situation for a budding hedonist and sadist and Dorian lives out almost the rest of his life simply pursuing intense pleasures and sensations. The only people other than Dorian who could perhaps identify the portrait as a victim and as a supernatural reflection of Dorian's soul are the painter who created it and Lord Henry. It is the former who gets to see it (Wilde, 222). Upon showing Basil the portrait, Dorian murders the painter, he murders Basil to hide his crimes and because of an onset of hatred at the person who had granted him the supernatural object which led him to ruin (Wilde, 223). After a long drought of real human objects, he manages to live out his aggression drive in the context of defending his life. A threat which he himself has created by showing the portrait to Basil, arguably as an excuse to commit murder. It seems doubtful that Dorian would escalate to murder as an immediate reaction, without having in the past lived out his death instincts in smaller, more digestible pieces. This implies that Dorian was more than just a nymphomaniac, a drug addict and a materialist. It is not shown in the novel what other acts Dorian has committed at that point. However, we know that in addition to his expressions of Eros, at least the portrait and Sybill suffered the consequences of his aggression, sadism and wish to dominate others. The original intent of the death instinct is to return the experiencer back into the state that they held before they were born. Dorian has already lived out all instances or Eros and most instances of Thanatos, most recently a murder. Thus, there is only one act left for him to commit.

The American psychiatrist Karl A. Menninger divides the death instinct into three parts: A wish to kill, to be killed, and to die (Manheim). Through the conclusion of the novel Dorian fulfils all three of these wishes. While he has found a sadistic pleasure in mutilating the portrait and with it, himself, it is only here that he manages to fulfil the highest imperative of the death instinct. However, it is also here that Dorian's death instinct is once again misplaced. The aggression drive of Dorian, which had previously been externalized, experiences another reversal. This is because it is at the end of the novel that Dorian commits one of the final sins that he had previously not. Basil sees and is horrified at what Dorian has done to himself. The fact that someone has once again realised what he has done and his latter act of murder, brings Dorian's aggression drive straight back into his own body. In other words. This expression of the death instinct is once again internalized. This instinct demands along with his super-ego that he punish himself. He regains a sense of morality and tries to do good deeds to reverse the damage, however, he fails as he has become too deranged of a person. He considers that not ruining a girl by taking her as a mistress is a kindness (Wilde, 245). Suffice to say that his laughable attempt at redemption results in his symbolic destruction of the portrait, the object that Dorian considers to be the cause of all that gone wrong in his life. He once again attempts to escape the consequences of his actions, thinking perhaps that destroying the portrait will allow him to live the life he once had (Wilde, 252). However, with the internalization of the death instinct, the destruction of the portrait becomes the murder of himself. Dorian's life fulfils the aim of the death instinct to return to the original inanimate state, as opposed to the life instinct that seek self-preservation. "Death is the ‘real result’ of life and therefore so far its aim, while the sexual instinct is the incarnation of the will to live,” (Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle). Dorian has succeeded in all aspects of the human death instinct. He has killed, been killed, and died, all at once with the slash of his knife. He even manages to return to complete anonymity as his corpse becomes unrecognizable under the weight of his sins, taking all the physical changes previously contained in the portrait at once (Wilde, 252). Dorian committed many sins during his hedonistic life. The wanton infliction of sadistic aggression on one's self, or what one perceives as other completes the ugly mark of corruption worn by Dorian's portrait in the end. This reading off the novel and the death instinct being afflicted on even the self once one considers it even tangentially separate showcases quite clearly the pessimistic look on humanity common at the time (Goodale).

Despite the aesthetic focus on sensual pleasures which can generally be associated with Eros, it was Thanatos which truly drove the plot of the novel forwards. Freud wrote that humanity was inherently violent and that neurotic societies tended to project their aggression outwards and inwards (Freud, 1961). “The Picture of Dorian Gray” is a curious addition to this world view, due to the way that its protagonist directs his aggression drive towards a part of himself which he considers separate. It posits the possibility that humanity as a species is so hopelessly in the throes of the death instinct that even we ourselves are only protected from our desire to dominate others by the thinnest sheet of self-identification and the consequences for our actions. A parable can be seen in the way Dorian behaves after he finds out that his actions have no consequences, to the way how modern people behave when playing video games. The recursive nature of a game allows one to kill innocent characters and reload to an earlier save file so as to not suffer the consequences of the crime. If this paper’s reading of humanity's aggression is thus feasible, it might have worrying implications as we move into a world of meta-reality in which everyone shall embody a variety of virtual identities, with the real life consequences of online wallets and crimes.

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