Lacanian Interpretation of Dorian Gray's Self-Identifying under the Influence of Others

Abstract

In Oscar Wilde's only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, the protagonist Dorian Gray undergoes the psychological journey from ignorance to self-realization under the influence of Others including Lord Henry Wotton, artist Basil Hallward, and the magic portrait. It is due to the profound impact from the outside world that Dorian Gray alienates from his original self and remolds himself into an entity that is guided by Others. In interacting with Others, especially the intrusive patriarchal signifier, Dorian Gray acquires his self-identity through accepting and modulating his various images reflected in others' discourses, which can be interpreted in relation to the progression of three phases of Jacques Lacan's Mirror Stage Theory and three levels of semiotic complexity. A Lacanian reading of the early mirror stage of ego formation can be extended to better understand Dorian Gray's self-construction process on both a psychoanalytical and semiotic level, with an emphasis that Dorian Gray's journey to search for self is based on the powerful influence of the Others. The paper suggests that characters around Dorian Gray are playing respective roles of mother, father, and the mirror that dominate an infant's self-identification between Lacanian Imaginary and Symbolic orders.