Psychosexual Identity: An Analysis of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray

Abstract

Psychosexuality derives the force of undefined sexual development establish with the growing age with Freud’s personality controller “id”, “ego” and “superego”. The character Dorian Gray, in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray is developing a psychosexual identity. He encounters several difficult events in his life and progressively transitions to a hedonistic lifestyle. Dorian whose beauty was captured by artist Basil Hallward made a bargain with his own painting to prevent him from growing older and losing his youth. He was willing to sell his soul in exchange for the image to in order to remain beautiful. In due process h lost his identity. When he realized that his quest for beauty had triumphed over reality, he stabbed his painting and in the process, put an end to his sinful life. Thus this novel initiates a conversation between body and psyche with painting or art revealing the double roles of art in influencing personality. On the one hand, art can provide people pleasure and on the other misinterpreting art can cause serious harm in both personality and society. Thus this paper tries to showcase the psychosexual identity of the character Dorian Gray through an analysis of the Wilde’s work The Picture of Dorian Gray.