An Orchestration of Narcissistic Expressions in John Osborne’s The Picture of Dorian Gray -A Moral Entertainment: A Reflection on Kohutian Self Psychology Psychoanalysis

Abstract

This paper aims to provide an interdisciplinary space for fruitful debate concerning psychoanalytical representations of narcissism, narcissistic personality disorder, and its implications in artistic, literary, and health discourses. A close textual reading of John Osborne's most impressive play, The Picture of Dorian Gray: A Moral Entertainment, reveals narcissistic traits or abnormal behavior patterns in the protagonist, Dorian Gray, who, like the mythological narcissus, orchestrates a flurry of interpersonal abuse and antagonism. As such, the critical analysis and interpretation of the main character, Dorian, provides new therapeutic understanding to clinicians, academicians, parents, and mental health enthusiasts around the world and thereby helps recognize individuals with symptoms of NPD and efficiently deal with them on the grounds of empathy and wisdom as encapsulated in self-psychology psychoanalysis.