Forsake Thy Art, Forsake Thyself

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FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND BUSINESS STUDIES

Department of Humanities

Forsake Thy Art, Forsake Thyself

A Lacanian Reading of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray

Andreas Svensson

2020

Student thesis, Bachelor degree, 15 HE English

English (61-90) 30p Supervisor: Iulian Cananau

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Abstract

This essay argues, with the help of Lacanian psychoanalysis, that Dorian Gray, the protagonist in Oscar Wilde’s novel, fails to abide by the rules governed by the culture of society. It is argued that Lacan’s theories about the mirror stage develop Dorian’s character and his realizations of his true self as part of the culture which shapes him. The mirror is represented by the four characters Basil Hallward, Lord Henry Wotton, Sibyl Vane, and Sibyl’s brother James. Basil, Henry, and Sibyl are all representations of different aspects of the mirror explained by Lacan’s theories, and these three characters help Dorian realize his true identity and self.

Keywords:

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Introduction

Oscar Wilde’s novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, is a story of deep desire where art and youth are cultural aspects of great importance. The novel follows the corrupt double life of the adolescent Dorian Gray, who indulges his desires of youth while at the same time illustrating a respectable image of himself in the eyes of his aristocratic companionship. Throughout the novel, Dorian evolves his personality from being one who shows signs of childlike indifference to one who attempts to adapt to the attitudes of the mature world of culture and ideology. It turns out, however, that Dorian struggles while adapting to this cultural world, and that his struggle arises to be one of finding his true self in the mature world of culture and ideology.

The novel gets its name from a painting composed by the artist Basil Hallward, who, in the opening chapters, expresses his desire to create the painting of Dorian Gray after seeing him at a social gathering. Basil quickly gets fascinated by Dorian’s beauty, and this marks the beginning of what will be a story of decadence and horror due to Dorian Gray’s development of character. The moment Basil finishes his picture, Dorian Gray sees his youthfulness while at the same time realizing that his youth encapsulated in the painting will always belong to the painting and that his own self will mature and deteriorate. The realizations of the youth of the painting and his aging self arguably come from the ideals set forth by one of Basil’s acquaintances, Lord Henry Wotton. Shortly after a verbal exchange with Lord Henry, who remarks that youth is one of life’s most exceptional concepts, Dorian desires that the exquisite portrait of himself would carry his aging and that the eternal youth captured in the painting would be forever his. This wish marks the beginning of Dorian Gray’s personal development.

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2 above. The other two are a girl named Sibyl Vane and her brother James. All of these characters support the development of Dorian’s character in various ways, and what this essay will argue is that Basil Hallward’s painting initiates Dorian’s character

development. Throughout the novel, the painting functions as a mirror, and a sort of reflection that shows Dorian Gray’s inner workings, which encapsulates Dorian’s inner transformation of emotion and maturity. The painting reflects and changes as an effect of Dorian’s actions towards the characters mentioned above, firstly and primarily due to his actions done do Sibyl Vane and Basil Hallward. Furthermore, the realizations of the changes in the painting cause Dorian to question himself and his identity in the

sociocultural environment.

The novel will be read using literary theory on psychoanalysis, and namely by the theories put forth by the French psychoanalyst Jacque Lacan, whose work, according to Barry, has had a great influence on many aspects of literary theory both during and after Lacan’s lifetime (110). Lacan’s study of the mirror stage is arguably his most

influential and vital work, which is initiated within an infant’s mind when it looks upon itself in a mirror and realizes and recognizes that it is a separate entity disconnected from its mother. Lacan’s work on the mirror stage is of relevance in Dorian Gray’s development because, as it will be shown, Dorian’s realization of himself after looking upon himself in his portrait causes him to enter into what will be explained as the Imaginary and the Symbolic Order. Indeed, the way Dorian Gray behaves after his realization of himself tells us both about the cultural world in which he awakens and how he responds to ideologies set forth by the characters in the novel. What the analysis will argue is that Dorian fails to abide by the rules of the cultural world and the world of the symbolic. Dorian’s life-long yearning and his motivation are to return to the

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3 concepts put forth by Jacque Lacan’s work, and explain the concepts surrounding the mirror stage.

Lacanian Concepts and Theory

During the 1930s, Jacques Lacan carried out clinical research about what he would refer to as the mirror stage, which is the moment in an infant’s life when it looks in a mirror and recognizes itself as a separate being apart from its mother. Lacan

explains that when the child is six months of age, a moment when it is still unable to walk or feed itself (Fry), it can recognize itself in a mirror as a separate individual even though it has an instrumental intelligence of a chimpanzee (Lacan 1). It sees itself as an “I,” which is separated from the world of the Imaginary, and Lacan mentions that the mirror stage is a “drama,” which converts the infant’s fantasy of being a “fragmented body-image to a form of its totality” (Lacan 4). In other words, just as objects in an infant’s environment are objects to be explored (such as a rattle or a blanket), an infant’s toes, fingers, and other parts of the body turn from being dislocated objects to be

examined to objects which it is unified with (Tyson 27). The infant sees itself as a complete individual separated from the imaginary unification with the mother, as opposed to fragmented parts of the whole to be explored. Hence, it sees itself as a separate body.

The Imaginary and the Symbolic

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4 there is no distinction between self and the Other (115). The Imaginary is a realm where the child considers the images around it as parts of unity with oneself (Williams 59), and the child sees itself and the objects around it as a unity. Due to this, it considers the world to be full and complete (Tyson 27). According to Michael Ryan, the Imaginary is the inner workings of the ego, which is what makes the child feel good about itself, and the child associates the wholeness and unity with the mother (Ryan 117). In the mirror, the child notices coherence, coordination, and sees itself in a perfect world where it is the object of mother’s desire (Fry; Tyson 27). The child is all the mother needs, just as the mother is all the child needs.

After the realization of the Imaginary order, the child acquires language (Fry), and after that, it traverses into the world of the Symbolic Order (Tyson 28). Tyson explains that the transfer into the Symbolic Order is an experience of separation from others, and is, indeed, the most significant separation from the experienced union with the mother and the world of the Imaginary. This separation from the mother constitutes an essential experience of loss that people attempt to seek substitutes for their entire life to once again experience. Because a child feels disunified with the world around it, the child requires words so it can make sense of the world, and Tyson mentions that “[a child would not] need words as stand-ins for things if [it] still felt that [it] was an inseparable part of those things” (29). Referring back to the previous example of the word

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5 lack of unity by buying a flashier car or a bigger house (28). These objects that

substitute the unity of the mother are only metonymic objects of desire, and Fry explains that an individual can never get what it desires because what it desires can never be achieved. Fry further explains that the metonymic object of desire is like an “asymptotic course,” which is regarded as a “line that curves toward the line it wants to meet but never reaches” (168).

Before moving on, it is necessary to explain that Lacan differentiates between the objet petit a, or the other with a lowercase o, and the Other with a capital O. The lowercase other (or autre which is the French word for other) is used to refer to things that stand out from the Imaginary self and the image of the “ideal I” to which a person identifies. According to Tyson, the other refers to “me”, it influences only “me”, and it is what “puts me in touch with my repressed desire for my lost object” (28). It is, therefore, the representation of the lost object of desire, and, as mentioned by Tyson, it represents our “preverbal fantasy union with our mother” (29). The capital Other (or grand Autre in French) refers to the Symbolic Order. Further, it refers to the signifier (the word), and to other objects connected to the world outside the imaginary. The Other, in other words, affects not only me, but it affects and influences everyone because everyone lives in and must abide by the world of the Symbolic Order. Both the “other” and the “Other” will be used throughout the essay.

The Unconscious and the Linguistic Sign

The notions of lack and loss are two essential concepts in Lacanian

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6 Tyson explains, the initial repression of our desire creates the unconscious (29). The most famous quote from Lacan’s work arguably comes from his essay “The Meaning of the Letter,” where he states that the “unconscious is the whole structure of language” (Lacan 147, Barry 113). Lacan was greatly influenced by the work of Ferdinand de Saussure, whose work argued for the arbitraries of the sign. Saussure meant that

meaning is a network of differences and that there is a border between the signifier (the word) and the signified (the referent) (Barry113). Lacan uses a simplified algorithm displayed as a big “S” separated by fraction line over a small “s,” which is read as “the signifier over the signified” (Lacan 149). Fry remarks that “…the relationship between the signifier and the signifier … is an arbitrary one that cannot be crossed by evoking anything natural in the nature of the signified”, that is, it is the signifier (the big S, the word) that generates the signified (the small s, the referent). This means that without the word, there can be no way to grasp what the signified is.

What Lacan did in his development of the unconscious was to look at Freud’s ideas about two essential terms in psychoanalysis when analyzing dreams. Preceding Lacan, Freud argued that repressed fears or desires from the conscious mind are condensed into the unconscious and appear to us as objects in the dream world. Barry mentions that condensation works as two or more images in the conscious mind; a Latin lover and a feared father, for example, might appear like a condensed image of a Roman soldier in the dream world (101). Similarly, an object as part of something bigger may displace the complete image and appear in the dream as only a part of the whole. Lacan took Freud’s terms condensation and displacement and applied them to his ideas of the signifier over the signified. He translated the two terms into the standard terms of language identified by the linguist Roman Jakobson, namely metaphor and metonymy. In theory, Lacan’s argument that the unconscious is structured like a language, that is, that the sign comes first and the referent second, would then regard metaphor as

S

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7 multiple things brought together into one object. Tyson highlights an example of

metaphor and says that a dream where one is being chased by a hungry lion (the big S) can represent a tough situation at work, a displeased partner, and unpaid bills (the small s) where all three concepts gives one displeasure (30). Metonymy, on the other hand, is commonly used in literature where a complete image is represented as a stand-in for another, and Tyson exemplifies this where a red rose (the big S) can be a stand-in for my love (the small s) because a red rose is soft to the touch, beautiful to look at, but has thorns (30). So, both metaphor and metonymy can be used as signifiers over the

signified.

Language, Power and Ideology in the Symbolic Order

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8 understands the world of the Symbolic Order and that it contains rules and prohibitions which are authored by the metonymic father, that is, men as the role of the authority in society. The imaginary phallus of the father represents the structure of power in society governed by the symbolic equivalent of the penis, which represents complete patriarchal power. The lack and loss of patriarchal power, which the child notices as mother’s desire, are the core of the concepts of loss and lack (31).

While having explained the Imaginary and the Symbolic, Lacan used one more concept in his theory, and that is the notion of the Real. The Real is what lies beyond all human meaning-making systems, and it is the world outside ideology and what society has created to attempt to explain human existence (Tyson 32). The Real is our world without any form of filters, buffers, or other forms of interpretable meaning-making systems. According to Tyson, the Real is when humans see through ideology, when we suspect that things such as religion, or the meaning of life, are mistakes or the result of chance (32). Tyson explains that the ideologies of the world are like a curtain and that the concept of Real is what lies beyond the curtain. We cannot look behind the curtain, but we can anxiously imagine that the Real is there, and Lacan calls this feeling of anxiety the “trauma of the Real” (Tyson 32). Finally, Tyson mentions that the Real is “hidden beneath the ideologies of society,” and that the Real is beyond the capacity of our control.

The notion of seeking what a person desires is an essential part of Lacanian theory because the driving forces of the person are regarded as finding the lost object of desire. The lost object of desire refers to anything that puts a person in touch with the

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9 characters in a novel strive to achieve, we can understand what encourages them to reach the realm of the preverbal stage, and to return to the Imaginary Order.

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The Representations of Dorian Gray’s Mirror

What has been outlined thus far is the Lacanian branch of psychoanalysis, and concepts such as the mirror stage, the Imaginary, the Symbolic, and the Real have been explained. One of the core concepts mentioned regarding the Lacanian theory on literature is to find the character’s lost object of desire and to identify what motivates the character to find this lost object. To recap, the lost object of desire refers to the imaginary union with the mother and the desire to once again return to the dimension of the imaginary and the preverbal stage. In this section, the roles of Basil, Lord Henry, and Sibyl Vane will be outlined. What will be argued is that these three characters represent three different forms of Dorian Gray’s mirror. The section will start with the representation of Basil Hallward, and continue with the cultural mirror of Lord Henry Wotton, and conclude with Sibyl Vane. The significance of Sibyl’s brother James Vane will be developed in a later section.

Basil Hallward

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11 speaking to Lord Henry in the first chapter, he mentions that the “sitter is merely the accident,” and that it is the painter who reveals himself in the work of art. By displaying the painting publicly, Basil understands the public will see the inner secrets of his soul concealed in the painting.

Basil is the creator and provider of the painting, or the mirror, where Dorian Gray sees himself. When Dorian Gray sees himself in the portrait, he recognizes himself for the first time as a unity of art. Dorian stands in front of the painting both motionless and in wonder, and senses that his “own beauty [comes] over him like a revelation” (Wilde 27). Before his moment of revelation, Dorian mentions while being drawn that he is “tired of sitting,” and that he does not want a portrait of himself. Wilde further describes Dorian as a “lad, swinging round on a music-stool, in a [willful], petulant manner” (18). By describing Dorian in this manner, Dorian shows traits of a childlike entity that does not understand how to behave and how to act in society. Dorian is, in a way, present in the world of the Imaginary by acting in this manner, and has not yet traversed into the Lacanian concept of the Symbolic Order.

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12 Basil notices that Dorian shows signs of resentment toward the painting, and during this instance, Basil realizes that Dorian starts to speak as if transformed by the painting. Dorian had arguably changed both by his conversations with Lord Henry and by looking in the painting. When Basil notices Dorian’s transformation, he wishes to destroy the painting because he resents the transformation that occurred within Dorian. As Basil walks up to the painting, ready to destroy it, Dorian cries that “[i]t would be murder” (29). Dorian then accepts the painting as being himself, and he realizes that the painting is him and that he is the painting. If Basil were to destroy the painting, Dorian too would be destroyed, and this is arguably because Dorian has already seen himself in the mirror. Because Dorian looked inside the portrait, he entered into the mirror stage, and by doing so, his division between the Imaginary and the Symbolic Orders began. He starts to acquire the accumulated culture and Symbolic Order caused by his conversations with Lord Henry. However, he still lives in the world of the Imaginary since he notices that the painting is him and that he is still unified with the painting. Even though he realizes he will grow old and the painting will stay young, he accepts the painting as an Other. He believes he is unified with the painting, and this is an example of the Imaginary and the Symbolic Orders coexisting simultaneously.

Lord Henry Wotton

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13 “sallow, and hollow-cheeked, and dull-eyed” and that he should realize his youth while he still has it (Wilde 24), which causes Dorian to visualize himself as a young and attractive person. The youth and attractiveness, however, and as Henry illustrates, is only a temporary factor, which is further realized by Dorian when he sees his portrait for the first time. When Dorian listens to Henry speaking, Dorian acts in the same manner as he first did when he first saw his reflection in Basil’s painting. He reacts by being “open-eyed and wondering,” and “being one under a spell” while Henry speaks. Henry further notices that “the eyes of Dorian Gray [are] fixed on him” (Wilde 42), which indicates that Henry affects Dorian to develop just as the painting does.

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Sibyl Vane

An instant in the novel causes Dorian to notice a small but significant change in Basil Hallward’s painting, and this is the moment when he forsakes the love of the actress Sibyl Vane. The relationship with Sibyl Vane is a short one, and after Dorian had visited the opera where she worked, he started noticing that Sibyl Vane was a person of great beauty. He describes her as having a “flower-like face, a small Greek head with plaited coils of dark-brown hair” (Wilde 50). Dorian further explains to Basil and Henry that Sibyl has the grace of a “Tanagra figurine” (75). All of these

representations of traits and appearances suggest that Dorian Gray sees Sibyl Vane as a representation of art. He visits the opera to watch Sibyl Vane perform, and this causes Dorian to fall in love with her. Soon after this event, Dorian writes to Henry that he and Sibyl Vane are to be married.

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15 woman. After Dorian notices that the two are separate, his realm of the Imaginary causes a conflict between it and the Symbolic Order. What is true about the Symbolic Order, however, is that the woman is not art, and art is not the woman. Nevertheless, this realization of two separate entities is painful for Dorian, and it causes him to release or “destroy” the art, and by extension, the woman. The Symbolic nature of the woman and the art as one entity causes this conflict in Dorian’s unconscious mind.

In Lacanian terms, Dorian initially sees that Sibyl and the art are a union. When Sibyl performs on stage with the unified art, Dorian feels an attraction and wants to marry her so he can again feel the imaginary unification with the mother. Dorian views Sibyl and the art as a representation of the other, the Ideal I, and the ideal object of his desire. However, when Dorian notices that the woman and the art are not a unified being, he recognizes that they are both representations of the Other (the grand Autre). Because Dorian sees them as the Other, he does not recognize Sybil as a beautiful being anymore but forsakes the disunity by asking Sibyl to respect his decision to divorce her. By seeing the woman and the art as disunity, Dorian himself notices that he is not part of the unified world described by Lacan as the preverbal stage. Basil provided Dorian with the mirror, and by learning of the cultural world by Henry, Dorian has indeed woken up to the Symbolic Order. The woman, at this point, only becomes a supplement for Dorian’s desire for the Imaginary union with the mother.

Dorian’s Development of Character

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16 most magical of mirrors,” and Dorian understands that his desire and wish of receiving eternal youth in exchange for a picture that would alter as an effect, was indeed sincere. However, Wilde writes in his preface to the novel that “[t]hose who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming” (Wilde 3). So, when Dorian forsakes the beauty in Sibyl Vane, the picture changes and shows his corruption, and he loses the title of being charming because he rejected Sibyl Vane.

What caused Dorian to see the painting as an object of the Other was arguably the events after rejecting Sibyl Vane. Dorian saw that the woman and the art were not a unified being, and both Basil and Henry confirm this realization. After rejecting Sibyl Vane, Dorian notices that the picture had changed, which causes him to find the image repulsive. He understands that the painting is a representation of himself because he had previously seen the image as his ideal I. Nevertheless, now he realizes that his action towards Sibyl Vane created a new image. He still understands that it is an image of himself and that he is unified with it, but he also understands it as an object of the Other because of his knowledge of the Symbolic Order.

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17 her art, she dies because she lost her objects to make herself whole. Sibyl’s death is caused by Dorian’s actions and the painting changes as an effect.

Basil had previously shown affection toward Dorian but received none in return. Because Basil is the creator of the painting, he both saw Dorian’s personality before the drawing of the portrait and how the painting had indeed transformed Dorian with the help of Lord Henry’s conversations. In a later stage in the novel, Basil confronts Dorian and says that people in the neighborhood are talking behind Dorian’s back. Basil shows uncertainty about if he truly “knows” Dorian, and confronts him about it, asking “do I know you?” and “[b]efore I could answer that, I should have to see your soul…But only God can do that” (Wilde 146). Shortly after these remarks from Basil, Dorian states that “I shall show you my soul,” and “[y]ou shall see the thing that you fancy only God can see” (146). After this verbal exchange, Dorian invites Basil to look at the portrait he has hidden, and all the while looking at the picture, Basil displays signs of shock and confusion about the changed portrait. Basil recites a few verses from the bible while Dorian, showing signs of anger, prepares a knife and kills Basil for observing Dorian’s soul. The death of Basil, the creator, both causes Dorian to feel a “strange calm” (152) and for the painting to change even further. Dorian’s action towards Basil can arguably be due to the fact that Dorian desired to live in the Imaginary and to feel whole again. To feel whole again, Dorian removes the creator, the person who caused him to see his detachment from his Imaginary self and to enter into the world of the Symbolic.

The deaths of Sibyl and Basil caused the picture to change, and Dorian has thus far acted upon his desire to become Imaginarily unified with the mother. He has

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18 representations of art, it caused him to feel calm, relaxed, and come closer to his

Imaginary unification with the mother and the preverbal stage.

What has been argued thus far is that Basil and Sibyl together have an important role in the creation of Dorian Gray’s realization of his inner self. Basil creates art on the canvas just as Sibyl creates art on the stage. Basil creates the picture of Dorian, which Dorian falls in love with, and Sibyl creates art on stage, where Dorian again feels an attraction. So, both Basil and Sibyl are creators of beauty, just as Wilde suggests in his preface to the novel: “The artist is the creator of beautiful things“ (Wilde 3). If one looks at the names of Basil and Sibyl, one might see that they are almost created as anagrams. The only letter in their names that are irregularities are the “A,” and the “Y.” If one looks at the alphabet, the “A” comes before “Y,” just as Basil is the first person to show the painting to Dorian, and Dorian’s actions towards Sibyl causes the picture to change. In this analogy, Basil creates the painting which Dorian first sees, and Sibyl displays the updated second painting to Dorian. Basil and Sibyl are then both signifiers for the same idea, which would be the projection, or the signifier, of the painting, and they are both responsible for creating the painting for Dorian to see. Their work is arguably to make Dorian both realize his true inner self, and for him to realize himself as an Other in the world of the Symbolic Order even though he desires to stay in the world of the Imaginary.

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Indo-19 European heritage (Juhlin 9). In the case of Dorian Gray, the chalice, or his lost object of desire, could indeed be referred to his desire for eternal youth, just as, according to the legend, King Arthur sought to find the Holy Grail. The significance for the Holy Grail and Dorian’s desire could therefore indeed share this referent due to Oscar Wilde being an author from Ireland and part of the European literary canon.

Dorian’s Acceptance

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20 stage, and that people both live in the Imaginary and the Symbolic world while

searching for their lost object of desire is confirmed in Wilde’s narration of Dorian Gray. What has changed at this stage, caused by the deaths of Sibyl and Basil, is that Dorian now paints his own picture and writes his own destiny. He has, in a way, grown up to be an adult in the world of the symbolic and accepted this world as a part of himself.

With the things mentioned, Dorian has accepted the Symbolic Order and now appears to live a life as an adult human being who functions in the world of culture and society. Dorian remarks from now on that he wants to do good deeds, and tells Lord Henry that he, among other things, has found a new woman whom he wants to marry and desires to adapt to the new world to which he has awoken. Lord Henry states that Dorian reminds him of the day he first saw Dorian in Basil’s studio. Henry realizes that Dorian has changed, but not in appearance (Wilde 206). He states that “[l]ife has been your art,” “[y]ou have set yourself to music,” and “[y]our days are your sonnets” (207). By expressing himself like this, Henry, being a representation of the cultural mirror explained before, highlights Dorian as a creator of his own art, and that his art is a representation of whom he has become. When Dorian destroyed Basil, he became his own artist, and the creator of his own art.

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21 once more, he starts to wonder why he has kept the painting for as long as he had, even claiming that it once “had given him pleasure to watch it changing and growing old,” and “[o]f late he felt no such pleasure” (212). He then grabs the same knife he killed Basil with, and remarks that “[a]s it had killed the painter, so it would kill the painter’s work…” (212). After stabbing the painting with the knife, he dies as a result. The painting then changes back to its original state, and Dorian’s servants found him “withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage” on the floor with the knife in his heart (213).

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22 the stage from before looking in the painting, the moment before transferring into the world of the Imaginary and the Symbolic, and to once again return to the Imaginary union with the mother. This act of stabbing the painting is then the signifier of Dorian’s lost object of desire to return to the world of the Imaginary and to see the dimension of the Real.

Dorian cannot exist in the world without the Symbolic, because it has made him who he is. He cannot live without his past, just as he cannot exist by forsaking the thing which has made him into what he is. He forsakes Basil by killing him, which is the creator of the art and the Symbolic world that created Dorian. He rejected Sibyl Vane by destroying her art and by extension herself, and he has also forsaken his own art. Hence, by forsaking his art, he has forsaken himself.

Conclusion

This essay has discussed the determinations and motivations of Dorian Gray as a person who struggles with finding himself in the Symbolic Order. Dorian’s desire to stay in the Imaginary order caused him to kill both Basil and Sibyl because they were both creators of objects, which made Dorian understand that people and art are not a unity. Dorian began to comprehend that humans and art are instead detached entities that both live in a Symbolic world. As argued, Basil and Sibyl are both signifiers over the same signified that caused the painting to change and for Dorian to realize his inner soul. If Dorian had accepted his detachment from the painting, the image would

arguably never change, or it would possibly change to something that Dorian could instead accept.

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23 possibly never wake up to his realizations of himself as a detached person in the world of the Symbolic. Lord Henry gave Dorian a representation of the Symbolic, which he was not in harmony with, and this caused Dorian to realize that youth is the only thing worth living for. One might even argue that if Dorian had never met Lord Henry, Dorian would never have traversed down the road of desiring youth. Taking Dorian’s knowledge into account, and while looking at the portrait, Dorian was immediately aware of his youth, that he would grow old, and this is what initially caused him to despise the portrait.

One cannot however put Dorian’s development of personality on one character alone, but his progress through the mirror stage was indeed caused by all of the four people he met along the way. Basil provided him with the physical mirror where he saw himself as a form of art, and that art was detached from his own body. Lord Henry gave him knowledge of the symbolic order, a sort of cultural mirror, which caused Dorian to realize what was worth striving for in society. The death of Sibyl Vane caused the portrait, or the mirror, to change, which instigated his realization of a Symbolic Order and further development of a detachment from the art he already possessed. Finally, the encounter with James Vane made Dorian accept that he was indeed one with the

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Works Cited

Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: an Introduction To Literary and Cultural Theory. Manchester University Press, 2017. 110-20.

Fry, Paul. “13. Jacques Lacan in Theory” YouTube, uploaded by YaleCourses, 1 September 2009, www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkAXsR5WINc&t=2243s. Fry, Paul H. Theory of Literature. Yale University Press. 2012.

Juhlin, Johanna. The Medieval Myth of The Holy Grail and Its Resonance in

Contemporary Popular Culture : A Reception Theory Analysis of The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. 2018, http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hig:diva-26620.

Lacan, Jacques. “The mirror stage as formative of the function of the I as revealed in psychoanalystic experience” Écrits: A Selection. Travistock Publications Limited, London. 1977. 1-7.

Lacan, Jacques. “The agency of the letter in the unconscious or reason since Freud” Écrits: A Selection. Travistock Publications Limited, London, 1977. 147-59. Mellard, James M. Using Lacan, Reading Fiction. Urbana: University of Illinois Press,

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Ryan, Michael. Literary Theory: A Practical Introduction. 3rd ed, Wiley Blackwell, 2017. 117-19.

Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide. 2nd ed, Routledge, 2009. 26-34.

Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. Penguin Books, 2003.

Forsake Thy Art, Forsake Thyself

FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND BUSINESS STUDIES