Exploring Oscar Wilde's Triple Personalities Reflected In The Picture Of Dorian Gray

Wilde, Oscar (1854-1900), the celebrated Irish-born wit, novelist, playwright, poet, and critic, was the chief proponent of the aesthetic movement, based on the principle of "Art for Art's Sake". He insisted on the divorce of art from morality, and believed that it was not the art that reflected nature, but it was nature that reflected art, and that the function of art was to please and to produce enjoyment.The Picture of Dorian Gray is Wilde's only novel. Although it encountered severe criticisms at first, it finally got its value acknowledged in the 20th century. To some extent, the novel is a truthful reflection of the contradictory triple personalities of the author Oscar Wilde: the three main characters, Dorian, Basil and Henry, faithfully reflect the three levels of Wilde's personality—the id, the superego and the ego.According to Sigmund Freud, id, ego, and superego are the three divisions of the personality. The id operates according to the pleasure principle, regardless of the social morality, and its only purpose is to pursue pleasure and avoid pains. The superego is the idealist part of the personality, which operates according to the moral principle. Its function is to supervise and standardize one's behavior. Both id and superego are the unconscious parts, while the ego is a conscious part and operates according to the reality principle. It ensures that the impulses of the id can be gratified in a manner acceptable to the real world.Dorian Gray, the protagonist who changed from an innocent youth to a degraded killer in the process of pursuing the sensual pleasure and eternal youth, well represented the id of Wilde, who considered beauty and youth to be the most precious thing in the world. Basil, who behaved as the conscience in the novel, was the best reflection of Wilde's superego, and his final murder just symbolized the sharp conflict between the id and the superego. Henry was the reflection of Wilde's ego, which functioned as mediation between id and superego. The contradiction between the three characters in the novel well illustrated the painful struggle between the three parts of Wilde's personality.The Picture of Dorian Gray is by all means "a well-written book" known not only for its attractive plot, the elegant language and the well-intended moral implications, but also for its credible revelation of the author's sophisticated personality.