The Different Faces of Narcissism : A Psychoanalytic Reading of The Great Gatsby and The Picture of Dorian Gray

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this essay is to perform a comparative psychoanalytic reading of The Great Gatsby (1925) and The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) in terms of the titular characters’ narcissistic behavior. My claim is that Jay Gatsby and Dorian Gray can be seen as different depictions of narcissism. Literary critics in previous research characterized Gatsby and Gray as narcissists, but, there has not been a comparison between the two with focus on their narcissism. Gatsby and Gray display crucial differences which suggests that they portray narcissism in different ways. Theodore Millon identified four subtypes of the original narcissistic personality in order to better identify different types of narcissists. My aim is to use his subtypes to identify, and provide the causes and effects of Gatsby’s and Gray’s particular narcissistic behavior. My analysis indicates that Gatsby can be seen as a fictional illustration of the unprincipled and compensatory narcissist while Gray can be viewed as a fictional characterization of the amorous narcissist.