psychoanalysisandchill

[psychoanalysisandchill]

En psykoanalys av Dardel

*** ENGLISH TRANSLATION BELOW***

De nedanstående konstverken nämns i artikeln under / the following art works are mentioned in the article below

Fågelskrämmare / Scarecrow

Den döende dandyn / Dying Dandy

Visit hos excentrisk dam / Visit at Eccentric Lady

David och Goliat / David and Goliath

Saturn slukar sina son / Saturn devouring his son (Fransisco Goya)

Seperation / Seperation (Edvard Munch)

Rolf de Maré

Exekution / Execution

Dardels Dödskomplex

Redan vid mycket tidig ålder konfronterades den lilla Nils Dardel med döden när han bevittnade modiga pojkar under svala sörmländska sommareftermiddagar utmana Arbogaåns djup med deras liv som utbyte för segerns ära.

Döden smyger sig dock mycket närmre inpå år 1905 när den 17 årige Dardel insjunker i scharlakansfeber. Döden är inte längre någonting som enbart skördar oaktsamma modiga pojkars liv. Nu har scharlakansfebern som smugit sig in på hans tonårskropp gett honom ett smakprov om vad som en dag komma skall.  Han överlever med nöd och näppe, men bibehåller ett förstorat hjärta som ärr. Det förstorade hjärtat får han bära med sig som en livslång påminnelse om den dagen då döden återvänder för att slutföra uppgiften han påbörjade under det året han insjuknade i scharlakansfeber. Vad ett förstorat hjärta innebär i rent mediciniska termer är av föga intresse för tillståndets möjliga symboliska tolkning.

”Ser ni, det känns här inne som om mitt hjärta vore en liten fängslad fladdrande fågel” (p. 350), säger Dardel själv.

Lustigt nog dyker motivet av fåglar som får sina huvuden avklippta upp allt oftare i hans senare produktioner.

Dardels konstnärskap kretsar kring en ända stor oförtärt dödskomplex uppfattat ur ett skört barns perspektiv. Döden är, trots allt, ett huvudtema i alla hans främsta verk: från Den Döende Dandyn till Visit hos Excentrisk Dam. Det förstorade hjärtat bultar ut dödsångest i hela hans väsen. En själsflykt från den materiella kroppen och verklighetens brutala våldsamhet blir hans nödvändiga överlevnadsstrategi för att undantrycka den överväldigande dödsångest som hotar att överspola honom. Biografen Erik Näslund bekräftar denna tes med följande citat:

”Den hjärtsjuke Dardel, som hela tiden på dödens tröskel, och vid flera allvarliga sjukdomstillfällen var snubblande nära att stiga över den, tvingades leva i just ett gränsland – kanske är det förklaringen till varför hans märkliga värld ter sig som den gör? Den befinner sig just i gränslandet mellan liv och död, mellan verklighet och dröm, på själva tröskeln till en annan värld. Därför ter sig också hans gestalter som de gör, som vore de nästan inte människor av kött och blod, bara till hälften materialiserade.” (s. 351).

Det dödskomplex som börjar hemsöka honom efter scharlakansfebern episoden leder till en arresterad psykisk utveckling hos Dardel.

Erik Wettergren säger “När Nils talade om barndomen fanns det en intensiv lust att hålla kvar det ursprungliga och okomplicerade, ett oförstörbart barnasinne och en lika oförstörbar godhet “(s. 447).

Puer Auternus är namnet på barnaguden som enligt romersk mytologi bär med sig förnyelsens färskhet. Carl Jung menar att den vuxna mannen som har blivit besatt av denna barnagud vill fara fri och obekymrad, likt en fågel flyger han utan några inskränkningar från verklighetens fängslande tvångströja. Han gör sitt yttersta för att undvika alla kvävande situationer han inte skulle kunna undan fly, i Dardels fall är den främsta kvävande situation döden själv och eftersom döden enbart är en realitet i den materiella, fysiska världen, så skiljer själen sig från den materiella kroppen, ut till arketypernas immateriella symboliska dimension där den får fara i frihet. Visserligen slipper den verklighetens våldsamma brutalitet, men den kan inte heller smaka dess ljuvliga sötma. Dardels uppfattning av verkligheten förblir fantasifullt och närmast naivt. 

År 1916 hämtar Dardel inspiration från bibeln och målar David och Goliat akvarellen. I den bibliska berättelsen hugger den lilla David av halsen från motståndarjätten Goliat. I Dardels målning får vi bevittna denna groteska scen: en spinkig naken pojke utan några som helst spår av behåring eller muskelmassa håller ett grönt blödande huvud i en hand och ett svärd i en annan. Den muskulösa jätten Goliat, ligger på rygg medan blod strömmar från hans huggna hals. Hur kommer det sig att Dardel, den kosmopolitiska modernisten som aldrig vände sig till religion, valde just denna bibliska berättelse att gestalta?

Naturligtvis är detta mycket mer än bara en gestaltning av den bibliska berättelsen: Oedipus har lyckats slakta fadern och säkrat moderns kärlek. Puer Auternus lanserar sitt herravälde mot traditionernas börda och skriver sina egna spelregler. Mitt under ett brinnande världskrig åker Dardel och den jämnåriga sockerpappan Rolf de Maré på världsresa, krigets förskräckligheter är en högst opassande utklädsel för dessa aristokratiska män som har råd att förbli barn ut i vuxna år.

Om vi i spanska konstnären Fransisco Goyas målning Saturnus slukar sina söner bevittnar Senexen, traditionernas och dogmernas arketyp sluka barnaguden Puer Auternus, så bevittnar vi i Dardels David och Goliat det motsatta. Vare sig Dardel själv var medveten om det eller ej, så är målningen profetisk till naturen, ja, man skulle faktiskt kunna åskåda den som rena rama profetian. Likt Puer Auternus vägrar Dardel de tunga bojor som försöker kedja fast honom vid verkligheten.

Själsfränden Ulla Bjerne skriver ”Inom oss lever ännu barnet kvar, som inte har någon plats i de vuxnas fantasilösa värld. Dit vi enbart genom vår ålder vunnit tillträde” (s. 118).

Men när Dardel och Ulla hamnar i ett triangeldrama med den grova och våldsamma Gustaf Hedström blir Dardel förlamande passiv i handlandet.

”Jag kan ej förstå att jag är så omanlig. Jag hade ju gått hela eftermiddagen med dig och talat om hur förälskad jag var och du sade att du älskade mig och sedan när Gustaf är otrevlig och oförskämt så var jag som en skolpojke bara av rädsla för uppträden. Ulla jag skäms jag förstår mig inte själv” (123).

Ulla Bjerne skriver: ”Kanske de brev han då skrev var ett uttryck för hans sannaste väsen, en vacker men svag och olycklig människas hjärta?” (127).

Kan det vara så att Dardel skildrar sina drifters allra djupaste undangömda önskan i David och Goliat akvarellen? Att som en spinkig och svag pojke hämningslöst släppa loss dödsdriften och orsaka blodsutgjutelse mot den grövre tyrannen Gustaf Hedström? Detta skulle enbart kunna förverkligas om Puer Auternus slutar sväva i arketypernas symboliska himmel och sjunker ner till det materiella och jordliga, där hans blodtörst släcks i utbyte för hans oskuld som blir offer för verklighetens förgänglighet.

Konstnärskollegan Otto G. Carlsund säger: ”Dardel är direkt rädd för grovheter. Han har en utpräglad skräck för ”busen” och vill man rätt bedöma hans karaktär bör man hålla detta i minnet” (s. 45).

Men all sin elegans till trots så slumrar det groteska och brutala gång på gång sin väg in i hans konst. 1921 Svartsjukedrama lär oss att inte ens aristokratin är befriat från svartsjukans gift, när blodet rinner från offrets panna och fläckar björnmattan under honom.

Men om det brutala i hans konst är ett resultat av en förträngd dödsdrift, hur ska vi då begripliggöra den förfinade elegansen som klär tavlornas alla hörn och smickrar även Dardels egna persona?

Den andres våldsamma blick

Under 1950-talet vidgar den franska psykoanalytikern Jaques Lacan hans teori om spegelstadiet: det stadiet då barnet blir medveten om sig själv och jaget börjar ta form, till att inkludera de ångestladdade momenten då subjektet inser att hon blir iakttagen av den andras potentiellt våldsamma blick och därmed förlorar autonomi.

Näslund skriver ”dessa Dardelska figurer verkar ändå knappast som varelser av kött och blod. Snarare som dockor eller marionetter” (s. 191).

Dardel är Pinocchio och den andres våldsamma blick Pinocchios fader, hans kreatör som väcker personan till liv och får honom att tramsa och flamsa till dess våldsamma ögas vilja.

”Jag har börjat bli anständig och är ofta på the och hör på sång och musik. Det är inte alls roligt, men jag tänker jag blir mer hyfsad” (s. 283). Uppenbarligen vill han bara behaga offentlighetens blick. Under dödsögonblicket verkar Dardels Döende Dandy hellre skymta mot handspegeln än att möta hans nära och käras blick. Vad omgivningen ser har helt klart prioritet över att bli sedd och relaterad till. Carl Jung menar att människans persona är den masker vi visar utåt till publiken, där persona härskar är en autentisk själsförbindelse omöjlig. Dardels persona var, enligt vännen Gunnar Cederschiöld, ”mask av spydig dandy han bar till självförsvar” (s. 147).

”Han söker i tal och åthävor dölja sin ömtålighet” det eleganta beskrivs som ”en kompensation för brutaliteten i livet” (s. 45). ”Egentligen var han blyg och tystlåten, så ofta behövdes det ett glas eller två för att få honom att lossna” (s. 85). Sin alkoholism till trots blev han aldrig obehaglig full i offentliga sammanhang, inte heller nersmutsade han sina ekivoka historier med vulgär vokabulär. De tighta kostymerna som smickrade hans smala form fungerade likt tvångströjor. Påtvingade av den andres våldsamma blick. Tillskillnad från Edvard Munchs Seperation där figuren håller om sitt blödande hjärta och smälter samman med sin omgivning, så är det skarpa konturer som ger form till Den Döende Dandyns figurer. I Munch åskådas en självupplösande hjärtesorg, men Dardel indikerar med sin dandy en ångestladdad neurotisk besatthet för detaljerat raffinemang, vars ändamål är att undvika den förkrossande upplösningstillstånd Munchs melankoliker befinner sig i, genom att förhoppningsvis behaga den andres våldsamma blick. Denna våldsamma blick fångar Dardel i 1916 porträtten av sockerpappan Rolf de Maré.  Med näsan i vädret och ena handen på höften sneglar de Maré snett och högmodigt på sin åskådare. Näslund skriver att ”Dardel var först och främst själsaristokrat,”  (s. 18) men med tanke på faderns krympande arv hade han inte särskilt mycket av ett val. De Maré, å andra sidan, hade både det aristokratiska namnet och förmögenheten som var avgörande för Dardels framgång.

”Jag blev väldigt rädd för Rolf och tyckte att han verkade väldigt sträng i början. Och reserverad, han släppte inte många inpå livet,” (s. 215) säger frun Thora Dardel.

Och Dardel var själv inte heller främmande till att förbanna sin omgivning med den våldsamma blicken, om än detta hände ytterst sällan, beskriver Ulla Bjerne hur detta gick till: ”sitt diaboliska utseende hade Nils endast då han drar upp ena ögonbrynet… Annars ser han snäll ut och allt verkar älskvärt och behagligt hos honom…” (s. 117)  Även de allra sköraste behöver beskydda sig själva på något vis, men som man bäddar får man ligga och ibland var det Dardel själv som fick utstå inte bara den andres våldsamma blick men även kritikerkårens  symboliska våld. 

År 1979, lite mer än ett halvt sekel efter Dardels guldår i Paris, utkommer franska sociologen Pierre Bourdieu med boken La Distinction en femårig lång empirisk studie av det franska samhällets statuskultur. Det är i denna bok som Bourdieu för första gången myntar begreppet symboliskt våld, alltså den sociala processen där klassamhället reproduceras genom den härskandeklassens hegemoniska position i avgörandet av vad som konstaterar god smak. Men han som idag anses tillhöra den svenska konstens allra främsta blev engång i tiden bespottad på av den svenska kritikerkåren.

”… men om jag gör verkligt bra saker i sommar vet jag att svenskarna bör akta sig för att behandla mig som någonting obetydligt. Jag vet att jag är liten och ingenting värt, men min talang är fransk och av god kultur” (s.131).

Självkänslan är som bortblåst efter den svenskakritikerkårens skoningslösa flående av Dardel och hans unga expressionist kollegor efter en utställning i hemlandet. Dardel har vid detta laget bott i Paris i flera år och försöker på narcissiska vägnar hänga sitt självvärde i sin franska talang som han menar är för fin för den okunniga svenska kritikerkårens okultiverade smak. En bortträngd dödsdrift yttrar sig – inte kanaliserad i direkta framåtsträvande handlingar- men istället i ekivok talarkonst, rullades från Dardels tunga som en dans på rosor. Den våldsamma blicken, den sarkastiska repliken eller det post-ironiska kommenterat är alla subtila, mer civiliserade sätt att utsätta någon för en smula dödsdrift. Att begå symboliskt våld på.

”…. Som ett litet barn känner jag mig idag. Som ett litet barn som är alldeles ensamt” (s. 132).

Men även om han själv inte är helt oskyldig, så har Dardel fallit offer för den symboliska våldets destruktiva blick.

”Jag kan och skall bli en stor målare, en vacker människa vars blick är ren” (s. 132).

Och med facit i handen kan vi konstatera att denna Puer Auternus fick det sista skrattet till slut, i alla fall mot den svenska kritikerkåren, men mot Sveriges mäktigaste finansfamilj blev utfallet inte i hans ynnest.

Beväpnat med svärmisk charm lyckas svärmorsdrömmen Dardel tjusa både Nita Wallenberg och hennes mamma under Japan vistelsen, men väl hemma i Sverige avslår pappa Wallenberg giftermålsplanerna mellan Nita och Nils. En dekadent konstnärsbohem rymmer inte inom Sveriges mäktigaste finansfamiljs grandiosa imperium, sitt aristokratiska namn till trots. Ännu engång blir Dardel offer för den andres våldsamma blick och denna gång insjunker han i en gravdepression, som producerar den kusliga men praktfulla tavlan Exekution.

Dardels konstnärliga särart

Efter giftermålet med Thora Dardel och födseln av dottern Ingrid begagnas de iscensättande naivistiska stilen och ersätts av realism, men denna realism bör inte missförstås för den sorts kompromisslösa realism som har utsugit Rembrandts konst från estetisk skönhet – nej även när denna Puer Auternus har landat ner från den platoniska himmeln och kultiverad jordlig ödmjukhet genom att inta sin plats i denna dekadenta konstnärsbohems alkoholiserade kropp förblir han drömlik, färsk och imaginär i sin iakttagelse av hans porträttmodeller, som var överlyckliga över det faktumet att Dardel, med sin imaginära blick, förkonstlade deras utseendemässiga brister. Ett slags facetune innan facetune. ”Dardel lyfte sitt klientel från verkligheten till sin egen drömvärld” (s. 418).

Slutligen bör det nämnas att Dardel inte hade varit Dardel utan Rolf de Maré, den jämnåriga sockerpappan som bjöd honom på generösa världsresor och finansierade hans karriär. Det är inte förens efter Nord-Afrika resan som Dardels måleri förlorar den franska färgasketismen och dränks i koloristisk eros. När Japan resan lider mot sitt slut har Dardel bemästrad den japanska träsnittstekniken, de levande Nord-Afrikanska färgintrycken fängslas nu innanför stränga japanska konturer, dödskomplexet och de marionett lika figurer till trots, så är Dardels tavlor livslevande tack vare vibrant färgpalett, gedigen japansk teknik och naivistiskt temperament som alltid lyckades fånga det rena och oförstörbara i människor. Eros och Thanatos manifesterar sig sida vid sida i hans verk.

”Jag tycker om barnsligheten hos både män och kvinnor. Det är hemskt att se när den hunnit bort och fördärvats” (s. 311)

English Translation

Dardel’s complex around death

Starting from an early age, little Nils Dardel was confronted with death as he witnessed brave boys challenge the depth of the Arboga lake during Sörmland’s sweet summer afternoons exchanging their lives for the glory of victory.

But death crawls frighteningly close in 1905 when 17-year-old Dardel falls ill of scarlet fever. Death is no longer a phenomenon merely harvesting the lives of aloof brave boys. The scarlet fever that has infected his teenage body has given him a taste of what one day shall come.   He lives on, but does not escape deaths embrace unscathed. An enlarged heart will from now on forever remind him of the scarlet fever episode. The enlarged heart, he has to carry as a lifelong reminder of the day that death will revisit to finish what he has started. What an enlarged heart means in sheer medical terms is of little interest for the conditions symbolic interpretation.

“Do you see, it feels as if my heart in here is a tiny restless caged bird,” Dardel says (p. 350).

Interestingly enough the motive of birds having their heads cut off starts appearing more often in his later productions.  

Dardel’s artistry centers around one grand undigested death complex as witnessed through the eyes of a vulnerable child. Death is, after all, the main theme in his foremost works: from The Dying Dandy to Visit at Eccentric Lady. The enlarged heart beats death anxiety into his entire being. Soul fright from the material body and the brutal violence of reality becomes the defense mechanism he employs to repress the overwhelming death anxiety that threatens to overflow him. Biographer Erik Näslund writes:

“The heart sick Dardel, always on the brink of death and during several serious episodes of illness almost stumbled over it, was forced to live in a borderland – perhaps that is the explanation as to why his curious world appears the way it does? It exists between the borderland of life and death, between reality and dream, on the very threshold to another world. Which is also why his figures appear the way they do, as if they weren’t people made of flesh and blood, only halfway materialized” (p. 351).

The death complex that haunts him after the scarlet fever episode leads to an arrested development in Dardel.

Author Erik Wettergren says: ” When Nils spoke of childhood, there was an intense desire to retain the uncomplicated and original, a uncorrupted juvenile temperament and a likewise incorruptible sense of goodness” (p. 447).

Puer Auternus is the name of the child god that according to Roman mythology carried with him the freshness of renewal. Carl Jung posits that the man possessed by this child god likes to sail smoothly and independently, like a bird he flies without the imprisoning straitjacket of reality restricting him. He does the utmost to avoid any suffocating situation he would not be able to flee from, in Dardel’s case the foremost suffocating situation is death itself and since death is only a reality in the material, physical realm, his soul decides to divorce the material body, it remains in the archetypal symbolic dimension where it can roam around in freedom. Certainly, it avoids the violent brutality of reality, but it also fails to appreciate lives tender sweetness as it is. Dardel’s view of reality continues resembling a naïve childlike fantasy.

In 1916 Dardel allows himself to be inspired by the bible as he paints his David och Goliath motive. In the biblical story, the little David beheads his giant opponent Goliath. Dardel depicts this grotesque scene: a stick thin naked boy without the slightest hint of hair or muscle tone, holds a green bleeding head in one hand and a sword in another. How come the cosmopolite, modernist Dardel, whom never turned to religion, chose this specific biblical story to depict?

Quite naturally it is so much more than just a depiction of the biblical story, it is also Oedipus whom has succeeded in slaughtering his father and securing mother’s admiration. Symbolically it depicts Puer Auternus launching his domination against the burdens of tradition and making up his own rules in the process. During the mayhem of the first world war, Dardel’s sugar daddy of the same age, Rolf de Maré, takes him on a worldwide voyage. The calamities and horrors of war are no appropriate fit for these elegant aristocratic men whom can afford to trot the earth in a juvenile manner well into adulthood.      

If we in Spanish artist Fransisco Goyas painitng Saturn devouring his sons witness the Senex, the archetype of tradition and dogma devouring child god Puer Auternus, then in Dardel’s David and Goliath we witness the opposite. The painting is prophetic by nature, whether Dardel was conscious of that or not, indeed one could view it as the epitome of a prophecy. Much like Puer Auternus, Dardel refuses the heavy shackles that want to chain him to reality.

Twin flame Ulla Bjerne writes:” within us the child lives on, for whom there is no place in the adult’s unimaginative world. To which we have gained access to solely because of our age” (s. 188). 

But when Dardel and Ulla end up in a triangular situationship with the brute and rough Gustaf Hedström, Dardel freezes in passivity and fails to act.

“I cannot phantom why I am so unmanly. I spent the entire afternoon confessing my love to you and you reciprocated and when Gustaf is being rude and mean I turned into a frail schoolboy afraid to act. Ulla, I am ashamed and I cannot understand it myself” (p. 123).  

Ulla Bjerne writes: “Perhaps the letters he wrote were an expression of his most inner self, a beautiful yet weak and miserable human heart?” (p. 127).

Could it be that Dardel depicts his drives deepest hidden desires in the watercolour of David and Goliath? To, as a frail and thin boy, mercilessly release his death drive and cause a bloodbath against the brute tyrant Gustaf Hedström? This could only be realized if Puer Auternus stops floating around the symbolical heaven of the archetypes and sinks into the material and earthly, where his bloodlust may be quenched in exchange for his innocence, which becomes sacrificed to the brutality of reality. 

Artist colleague Otto G. Carlsund says: “Dardel is doubtlessly afraid of coarseness. He has a pronounced horror for that which is “rough,” one should keep this in mind, if one wants to correctly judge his character” (p. 45).

But despite all of his sublime refined elegance, the coarse and rough, the grotesque and brutal find their way again and again into his art. 1921’s Crime of Passion teaches us that not even the aristocracy is liberated from the poison of jealousy as the blood drips from the victim’s forehead and stains the bear mat underneath him.

But if the brute in his art is a result of a repressed death drive, how are we supposed to understand the refined elegance that dresses all of the corners of his paintings and also ornaments Dardel’s own persona?

The violent gaze of the other

During the 1950’s, French psychoanalyst Jaques Lacan widens his mirror stage theory - the stage at which a child gazes into a mirror and becomes aware of himself and a sense of ego starts taking form - to include the anxious moments a subject realizes that she is being observed by the potential violent gaze of the other and thus loses autonomy.

Näslund writes “these Dardelian figures hardly seem to be beings of flesh and blood. They rather are like dolls and marionettes” (p. 191).

Dardel is Pinnocio and the violent gaze of the other Pinocchios father, his creator awakening his persona to life, making him dance to the beat of his drum. “I have become proper and am often at tea parties, listening to music. It is not fun at all, but I think that it would make me more decent” (s. 283). Evidently, he only seeks to please the public’s perception of him. During the moment of death, Dardel’s dying dandy would rather glimpse at his hand-mirror then to meet the gaze of his loved ones. What the surroundings see is doubtlessly prioritized over being seen and related to. Carl Jung posits that the persona is the mask we show to the public, where persona rules authentic soul connection is made impossible. Dardel’s persona was, according to friend Gunnar Cederschiöld: “a mask of spiteful dandy he wore as self-dense” (p. 147).

“He seeks to hide his vulnerability in speech and mannerism,” the elegance is described as “a compensation for the brutality of life” (p. 45). “In reality, he was shy and quiet, so oftentimes a glass or two was needed to make him come out of his shell” (p. 85). Despite his alcoholism, he never became unbearably drunk in public and never were his eloquent stories tainted by a vulgar vocabulary. The tight costumes flattering his skinny frame had the function of a straitjacket. Forced onto him by the violent gaze of the other. Unlike Edvard Munch’s Seperation where the figure holds his bleeding heart and melts into his background, the Dying Dandy is given form with the aid of sharp contours. In Munch, a self-dissolving heartache takes place, but Dardel depicts with his dandy an anxiously charged neurotic, obsessed with detailed refinement, its purpose is to avoid the soul crushing dissolvement heartache Munch’s melancholic is wallowing in, through hopefully satisfying the violent gaze of the other.

This violent gaze Dardel captures in the 1916 portrait of his sugar daddy Rolf de Maré. With his nose in the wind and one hand placed on his hip, de Maré squints haughtily at his spectator. Näslund writes that “Dardel was first and foremost an aristocrat of soul,” (p. 18) but considering his father’s shrinking inheritance he hadn’t much of a choice. De Maré on the other hand, had both the aristocratic name and the fortune which was quintessential for Dardel’s success.

Wife Thora Dardel says: “I became very afraid of Rolf and found him to be very stern in the beginning. And reserved, he didn’t let many people into his life” (p. 215).

And Dardel himself was not a stranger to cursing his surroundings with the violent gaze, even if this happened seldom, Ulla Bjerne describes how it went: “his diabolical look Nils only had when raising one eyebrow… Otherwise he looked kind and everything about him was loving and pleasant…” (p. 117). Even the most vulnerable need to protect themselves somehow, but what goes around comes around and sometimes it was Dardel whom not only became victim of the other’s violent gaze but also of the critic’s symbolic violence.

In 1979, about half a century after Dardel’s golden years in Paris, French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu publishes his infamous book La Distinction, a five year long empirical study of French societies status culture. It is here that Bourdieu for the first time mentions the concept of symbolic violence, the social process where class society reproduces through the ruling classes hegemonic position in deciding what is considered good taste. He who today is considered one of Swedish art’s most distinguished was once mocked by the Swedish critics.

”… but if I create truly great things this summer I know the Swedes should be careful to treat me as insignificant. I know I am little and worth nothing, but my talent is French and so of a good culture” (s. 131).

His sense of self has gone with the wind after the Swedish critics merciless skinning of Dardel and his young expressionist colleagues after an exhibition in their home country. Dardel has at this point lived in Paris for several years and attempts in typical narcissistic fashion equate his self-worth with his French talent, which he deems too fine for the ignorant Swedes uncultivated taste. A repressed death drive shows itself – not channeled in direct forward moving action – but instead in eloquent rhetoric, rolling effortlessly off of Dardel’s tongue. The violent gaze, the sarcastic remark or the post-ironic comment are all subtle, more civilized ways to subject the other for a hint of the death drive. To commit symbolic violence.

”… I feel like a little child today. Like a little child who is all alone” (p. 132).

Even though he himself is not innocent, Dardel has become victimized to the violent gaze of the other. To Rolf de Maré he writes:

“I can and shall be a great artist, a beautiful soul whose gaze is pure” (p. 132).

And in hindsight we can conclude that this Puer Auternus finally got the last laugh, at least against the Swedish critics, but against Sweden’s most powerful family in finance the outcome is not in his favour.

Armed with swarming charm, the dreamy Dardel succeeds in enchanting both Nita Wallenberg and her mother during the Japan visit, but back home in Sweden father Wallenberg rejects Nita and Nils’s arrangements for marriage. A decadent dandy as bohemian artist has no room in the empire of Sweden’s most powerful family in finance, regardless of his aristocratic name. Once again Dardel becomes victim to the violent gaze of the other and falls into a grave depression that produces the eerie yet magnificent painting Execution.

Dardel’s artistry

After his marriage with Thora Dardel and the birth of their daughter Ingrid, the naïve dramatic style is replaced by realism, but one shouldn’t misunderstand this realism for the uncompromising realism that has sucked Rembrandt’s art dry from aesthetic beauty – no even when Puer Auternus has landed from the platonic heavens and cultivated an earthly humbleness through becoming embodied in the decadently alcoholic bohemian artist, he remains dreamy, fresh and imaginative in his observation of his models, whom were thrilled over the fact that Dardel, with his imaginative gaze, covered their aesthetic flaws. A factune before there was facetune. “Dardel lifted his clientele from reality to his own dream world” (p. 418).

Lastly one shouldn’t forget to mention that Dardel wouldn’t have been Dardel without Rolf de Maré, the sugar daddy of the same age whom treated him to generous journeys around the world and financed his career. It isn’t until after their journey to North-Africa that Dardel’s art loses its French asceticism of colour and starts drowning in colouristic eros. When his journey in Japan nears its end, Dardel has mastered the Japanese woodcut technique, the fervent North-African colour impressions are now confined within stern Japanese contours, despite his death complex and the marionette like figures, Dardel’s art is imbued with life thanks to a vibrant colour palette, exquisite Japanese technique and a naïve temperament, always managing to capture the pure and incorruptible in others. Eros and Thanatos manifest themselves side by side in his artistry.

“I enjoy the childlessness of both men and women. It is horrible to witness it wither and wane” (p. 311). 

[psychoanalysisandchill]

My Amsterdam clinic is ripe n ready! Located in nieuw-west I offer therapy from a psychoanalytical, mainly Jungian, vantage point.

[psychoanalysisandchill]

Frankenstein’s monster – the wounded inner-child as saboteur

I had read almost the entirety of the novel, frustrated by the lack of material to psychoanalyse, until – in a moment of eureka -  it suddenly dawned upon me; Frankenstein’s monster is merely a split part of his psyche which he is in conflict with and cannot seem to integrate. The monster is a product of Frankenstein’s vivid imagination, but ultimately an integral part of himself.

From the mysterious appearances of the monster, to the fact that few lived to tell about his existence and his endless yearning to fulfil his need for companionship leading to a desperate series of wicked and vengeful sabotage – I reread the novel through my freshly acquired lens and it all made perfect sense. Therefore, one should read the following psychoanalysis of the novel with the above principle in mind: monster as split part of Victor Frankenstein’s psyche.

Part 1: Puer Auternus – inflated by the psychic forces of the unconscious

With ardent zeal Victor Frankenstein enters university at Inglostadt, embodying the Puer archetype possessed by a naiveté which resembles the folly of a delinquent child. Upon his arrival, he dialogues with professor Krempe and with a hint of arrogant contempt tinting his words, he proudly announces his familiarity with the works of Paracelsus and Agrippa. Krempe, flabbergasted in return, gasps and wastes no time to enlighten Victor that his undertakings have been a waste of time. An oedipal drama between a prideful Puer and an ossified Senex plays itself out in their disagreeable interaction charged with foul contempt.  

The birth of paradigm shattering inventions happen when a Puer Auternus on the loose commences himself with sedulous passion to his fresh, imaginative but also rather folly ideas. Indeed, the Senex, with his dry, dogmatic orthodoxy, is never the carrier of new, eccentric invention that defy the laws of nature and require a reconsideration of the established models of reality.

For a genius to fulfil his prophecy, he has to risk being somewhat of a fool in the eyes of the orthodoxy - in Frankenstein’s case: professor Krempe-  after all, folly is merely the shadow side of genius, as genius borders on insanity and belongs to the domain of the absurd, without a hint of imaginative folly there is no creek through which genius could flow into the light of consciousness in order to actualize itself.

“…I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation. I closed not my eyes that night. My internal being was in a state of insurrection and turmoil…” (p. 40) 

The psychic inflation running through his nervous system has rendered his personality megalomanic.

“No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards, like a hurricane, in the first enthusiasm of success… A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child completely as I should deserve theirs.” (p. 46)

With childlike passion, the Puer archetype consumes himself in omnipotent fantasies, like Peter Pan he flies and is seldom rooted in the oppressive soil of reality, blinding him of the dire consequences his actions may have. In reality, all is oppressive and in the imagination, all is jolly, without imagination as the ultimate coping mechanism the Puer’s folly would never border on the absurd and touch genius. Indeed, in the above passage Frankenstein sounds deluded, such is also the nature of religious ecstasy, it’s totalistic in scope and transcends the humility and reason of the down-to-earth average joe.

“My limbs now tremble, and my eyes swim with the remembrance; but then a resistless and almost frantic impulse urged me forward; I seemed to have lost all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit.” (p. 47)

It is clear that Frankenstein has been blinded by his ambitious zeal and wishes to become god himself, a deep layer of the unconscious has been triggered and is possessing him. In his naiveté, he fails to relate to this fervent force as a phenomenon greater than himself and becomes unconsciously possessed by it through the process of identification with it. 

Part 2: Loss of innocence – birth of the avoidant personality and wounded inner-child.

“I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.” (p. 50)

The birth of the monster marks the loss of innocence for Puer Frankenstein, the ardent zeal of his religious ecstasy is replaced with wretched horror as he descends from the high heavens to the pits of hell. He has ventured into the abyss of the unconscious, nose-dived into the land of the unknown with his folly naiveté as his sole companion. Having bitten the forbidden fruit, now comes the moment in which he has to pay for his expansion of consciousness with the loss of his Puer innocence as the reality principle has caught up to him.

“Mingled with this horror, I felt the bitterness of disappointment; dreams that had been my food and pleasant rest for so long a space were now become a hell to me; and the change was so rapid, the overthrow so complete!” (p. 52)

Overwhelmed by the sudden rapid shift of his state of mind, the innocent child deals with the traumatic event through splitting his consciousness: the monster coming to live and gaining personal autonomy, marks the moment in which the psyche has become split as the conscious personality cannot bear to face that wretched part of himself so he forcefully gets repressed and disassociated into the depths of the unconscious, where he lives on autonomously, yet unintegrated. Frankenstein’s monster is analogous to the inner-child ignored by an avoidant adult whom much rather abandons the child than to provide it the companionship it so desperately needs.

Part 3: The first reunion between split parts – An opportunity for reconciliation

“Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded. I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous,” (p.96) the monster warns, or rather pleads upon their first dialogues encounter. It isn’t by chance that the encounter manifests in nature, far from the confines and constraints eponymous to civilized society. When man dwells in the liberty of nature long enough, the ego barriers loosen and from the abyss of the shadow unconscious content resurfaces, finding its way to the center stage of consciousness, illuminated by its luminous light.

“Begone! Relieve me from the sight of your detested form,” (p. 97) Frankenstein hurls back. The initial resurfacing of a split sub-personality, the monster as wounded inner-child, is always met with horror and apocalyptical protest by the conscious personality, however reason assists in establishing a frail, but much needed, union between two split parts as the monster and Frankenstein gravitate towards each other:“I weighed the various arguments that he had used and determined at least to listen to his tale,” (p. 98) Hearing the pleas of the wounded inner-child and approaching it with reason and curiosity become the foundation on which the laborious undertaking of integration can take place.

As the monster tells his tale Frankenstein learns how he has been the eager voyeur of a tiny family - described as the cottagers - damned by unfortunate circumstances. The wounded inner-child of the avoidant personality tends to spectate from a distance so as not to get burned twice by the unjust vengeance of lovers from the past. Yet their deepest yearning is that of unconditional companionship, but the avoidant personalities conviction that his wounded inner-child is cursed by irredeemable hideousness hinders him from authentically relating to his surroundings.

“His words had a strange effect upon me. I compassionated him and sometimes felt a wish to console him, but when I looked upon him, when I saw the filthy mass that moved and talked, my heart sickened and my feelings were altered to those of horror and hatred.” (p. 148)

The dialectic plaguing Frankenstein’s psyche isn’t Hegelian in nature as it never reaches the point of synthesis throughout the novel. Adam yearns for his Eve as the monster demands of his creator a companion resembling his own hideous form, wounded inner-child sees his anima in equally wounded girls, but the avoidant personality could never admit to harbouring fancy for somebody as hideous as he believes himself to be. Instead he “might claim Elizabeth and forget the past, in my union with her” (p. 156)

Part 4: Failure to reconcile and integrate – the inner-child metamorphosis into saboteur

Frankenstein proofs himself treacherous as he destroys the female monster he had promised his original creation. Herein lies the great tragedy of the avoidant personality inability of providing his wounded inner-child with companion, not even that of an equally hideous monster, thus the monster commands in response “You are my creator, but I am your master; - obey!” (p. 171)

What follows is an exchange enflamed with fiery conflictual insults and threats. The hopes of reconciliation between the psychic parts are to be found in the ashes of their exchange and since the avoidant personality has gained awareness of the inner-child, disassociating him to the depths of the unconscious is no longer possible, from here on the monster/inner-child will lurk in the land of the subconscious and act as saboteur as he leaks into the domain of consciousness and temporarily disrupts the will through violent acts of possession.

Indeed, it is Frankenstein that is accused of the murder of his friend Clerval whose dead body is found on the beach. “I am the cause of this - I murdered her. William, Justine, and Henry – they all died by my hands.” (p. 190) but rather than actual murders the death of Frankenstein’s beloved are symbolic for the death of precious relationship brought about by the uncontrollable rage tantrums of a saboteur, pouring through the creaks of a ruptured psyche. Indeed, the monster appears in mysterious ways, particularly on his wedding night, as Frankenstein is pre-occupied with “inspecting every corner that might afford a retreat to my adversary” (p. 201).

Yet his dear Elizabeth is murdered moments after retiring to their bedroom. A mere moment of the avoidant personality dropping his guard is enough for the wounded inner-child to gush through from the tear in his psyche and sabotaging his most treasured union.

“As I heard it, the whole truth rushed into my mind, the motion of every muscle and fibre was suspended; I could feel the blood trickling in my veins and tingling in the extremities of my limbs.” (p. 201)

With every encounter with the monster Frankenstein grows more restless, the great psychic split plagues the body and makes itself known in physical symptoms.  “A fever succeeded to this. I lay for two months on the point of death” (p. 181) The greater the avoidance the more severe the physiological deregulation becomes. 

Great neuroticism plagues him as he regains control and witnesses the carnage brought about by his inner-saboteur. “Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change,” (p. 203) Every time the saboteur emerges and ruins a relationship dear to him he loathes his existence and despises the change brought about by his behaviour, to which he feels victimized.

Part: 5 The vengeance of revenge

It is solely revenge which clouds Frankenstein’s mind as he chases the monster around the world. Frankenstein remains blinded about the proper manner in which one should confront the shadow and turns towards it with the hopes of destroying its content – there is no salvation in self-loathing. He joins his inner-child in the seventh circle of Dante’s inferno as he rises against himself and seethes with violent ardour.

“…a well-known and abhorred voice, apparently close to my ear addressed me in an audible whisper, “I am satisfied miserable wretch! You have determined to live, and I am satisfied” ” (209)

The monster, solely appearing in a sonic form, deepens the mystery of its supernatural nature, alluding to the possibility that it perhaps has no existence outside of Frankenstein’s imagination. When he does become visible he is described as “ghastly and distorted” and hastes away “with more than mortal speed.” (p. 210) It has, however, succeeded in making Frankenstein miserable, thus there is intimacy between them, but it’s nature is deeply disagreeable and violent.

Part: 6 Reflections and death – failure to integrate

“Despondency rarely visited my heart; a high destiny seemed to bear me on, until I fell, never, never again to rise.” (p. 219)

At the end of life, when all has been ruined and the avoidant personalities demise has actualized, there remains nothing but the bitter aftertaste of frustrations. Waton offers of friendship is rejected with the excuse that new friendship may never substitute the old ones, but Frankenstein is so pre-occupied with the destruction of his inner-child that he is rendered incapable of relation.

Frankenstein’s death marks the moment at which the conscious personality becomes disarmed from his defence mechanisms and the wounded inner-child experiences a cathartic emergence into the light of consciousness, for the first time, without resistance. Waton enters his cabin and witnesses the monster towering over the lifeless corpse of his creator. He will be the sole witness whom will live to tell since the cottagers, the inner-child has no reason to sabotage anymore as the avoidant personality has died and his own death looms around the corner. The monster’s final words retell a tragedy of shattered hopes and innocence lost too soon. With every utterance, his remorse is made known, he agrees with Waton when being accused of being a wretch and announces his plans for suicide.

Disappointment is the ultimate destiny for every wounded inner-child who remains unacknowledged by his creator. Whilst Frankenstein admits at his moment of death that he “created a rational creature and was bound towards him to assure, as far as was in my power, his happiness and well-being” (p 225) he fails to realize that he could’ve fulfilled the monster’s wish for happiness through offering him his own companionship and held on to the erroneous view that only the construction of a female counterpart would’ve been a viable solution to the monster’s yearning.

Shelley, M.W. (2018) Frankenstein: Or the modern prometheus. London: Vintage.

[psychoanalysisandchill]

The wrathful glare of Kali and the callous gaze of Medusa – the emergence of the femme fatale in the female psyche.

Legend of Kali

In Hindu legend, goddess Durka and her helpers, the Matri goddesses, slay the demon Raktabīja, only to find out that the stains of Raktabīja’s blood act like seed on soil as every drop manifests another duplicate of him. Durka becomes enraged and summons Kali, whom then proceeds to slay and devour Raktabīja and his legion of duplicates. She dances on their corpses and parades around with Raktabīja slain head in her hand, securing the droplets of blood through holding a plate underneath it, so as to prevent further bleeding on the soil. Motivated by her insatiable fury, Kali proceeds with the destruction of all else that crosses her path, but after stepping on the corpse of Lord Shiva, Kali is struck by embarrassment and remorse as her supressed superego is released from her shadow and brings her back to her senses. Lord Shiva’s has the power to liberate Kali from her fury as he is the transcendent Self. He is the benevolent patriarch, yogi supreme, yet also husband and father, suggesting the achievement of harmonious balance between wordily duties and that of holy men. His anima, being integrated, is neither possessing him nor is it plaguing him as a result of repression. He neither falls prey to the manipulative trickery of deceitful women nor does he view women as disdainfully inferior sexual objects.  Only he can liberate Kali from her all-consuming misandry and soothe her sorrows.

Shiva’s non-threatening benevolence makes itself known through the act of laying underneath Kali’s feet. Possessed by wrath, Kali has lost sight of that which is holy. Without recognition of the benevolent aspects of Shiva, Kali’s fury is bound to drown the universe in her flames, however, Durka’s initial intention behind the summoning of Kali was to defeat Raktabīja and his legion of duplicates, rather than bring about the destruction of the universe.

Durka and the Matri goddesses are at loss at Raktabīja’s lack of chivalry in combat and the injustice of his supernatural power. They are the modern-day women whom get harassed by demonic and demeaning men despite enforcing their boundaries. Such men seek to dominate through ridicule rather than reason. The lack of decorum in both combat and dialogue makes the summoning of Kali inevitable for a woman as all else has failed to shield her vulnerability from the malevolence of a demonic beast.

In recent memory, Raktabīja and Poseidon manifested themselves as Harvey Weistein and Jeffrey Epstein, powerful demonic beasts, seeking to preserve their authority whilst uninterested in the discontinuation of their predatory behaviour. The faith in the punitive power of the rule of law arrests Kali from flooding the consciousness of their victims, making Durka and the Matri goddesses persevere in a civilized manner, unlike the instance in which 200 Indian women, armed with vegetable knifes, stones and chilli powder stormed the court hearing of gang-leader and rapist Akku Yadav, dismembering his genitals with a vegetable knife, robbing him of his phallus through a vengeful barbaric act of literal castration, dead in a matter of 15 minutes, leaving his lifeless corpse daggered by kitchen knives on the white marble floor of the court, in an exhibition of gore galore, resembling the sublime beauty of a transcendent piece of art in the eyes of Kali.

Legend of Medusa (Ovid´s version)

In Greek legend, Medusa is the sole mortal among three gorgon sisters, depicted as a beautiful maid with plentiful of potential suitors, longing for the reciprocation of her attention. She is brutally raped in the temple of Athena by God Poseidon as a result of the rejection of his advances. Enraged by the desacralization of her temple, Athena curses Medusa, turning her hair turned into snakes, metamorphosing her into a monstrous form armed with a glare that petrified anyone who dared to meet her eyes.

As if Medusa hadn’t suffered enough, she was later beheaded by demigod Perseus. Many men had tried to behead her prior to Perseus, but all had been turned into stone at the sight of her petrifying glare. Perseus however, was clever enough to stare into the mirror moments before the beheading, instead of in her eyes. As he flew over Libya with Medusa’s decapitated in his hands, blood dripped on the soil and snakes sprout from the droplets. Medusa’s head is later gifted to Athena, whom attaches it to her shield, supplying her with the power of Medusa’s deadly glare in combat.

The legend of Medusa is one of horrific injustice and betrayal. After the violation of her person through the act of rape, her boss, Athena, does the unimaginable: curse her. The ancient equivalent to the modern-day slut shame of a genuine victim of rape. The horrors of rape alone didn’t metamorphize her hair into serpents, it was that the aftermath of her rape was followed by the ultimate betrayal by a deity she had bestowed with trust.

If Kali’s fury has lit her heart on fire, then Athena’s betrayal has frozen Medusa’s heart into ice. In Kali, the Nietzschean will to power is alive and striving, but in Medusa it is nowhere to be found. Medusa, as a beautiful maiden was pure, pure in the sense that she couldn’t conceive of the unfathomable betrayal of Athena, thus when it dawned upon her   hope in both humanity and divinity was lost. Anyone who’s superego isn’t as disturbed as that of Athena and Poseidon will be overwhelmed by their conscience upon meeting Medusa’s gaze. The burden of her victimization is a collective bearing for all to carry, reminding us of the consequences of vicious cruelty.

Every young boy has looked into the eyes of Medusa as their, otherwise loving, mother coolly hit them with the “I’m not mad, I’m disappointed,” remark. Such disappointment, from women, causes a man to cringe in an instinctive act of clenching the gut muscles.

In yogic philosophy, masculine consciousness is associated with fire and believed to reside in the solar plexus. One believes to be speaking figuratively when alluding to bravery as “having guts” but embodied bravery, is quite literally impossible without having a strong presence in the gut area.

The act of cringing is the act of shame as a biological reaction rather than an emotion. Medusa’s ice-cold gaze, cursing one to cringe in shame, is the true extinguisher of a man’s masculine consciousness, making him think twice before he acts next time, however since Medusa has lost hope in the redeeming qualities of man, there will be no next time, whomever meeting her gaze is doomed to freeze for all eternity. The many men whom attempted to behead her prior to Perseus couldn’t bear the collective burden of a restless conscience and thus instinctively attempt to rescue their phallus from the prospect of psychic castration through beheading the source of their restlessness. Such an act of profanity, is nothing short from foolish desperation, a last resort for restoring balance in one’s psyche, bound to fail from the get go, which is why all men prior to Perseus freeze to stone upon their attempted murder.

Perseus only finds success through looking in the mirror at the moment of execution, sparing his phallus from castration as his conscience remains unaffected, but his heinous crime is not without consequence as Medusa’s spilled blood sprout to life venomous serpents on Libyan soil. Medusa is Mahsa Amini, as the Iranian morality police seem to mistake the beauty of a woman’s hair for poisonous serpents. The serpents sprung to life by Medusa’s blood are the many Iranian women unleashing the terror of their liberated hair upon the morality police. Nothing terrifies fundamentalist Islamists more than the emergence of their own anima, as it becomes projected upon an enchanting woman. 

Raktabīja’s blood stains produce duplicates as a reaction to fair female resistance, Medusa’s blood stains produce serpents as a reaction to horrific injustice and a cowardice murder. The moral of the story is that injustice and disrespect of self-assertion lay the groundworks in which mayhem may flourish.

Lastly, Athena attaching Medusa’s head to her shield is a ploy to harness the power of a victim’s hopeless disappointment and masquerade it as her own. Athena, despite being a deity, could impossibly freeze her opponents with her own gaze, as she created Medusa’s through initiating the destruction of her reputation. It is solely through a masquerade in which Athena cosplays victimhood that she can harness the powers of it.

[psychoanalysisandchill]

The Picture of Dorian Gray – a case study in Narcissism

The Dying Dandy by Nils Dardel

Conceptual considerations

Carl Jung’s Anima

In Jungian psychology, the anima – a man’s inner-woman and soul – bears the function of relation. To his social surroundings, but also to the material springing from his own unconscious. Men with highly developed animas tend to be the poets, artists and shamans of their respective ages and cultures, however, for the anima to reach her final stage of development and achieve wisdom she has to undergo the trials and turbulences of life and emerge victorious from them.

Melanie Klein’s Object-relations

In Kleinian psychoanalysis, the infant splits objects into categories of “good” and “bad” as some nourish him, for instance the good breast of the mother, whilst others withhold nurture; the bad breast. Splitting is employed as a defense mechanism against terrible anxiety, but it also leads to a lack of internal object consistency and a split within the child’s own psyche. Introjecting the nourishment of the good breast and projecting favorably on it is also a defense mechanism which serves to banish off terrible anxiety. Likewise, the negative projection on the bad mother is a defense mechanism which serves to cast off feelings of bereavement and vulnerability.

If the love and nurture of the good mother is inconsistent or absent, whilst the rage of the bad mother erupts in an uncontrollable and unpredictable manner, the child’s defense mechanism of splitting and projecting may lead to the development of a narcissistic personality as a means to cope with the overwhelming anxiety the relationship to the mother causes.

Psychoanalyzing Dorian Gray

In Man and his symbols Marie-Louise von Franz posits that the first stage of anima development is that of instinctual pleasure, symbolized by Eve in the garden of Eden as she yields into the influence of the snake and satisfies her instinctual calling of biting the forbidden apple. In Sexual Personae Camille Paglia draws parallels between the interaction of Eve and the serpent and the initial interaction of Lord Henry and Dorian Gray. “Lord Henry, the serpent in the garden, infects him with self-consciousness,” (p. 514) Paglia writes. “Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind, and poisons us,” Lord Henry tells Dorian. “The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it,” he continues.

Lord Henry finds amusement in the manipulation of Dorian, later in the book it is made clear that his goal is to dominate him, much in the same way the bad mother will exercise her influence on the naiveté of her child with a smirk on her face, fully aware of the detriment of her sadism on her child's juvenile psyche.

After Dorian has become self-conscious due to Lord Henry’s flamboyant epigram, he notices the beauty of his own portrait and subordinates himself to it. For he will grow old, but the portrait is ageless, magnificent, flawless, its beauty frozen in time. Here the portrait represents that moment in time the bad mother gazed upon her son, eyes infatuated with narcissistic admiration, such scarce and rare moments are imbued with longing and burned into the depth of his memory. The remainder of the time he is anxiously pre-occupied with recreating and reliving such states as they are the sole pseudo-connection he has experienced with mother.

Meticulous discernment of the subtlest details is a function of the feminine psyche, resulting in awe-inducing perceptual refinement in art and perfect polite mannerism in social interaction, thus the function of the negative feminine, which ostracises and excludes, bullies and berates is essentially an agent of socialisation, setting a cruel standard, callous in regard towards the devastating effect she has on her victims. Lord Henry embodies the negative feminine through his sharp wit, expressive epilogues, callous amorality and glorification of aesthetic beauty over the Christian god of the Victorian age.

 Paglia writes “Male homosexuals have an instinct for hierarchy unparalleled in contemporary culture,” precisely because the male homosexual is anima possessed, attuned to the subtlest sign of resentful scorn of the bad mother and adjusts himself appropriately and accordingly so as to cast of the castrating cruelty of her evil eye. He knows mother’s propensity for repulsion and disgust all too well. Male heterosexuals -  with their matter-of-fact practical life-approach - on the other hand, will spend an entire life time grappling in bewilderment at the subtle mood fluctuations of women, but to the male homosexual they are no mystery, rather it is the source that has blessed him with his perfect perceptual and social discernment but also cursed him with a cruel castration anxiety.

In the hopes of avoiding evoking the scornful glare of the bad mother, the narcissist meticulously crafts external beauty and arms it with superficial charm, along with all the other surface level niceties that secure the scarce admiration of the good mother which he feels malnourished of. Such people tend to be delightful acquaintances yet horrible friends and that is precisely because no amount of admiration is a true substitute for neither love nor authentic relation.

This, the narcissist knows and is aware of, albeit somewhat unconsciously, which is precisely the reason as to why he will keep his admirers at an arm’s length at all times; so as not to break the enchanting spell of his seduction which would reveal his foul soul, thus the act of veiling his soul by the mist of his charisma and enthralling theatrical personality is a deliberate attempt at self-protection. The soul doesn’t grow foul through hedonistic sin per se, but through absence of the loving gaze of the good mother and the galore of the scornful gaze of the bad mother.  Indeed, as the Novel proceeds, Dorian’s portrait –his soul – grows more hideous, to which he anxiously responds by hiding it in fear of being exposed, much like the narcissist seeks to secure mothers scarce admiration by hiding all aspects of self that may evoke scorn.

The scornful gaze of the bad mother has left him denied of love, making him feel ugly on the inside, the absence of the good mother has left him with body dysmorphic identity disturbance, instead of his anima functioning as a bridge to the unconscious - the well where the inspiration for his art and poetry springs from – she severs the connection to it through the fixation on his puzzling mirror-image, leading him to master the art of discernment and external beauty. Transforming himself into the objet d’ art, since he cannot find inspiration for it due to the severing of his anima’s connecting to the unconscious. Lord Henry claims that: “a great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating. The worse their rhymes are, the more picturesque they look.”

Either the anima is retrieving artistic inspiration from the unconscious and fueling man to create great art, or she enters into an unholy alliance with the ego, pre-occupied with seducing others so as to command and manipulate their perception through the construction of the perfect persona, in the hopes of veiling her foulness. There simply aren’t enough hours in a day to have it both ways.

Dorian accuses the painter of his portrait, Basil Hallward, of being a Philistine, to which Henry responds: “Basil, my dear boy, puts everything that is charming in him into his work. The consequence is that he has nothing left for life but his prejudices, his principles, and his common-sense.” (p.47) Basil represents the man, whose anima is still connected to the depths of his inner-realm. On Basil’s love for Dorian, Paglia writes that “ordinary sexual desire is not the issue. Greek idealism is a glorification of the eye, not a glut of the senses,” but the beauty Basil has captured on the portrait is not that of merely superficial externality, it is his soul. Dorian’s antics and charisma never fool him – what may appear as superficial admiration of Dorian’s external beauty on Basil’s end, is in fact an adoration of his juvenile uncorrupted soul as embodied in his youthful countenance. He worships and subordinates himself to Dorian, much in the same way the good mother should subordinate herself towards the narcissistic instinctual needs of a frail and helpless infant.

Perhaps Basil isn’t the delightful socialite that Lord Henry is, after all he is not a slave to his instincts - nor is it his life’s priority to manipulate others perception of him, but he is equipped with a moral compass and common-sense, qualities only those whom have known the good mother possess, which in turn is the foundation for any further developments of the Anima beyond her instinctual stage.

The failure of the mother lies in treating the child as an extension of herself and loving it in a narcissistic manner, meaning not acknowledging the child’s separateness and respecting its autonomy, thus relation to the child always happens from a standpoint of symbiosis.

In this hellish symbiosis, he carries far too great responsibilities for his mother’s reactions and responses and fails to fence himself off from her, he comes to learn that appearance is everything in the eyes of his mother who is stuck in a dualistic pattern of reaction, peddling between scorn and occasional admiration and fails to authentically relate to her child.

However, full-blown narcissism only manifests itself where there is a suppression of the superego, i.e. conscience, which Lord Henry, the amoral aesthete, likens to cowardice.

Basil Hallward, on the other hand, attempts to lecture Dorian Gray in chapter twelve by stating: “One has a right to judge a man by the effect he has over his friends. Yours seem to lose all sense of honour, of goodness of purity. You have filled them with madness for pleasure.”

Reasonable accountability is the good mother’s way of rejecting unethical behavior in her child without rejecting his core being, but the suppression of the superego leads to the narcissist’s failure in distinguishing between reasonable accountability and wrathful scorn. Indeed, any intrusion of conscience into the light of consciousness is experienced as torment, thus he is left with no choice but to suppress that which torments him. The murder of Basil Hallward that ensues at the hands of Dorian Gray is the perfect dramatic analogy of what happens inside the psyche of the narcissist when the torment of conscience intrudes into the light of consciousness and it can merely be dealt with through repression.

In the final scene of the novel, Dorian Gray attempts to stab his hideous portrait, but in an act of pure magic, ends up dying himself, bereaved from his youth and beauty which now ornaments the portrait. What might seem mystical makes perfect sense once one ponders it intuitively: one cannot escape the laws of nature, one’s karmic debt has to be paid back. What has been repressed to the depths of the unconscious will at the moment of death make itself known to the narcissist as he regresses to an infantile stage where all his paranoid fears will make themselves known to him.