The author uses Oscar Wilde's novel to show the discrepancy experienced between one's self-representation as offered by another and as arising primarily from within. He shows how the main character first accepts as his own the

distorted representations of him given by others and then attempts to rid himself of the effects of these distorted perceptions. I feel that this paper is of particular interest in that it furthers understanding of certain kinds of narcissistic and homosexual relationships (in fact Wilde must have been writing about himself), and it also touches on some psychodynamic elements which are of significance in "brainwashing."