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Fear of the Feminine in The Picture of Dorian Gray. Terence Dawson. Pp. 263-280.
The encounter of Dorian Gray and Sibyl Vane plays a crucial role in Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. Dawson uses a Jungian approach and examines three mythological motifs which occur within the story: Actaeon and Artemis; Narcissus and Echo; and Adonis and Venus. Dorian fears his unconscious sexual desires and is not ready to acknowledge sexuality in his image of the feminine (his anima). A confusion exists between the experience of the anima and the experience of the Jungian self. Dawson postulates that Wilde had conflicts corresponding to those of his protagonist, Dorian, who carries Wilde's "authentic" unconscious personality.