In The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wilde presents the story of a striking young man who appears perfect on the outside and who proves to be corrupt on the inside, pledging his very soul to keep his good looks。 The novel is a mixture of good and evil, beauty and ugliness and a tragedy of the destruction of the flesh of the soul。 By telling such a story, the author aimed to reveal spiritual emptiness and moral destruction in the British upper class and vividly demonstrated his own outlooks on life, morality and artistic value。

1。2 The definition of projection theory

Projection, a terminology in the field of psychology, was first conceptualized by Dr。 Sigmund Freud in his letters to Wilhelm Fliess, and further refined by Karl Abraham and Anna Freud。 It is a form of defense mechanism in which someone attributes thoughts, feelings, and ideas which are perceived as undesirable to someone else。 Dr。 Freud believed that people used projection to reduce their own stress or feelings of guilt, thus protecting themselves psychologically。 This psychological phenomenon is sometimes referred to as “Freudian projection” in reference to Dr。 Freud's work in the field。 It is also a psychological phenomenon where someone denies some aspect of their behavior or attitudes and assumes instead that others are doing or thinking so。

 It is usually seen as the externalization of a person's negative traits, placing blame on an outside force such as the environment, a government, a society or other people。 In a general sense, psychological projection can mean that people assume that other people share their thoughts or beliefs, good or bad。 For example, someone who likes dogs might assume that all people like dogs, or an unfaithful spouse might conclude that everyone is unfaithful, since this would reflect his or her own experiences。 文献综述

2。 Literature review

Oscar Wilde’s aesthetic novel The Picture of Dorian Gray has kept the subject of strong critical controversy since its first publication in July 1890, Its first readers the Christian Leader, for example, believed that Wilde had ‘performed a service to his age’ by detailing ‘the tragic picture of Dorian Gray’s life, given up to sensuous pleasure, with its mingled culture and corruption’。 Other reviewers deemed Wilde’s story to be anything but moral。 A foreign scholar Goodman (1994) commented that Dorian’s tragedy is a reflection of the author’s character defects (Yan and Jin 94)。 In China, massive studies on Dorian's tragedy have been conducted。 For instance, our domestic expert Xiao Ping (2000) and Shao Juan (2006) thought that Henry is the uncontrolled Wilde id, Basil is the author’s superego while Dorian is Wilde’s ego who is out of balance and ruins himself (Yan and Jin 94)。 In addition, although acclaimed by some people as an instructive morality tale, it has been denounced by others for its implicit immorality。 In fact, this statement is not accurate enough。 Obviously the novel is not a moral story in the traditional sense as no matter how much destruction Dorian Gray wreaks or how much he is supposed o age, his ever-youthful beauty defies the ravages of time。 Except from such certain moral factors, the novel has a strong sense of aestheticism, which includes humorous language and innovative images。 Furthermore, the novel contains large amount of artistic beauty, literature beauty and humanity。 In a word, combining elements of the supernatural, aestheticism, and the Gothic, the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray is an unclassifiable and uniquely unsettling work of fiction。 

Up to now, a good deal of scholars and specialists has studied this novel in many aspects such as philosophy, psychology, literature, translation and art。 Despite the fact that some previous studies have proved Freud psychoanalysis on characters’ personality, my study toady differs from those。 According to Freud’s Id and Self, former studies are mainly emphased on analyzing characters’ personality respectively from their own features。 As for the projection theory applied in my thesis, my paper aims to analyze one’s personalities and psychological activities through another relevant person。 Thus, we can more intensely connect these characters’ relationship together。 While both former studies and my thesis involve psychology, our starting points and researching directions are totally different。 来,自,优.尔:论;文*网www.youerw.com +QQ752018766-