Contrasting Shadows: The Jungian Archetypes in Oscar Wilde's Salome and Dorian Gray

This study explores the ascendancy and dominance of the unconscious over consciousness by focusing on two literary works by Oscar Wilde, Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) and Salome (1891) which will be analyzed simultaneously through a Jungian lens. This comparative analysis draws an inference between the darker aspects of human nature through binary oppositions of gender and identifies the archetypal constituents of the human psyche. Dorian Gray's feminized persona, his anima, is juxtaposed against Salome's masculine persona animus. In The Picture of Dorian Gray, the typically concealed component of the psyche, which is the shadow, is nurtured by Dorian’s narcissism and manifests itself. This ultimately leads to the demise of the character, as the artificial separation of the self from the unconscious is ultimately unsustainable. Conversely, in Salome, the excessively indulged shadow self takes over and dominates the psyche. The shadow archetype highlights diverse atypical qualities based on different genders and exerts supremacy over the psyche due to its self-centered nature. The complexity and fluidity of gender roles connected to the anima and animus, which are the contrasexual attributes in their psychic manifestations illustrated in these characters, underscore that these traits and behaviors are not inherently confined to a specific gender but are part of the broader human experience.