Autism in Horror/Dark Literature: THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY

Upon face value, the story, The Picture of Dorian Gray can be seen as a sort of loose retelling of Narcissus, the Greek son of the river god Cephisesus, and the dangers of self-love to the point of unempathetic decisions that inflict harm onto others. In Narcissus's story, the harm he "burdens" onto others is his lack of interest in fertility, leading to his inventible transformation into a flower. His deathly, stemmed prison used to attract goddesses such as Persephone with his sweet petals, ensuring their eventual affair.

And even connecting this Greek myth with the overly pathological, low understanding of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, we as the readers can even still witness the homophobic qualities and fears that pained Oscar Wilde's society within our very own, child-birthing-obsessed world: the horror of a man, not interested in self-producing more workers for capital with his prideful seed, while also being far more enamored with aesthetics, literature, and lazed theorizing, is the very terror Oscar Wilde not only poked fun at but forced the mirror upon our very own eyes.

The Picture of Dorian Gray helps us self-reflect on how consumer-based societies can not handle the possibility that we may have sex to not procreate. We may do things that are deemed frivolous, enjoyable, and "of the earthly pleasures" because it's our birthright to live. To experience joy without producing something package-able, a sellable product soaring out from the radical womb into the great, decaying swamps of self-production. Of monetized greed and flavorful death, staining our view of self-love and reflection.

But here, I'm interested in saying something else: I want to examine the mirror. We draw to it, especially as an autistic person myself. A person obsessed with recovering what's been lost. Taken from my own display of beauty.

I'll explain; When I first read The Picture of Dorian Gray, I was, first and foremost, in awe of the language, the relationship between Lord Henry and Dorian Gray, and how it all tasted in my mouth. How it's sour-telling sweetened the bored and gay parts of my mind. And secondly, I was obsessed with Dorian's fixation on himself. How he managed to view himself, unashamed, for the entire story.

When I was younger, I had a friend who made me and two other girls charm bracelets. She gave a soccer ball to one of them, a basketball to the other, and I, who was a child not coordinated enough to really play sports, got a tiny, silver mirror, dangling off the chain. Confused, I asked her why she decided to gift me this charm, given that I didn't really have an interest in makeup or theater either. Smiling, she said, "It's because you're looking in windows and mirrors all the time. You like to look at yourself."

My mother, when seeing the bracelet around my wrist and my explanation, was this girl's snide way of calling me vain, spoke to her mother, explaining how that wasn't very nice - but did I find it insulting? Not really, given that I was just happy to be recognized, my interests observed and explained back to me, but it did cause me to view the object of a mirror differently. The bracelet caused me to materialize the mirror as glass, instead of a portal. Ruining its mystery, a little.

Yet, when reading The Picture of Dorian Gray, I did often wonder if he was looking for something in the way that I was: a lost identity, buried beneath the warped layers of self I had zombified, conjured out from the likable parts of others. The mannerisms and jokes seemed to satisfy me and allowing me peace, once I had earned time to "be alone."

Personally, when I read Dorian's reaction to his gunky, corpse reflection in the painting, finally reconciling with the overconsumption of his beauty, I did wonder if I'd catch myself, unmasked and natural, daring to look over my shoulder and surprising my disguise, I would find the same decay. A person below the surface, carrying the burden of my performance. Not really alive but not dead enough to fully die.