The society, science, and symbolism of narcissism
Like many of the stories in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the myth of Narcissus is a cautionary tale. Today, however, it seems more like prophecy.
First, let’s gather ‘round for a recounting of the famous story:
When Narcissus was a newborn babe, his mother brought him to a seer to inquire if her son would live to a ripe old age.
The seer responded, “Yes, if he never knows himself.”
Narcissus’ beauty was already apparent as a baby, and fast forward to sixteen, he was the object of intense infatuation from both girls and boys. But because of the pride in his heart, no one really seemed to interest him.
Now let’s introduce Echo, as she is quite important to the story.
We all know of the echo as a voice that repeats fractions of our words back to us. But Echo wasn’t always that way. In fact, she used to be quite talkative. She was a nymph who enjoyed talking and was known for interrupting others.
She would help cover up Zeus’ love affairs by talking Hera’s ear off with idle chatter and long stories. Hera eventually realized this and cursed the nymph, saying, “That tongue of yours has swindled me. I will give you less power over it, the very briefest use of your own voice.” (trans. Ian Johnston)
And that is why Echo now only repeats the last words of what she hears. (Such irony is everywhere in these ancient stories)
One day, Echo spied Narcissus in the woods, and immediately fell in love with him. She pursued him while keeping out of sight. She longed so much to announce herself and profess her love, but due to her new nature as an echo, such initiative was not possible. She may only wait for a sound that she may repeat – but she didn’t have to wait long.
Narcissus, realizing he was separated from his companions, called out, “Is anyone here?”
“Here!” answered Echo.
Narcissus invited the voice to come out to meet him, and Echo could not comply more enthusiastically. She ran out to him, arms wide, ready to embrace him. But he recoiled:
“Take off your hands! You shall not fold your arms around me. Better death than such a one should ever caress me!” (trans. Brookes More)
“Caress me,” the nymph echoed in shock and disappeared into the woods again.
(Brutal. The worst he can say is no, they say.)
Spurned, Echo retreated alone into caves. Her unrequited love tormented her, and her grief wasted her away until only her bones and voice remained, the sound that lives on in caves and mountainsides.
But we’re not done with Narcissus.
One of Narcissus' male admirers, bitter from also being rejected sometime earlier, prayed, "May he himself love as I have loved him...without obtaining his beloved." (trans. Charles Martin)
The boy later came across a pool clear as crystal with perfectly still water. As he bent down to drink from it, he noticed the beautiful face reflected in the pool – and he fell in love with it. Transfixed, he laid there as still as a marble statue, obsessed by the person he saw and burning with desire for the first time.
“He admires all that he’s admired for, for it is he that he himself desires, all unaware … ignorant of what it is he looks at, he burns for what he sees there all the same, aroused by the illusion that deceives him.” (trans. Martin)
“And how he kisses the deceitful fount … Yet never may he wreathe his arms around that image of himself.” (trans. More)
In vain, he tried to embrace his reflection, and after much anguish, he suddenly awoke to the fact that the image was none other than himself. He despaired that his desire will never be satisfied, that he can never leave or else he would lose sight of his only love, that love may forever be out of his reach.
In his futility, the boy lost the will to live and dissolved, wasted by his passion. “Farewell!” he cried at last.
“Farewell!” Echo cried back.
His body changed. Where he once laid by the pool now stood a flower with white petals around a yellow heart. A daffodil.
Also known today by its Latin name — Narcissus.
Was man ever meant to gaze upon himself? Are we ever supposed to know what we look like? I don’t have an answer, but these are interesting questions to ponder.
Now, I like mirrors. It tells me when I need to fix my hair before going out. But with mirrors comes self-obsession. Maybe that’s why they call mirror fixtures “vanities.”
Fun fact: the word “vanity” came from the Latin “vanitas,” meaning “emptiness, aimlessness, futility.” Only figuratively was it used to refer to pride and conceit. Perhaps Ovid had both meanings in mind as he told the story of Narcissus and the inherent emptiness of his conceit.
So we had mirrors, but they weren’t always portable. If only we could carry mirrors in our pockets that we can pull out on the street or on the bus –– oh wait, guess what? We do.
They’re called front-facing cameras.
Today I can open up my Instagram profile page and scroll through tons of images of — you guessed it — myself.
I can take a selfie and spend lots of time trying out various filters. I can dote and fawn over every image of myself staring back at me.
“Once upon a time, we didn't know what we looked like. But now people relentlessly edit their own photos like they're on the cover of Vogue. Reflections are ephemeral no more. Reflections are no longer erased by the ripples of a pond. Now, they’re locked in pixels.” – David Perell
Whether you think you’re the hottest stuff or a troll in need of Photoshop, the effect remains of a persistent and compulsive self-obsession. Glued to those self portraits like the boy was to the pool, we waste away.
The story of Narcissus is a story about a boy who was incapable of loving beyond himself.
I just learned this fun science stuff recently and so I was excited when I recognized it in the story. Here is my oversimplified, non-expert explanation:
There’s a part of the brain called the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC). The PCC has a role in many functions, but it is very involved in self-referential and autobiographical activities, such as retrieving memories.
The PCC is observed to be activated when when attention is directed inwardly (e.g., planning, daydreaming, self-reflection) and deactivated when attention is directed toward external tasks (e.g., fixing the sink) or centered on the present (e.g., meditation). (Brewer, Garrison, & Whitfield-Gabrieli, 2013)
Understanding the PCC’s role in self-referential processing, it’s interesting to note that an overactive PCC is correlated with depression (featuring excessive rumination) (Berman, et al, 2017). On the opposite end of the spectrum, an underactive PCC is tied to dissociation (when you disconnect from your thoughts, feelings, surroundings, and sense of identity). (Krause-Utz, et al, 2017)
(So it makes sense why the drug ketamine is such an effective antidepressant — it induces dissociation)
In other words, the PCC helps us form a sense of self, and by extension, it enables us to recognize ourselves in the mirror.
Now, if you haven’t seen this cute video, I recommend it.
Watched it? Great, keep reading.
You can see the moment she realized she was looking at herself. The moment her posterior cingulate cortex said, “Hey, that’s me!” It’s beautiful.
Now let’s read this part of Narcissus’ monologue as he anguishes over his inability to embrace his reflection:
“[When] I’ve reached down toward you, you’ve reached up again,
and when I laughed, why, you laughed too, and often
I have seen tears on your cheeks when I wept;
you second all my motions, and the movement
of your bow-shaped lips suggests that you respond
with words to mine—although I never hear them!
“But now I get it! I am that other one!
I’ve finally seen through my own image!
I burn with love for—me! The spark I kindle
is the torch I carry: whatever can I do?
…
“Oh, would that I were able to secede
from my own body, depart from what I love!
(Now that’s an odd request from any lover.)”
(trans. Charles Martin)
You see that same moment of realization: I’m looking at me! And it’s quite notable to remember that Narcissus at this point was sixteen years old, described as seeming “to be both boy and man,” meaning, he was at the pubescent threshold of maturity. So the apparent activation of the PCC in Narcissus’ brain appears to be quite fitting.
Would you say that “knowing himself” was a marker of his maturing?
(I also realize that the phrase can be interpreted as an innuendo, which would have an interesting application. You could theorize that this is a sexual “coming of age” story)
I’m shifting gears now from the technical science stuff to the abstract world of symbolism. Being a myth itself, this is the story’s home turf, and it’s therefore full of it.
I find it interesting that, of all embodied concepts to take the spotlight as Narcissus’ admirer, Ovid chose none other than Echo. I don’t think the choices made in the construction of any of these myths were random, so why Echo in particular?
It’s notable that Echo, come to think of it, functioned just like the pool of water—to reflect one back to oneself, albeit with different outcomes. Still, Echo became an extension of Narcissus, reinforcing his self-absorption. She formed his — wait for it — echo chamber. A feature of every narcissist’s life.
At the same time, in another sense, Echo was the opposite of Narcissus. Only capable of repeating someone else’s words, her entire identity revolved around the “other.” Effectually, she lost her sense of self, and this experience concretely manifested in her wasting away until only her voice remained.
At this point you might be thinking: wait, if Echo validated Narcissus’ self-absorption, why did he reject her? I wondered the same. Then I realized:
Both Echo and Narcissus suffered from this same thing: an inability to connect with someone else. Narcissus was self-absorbed; Echo had lost her Self. Every relationship needs two Selves. Narcissus ran into this problem quite clearly when he said…
“The spark I kindle
is the torch I carry: whatever can I do?
Am I the favor-seeker, or the favor sought?
“Why seek at all, when all that I desire
is mine already? Riches in such abundance
that I’ve been left completely without means!
“Oh, would that I were able to secede
from my own body, depart from what I love!
(Now that’s an odd request from any lover.)”
So futile was the endeavor of “self love” that Narcissus wished he could separate from himself, to divide himself into two, just so his love could be returned and satisfied.
(By the way, remember what happens when the posterior cingulate cortex is overactive? One effect is the excessive rumination on self-referential thoughts. The opposite is dissociation. Narcissus appears to be asking for some form of depersonalization)
So why did Narcissus reject Echo’s love? Because, as we said before, every relationship requires two Selves. And Echo, as we also said, lacked a Self.
Narcissus had the opposite problem: his Self was attempting to feed on itself, and it couldn’t. Being both the desirer and the desired, his craving remained unfulfilled. Thus, his “riches in such abundance” left him utterly poor.
Centuries before Ovid wrote Metamorphoses, this famous maxim was inscribed on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. Since then, it has been analyzed and interpreted by many great minds, from Plato to Kant, in various directions.
If your understanding of “know thyself” is something along the lines of “know your soul,” you have Plato to thank. But the original meaning is more likely akin to “know your place,” “know your limits,” or “know what Nature has granted you and what she has not.”
Both interpretations are valid to me. I just want to point out that the maxim was already well-known and making its way around philosophical dialogues by the time Ovid told his story. So it’s possible that this was Ovid’s cheeky take on the phrase.
Here you might be wondering another thing. “Know thyself” has always been understood to be a positive thing, something to pursue and embody. But the same words in the myth of Narcissus appear to take the opposite position: it isn’t a good thing to know oneself, lest we fall into narcissism. Curious, isn’t it?
Let me stretch a little and bring in another example: the Fall in the Book of Genesis.
Many theologians have theorized on the meaning of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Whatever it means, it’s clear that it had this effect: “Then the eyes of [Adam and Eve] were opened, and they realized they were naked.” (NIV)
This heavily suggests to me that Adam and Eve, upon eating the fruit, suddenly “knew themselves.” While their reaction to this was different from Narcissus’ — they were ashamed while he was not — the Fall led to the same outcome: self-obsession.
Plus, remember the TikTok video from earlier? Or the moment Narcissus exclaimed “Oh that’s me!”? We could say the same thing happened here in Genesis 3.
So we return to the question: if the maxim “know thyself” was always understood to be a good thing, why was it bad for Narcissus?
But I think Plato and Cicero would argue that Narcissus didn’t, in fact, know himself truly. And psychiatrists would agree. The whole deal with people with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is that they have a distorted sense of self, others, and their relationship with the world. One of the more promising treatments for NPD, called Transference-Focused Psychotherapy, is centered on helping the narcissist reshape their view of themselves and others into a more accurate and realistic one, and develop empathy along the way.
To truly know yourself, then, is to have an accurate understanding of your place in the world, your strengths and limitations, your idiosyncrasies. It is to know the inner workings of your mind and the deep dark places within you. It is to know your mortality, and your own value.
Narcissus, like all narcissists, had a distorted view of self and others, which hindered him from experiencing true connection and relationship.
It's striking how both ironic and fitting Narcissus' and Echo's curses are. But Ovid's audiences wouldn't have been surprised: such themes were common in these tales. And they are not by accident.
To explain this, I'm going to use these two terms I just made up: "curse of congruity" and "curse of irony." A curse of congruity is a punishment that is consistent with what you'd expect for the particular sin. A curse of irony is a punishment that is opposite of what you'd expect — or ironic. These concepts have been talked about before by people smarter than me, but I haven't heard anyone come up with technical terms for them — so I just did.
Echo's curse is both congruent and ironic: "Since you talk so much, of your own initiative, now you can only speak a little, incapable of your own initiative" (ironic); but at the same time: "Since you are full of shallow, idle chatter, you will be bound to merely repeating other people's words — the most shallow endeavor" (congruent).
See what's happening here?
Now it's Narcissus' turn. His, too, is both congruent and ironic: "Since you are so full of yourself, you will waste away forever gazing at yourself" (congruent); On the other hand, "You, rejector of lovers, who will not fulfill another's desire, will now have your own desire unfulfilled" (ironic).
Dante's Inferno is full of case studies for curses of irony and congruity, and many punishments are both.
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Note (me from the future):
Funny how I was referencing Dante and completely forgot to mention that he popularized a term that encapsulates punishments of irony and congruity: contrapasso. The Latin word meaning "suffer the opposite," contrapasso refers to the just punishment of souls "by a process either resembling or contrasting with the sin itself" (Mark Musa's commentary notes, 1984). Some punishments in Inferno are clearly "resembling" the sin (congruity), others are clearly "contrasting" (irony), and still others can have various interpretations that include both.
Today, we use the term "poetic justice" to describe this idea. I will stick to my terms of "congruity" and "irony" for now to indicate each type specifically.
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The last major theme I will mention is that of unfulfilled desires. Narcissus and Echo both were tormented by unfulfilled desire, and wasted away because of it.
This theme actually runs through many of these ancient myths, and is unsurprisingly a prominent concept in Dante’s depiction of Hell in Inferno.
This subject is too vast, however, to be talked about here. So I will save it for a later time. If you made it here at the end, I have mad respect and appreciation for you. Thanks for reading this monster of an essay. (Where was this stuff when I was in college?)
'Till next time.
Multi-passionate creative and cultural philosopher. I love talking psychology, culture, education, and anything else that deals with living as better people.