narcissus myth essay

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Narcissus , in Greek mythology , the son of the river god Cephissus and the nymph Liriope . He was distinguished for his beauty. According to Ovid ’s Metamorphoses , Book III, Narcissus’s mother was told by the blind seer Tiresias that he would have a long life, provided he never recognized himself. However, his rejection of the love of the nymph Echo or (in an earlier version) of the young man Ameinias drew upon him the vengeance of the gods. He fell in love with his own reflection in the waters of a spring and pined away (or killed himself); the flower that bears his name sprang up where he died. The Greek traveler and geographer Pausanias , in Description of Greece , Book IX, said it was more likely that Narcissus, to console himself for the death of his beloved twin sister, his exact counterpart, sat gazing into the spring to recall her features.

The story may have derived from the ancient Greek superstition that it was unlucky or even fatal to see one’s own reflection. Narcissus was a very popular subject in Roman art. In Freudian psychiatry and psychoanalysis , the term narcissism denotes an excessive degree of self-esteem or self-involvement, a condition that is usually a form of emotional immaturity.

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Narcissus is a figure from Greek mythology who was so impossibly handsome that he fell in love with his own image reflected in a pool of water. Even the lovely nymph Echo could not tempt him from his self-absorption. Narcissus' name lives on as the flower into which he was transformed and as a synonym for those obsessed with their own appearance.

Narcissus & His Reflection

Narcissus was born in Thespiae in Boeotia, the son of Cephissus (the personification of the Boeotian river of the same name) and the nymph Liriope. His mother was warned one day by the seer Teiresias that her son would live a long life as long as 'he never knows himself.' As he reached his teenage years, the handsome youth never found anyone that could pull his heartstrings, indeed, he left in his wake a long trail of distressed and broken-hearted maidens, and one or two young men fell by the wayside too. Then, one day, he chanced to see his own reflection in a pool of water and, thus, discovered the ultimate in unrequited love and fell in love with himself. Naturally, this one-way relationship went nowhere, and Narcissus, unable to draw himself away from the pool, pined away in despair until he finally died of thirst and starvation. Immortality, at least of a kind, was assured, though, when his corpse (or in some versions the blood from his self-inflicted stab wound) turned into the flowers which, thereafter, bore his name.

Narcissus & Echo

Another version of the myth appears in the work of the Roman writer Ovid . In this telling, Narcissus is as handsome as ever but cruelly refuses the advances of Echo. The lovely nymph, heartbroken, wastes away and dies with only her voice remaining to echo her plight. As a punishment for his neglect, Narcissus is then killed. Another version has Echo punished by Hera because she kept the goddess distracted with stories while the lovers of her husband Zeus , the mountain nymphs, escaped Mt. Olympus without notice. This explains why Echo could only repeat what others said to her. It is Echo in this form that Narcissus comes across one day while hunting deer in the forest. After a useless exchange of repeated words and statements, Echo tries to embrace the youth, but he rejects her and dashes off back home. Echo then pines away in the forest so that her body eventually perishes and only her voice remains.

Ameinius & Artemis

Other stories which diverge from the original myth have Narcissus, like with the Echo story, play the role of a mean rejector of suitors. One of the youth's most ardent admirers was Ameinius, but Narcissus merely sent him a sword to do away with himself, which he did. On dying, Ameinius cursed the object of his unbound affections and asked the gods to punish him. Artemis responds to the request - perhaps showing a dislike for rival hunters – and compels Narcissus to tragically fall in love with his reflection.

Narcissus in Art & Culture

Unlike for Greek artists, the Roman version of Narcissus and Echo was a very popular subject in Roman art and is seen in almost 50 wall paintings at Pompeii alone. Renaissance art also took a shine to Narcissus; the story involving light and reflection proved irresistible to Caravaggio, who captured the myth in his celebrated 16th-century CE oil painting. Finally, his name lives on today in psychoanalysis where narcissism refers to the personality disorder of excessive self-admiration and preoccupation with one's appearance.

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Bibliography

• Graves, R. The Greek Myths. Penguin UK, 2011.
• Hope Moncrieff, A.R. Classical Mythology. Senate, 1996
• Hornblower, S. The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Oxford University Press, 2012.

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⚘ Narcissus :: The Self-Lover

Narcissus , a figure renowned in Greek mythology, was the son of the river god Cephissus and the nymph Liriope. Known for his striking beauty, Narcissus captured the hearts of many, yet he met each admirer with nothing but disdain and contempt. This unyielding pride in his appearance set the stage for his tragic fate.

Early Life and Fateful Beauty

From his earliest days, Narcissus was distinguished by his extraordinary beauty. His charm was such that it drew the attention and affection of both mortals and nymphs. However, his heart remained cold and unyielding to their advances, a trait that foreshadowed his eventual downfall.

Narcissus and Echo

Among those captivated by Narcissus was the Oread nymph Echo . She was cursed by Hera to only repeat the words of others, which made her unable to express her love for him. One fateful day, as Narcissus hunted in the woods, Echo followed him, filled with longing. When she finally revealed herself, her love was met with harsh rejection. This encounter left Echo heartbroken, leading her to a life of solitude, ultimately fading away until only her voice remained.

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The Curse and Reflection

The punishment of narcissus.

Nemesis , the goddess of retribution, observed Narcissus' callous disregard for those who loved him. To exact justice, she led him to a pool where he saw his own reflection. Unaware that it was merely an image, Narcissus fell deeply in love with it. Upon realizing the truth, he was consumed by despair, understanding that his love would never be reciprocated. This realization led him to take his own life, and legend has it that from the place of his death sprang the narcissus flower, a symbol of his self-obsession.

A Reflection of the Divine

An intriguing aspect of the Narcissus myth is its connection to the divine. Some versions of the story suggest that Narcissus was the object of affection not just of nymphs and mortals , but also of some gods. His rejection of all who loved him, including divine beings, was seen as an act of hubris, further intensifying the gods' desire for retribution. This angle adds another layer to the story, showcasing the consequences of rejecting not just human love, but also divine affection.

Legacy of Narcissus

The story of Narcissus serves as a powerful moral lesson across cultures and generations. It's a poignant reminder of the dangers of excessive pride and vanity. Narcissus' fate demonstrates the perils of becoming overly absorbed in one's own image and the importance of empathy and recognition of others. His story has transcended time, continuing to be a relevant and cautionary tale about the consequences of self-obsession and indifference to the feelings of others.

Narcissus Q&A

Who was narcissus.

Narcissus , a figure renowned in Greek mythology, was the son of the river god Cephissus and the nymph Liriope. Known for his striking beauty, Narcissus captured the hearts of many, yet he met each admirer with nothing but disdain and contempt.

Who were the parents of Narcissus?

The parent of Narcissus was Cephissus .

Cite This Article

A Summary and Analysis of the Echo and Narcissus Myth

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

The story of Echo and Narcissus is one of the most famous in all of classical mythology. But really, what we’re dealing with is a case of several different myths being put together. Narcissus has become synonymous with self-love, with the adjective ‘narcissistic’ and the noun ‘narcissism’ being coined to describe the sort of behaviour which he himself exhibited.

The woman who loved him, meanwhile, has a curious name: Echo. Yet Echo has her own separate story, and was only associated with Narcissus by the Romans, rather than the original Greeks, who came up with the figures of Echo and Narcissus.

Where did these stories come from? And how did Echo and Narcissus end up being put together as part of the same story?

Who was Narcissus?

Let’s take them one at a time first.

Narcissus was a beautiful youth, and the son of the god Cephisus and a nymph named Leiriope. Tiresias, the blind seer or prophet who often turns up in Greek myths to warn characters not to do certain things, prophesied that Narcissus would live to be an old man as long as he never looked at himself.

The problem, however, was that Narcissus was beautiful – so beautiful, in fact, that all the boys and girls who saw him were struck by his beauty and desired him. Many of them pined away with unrequited love and despair because he ignored them, and some died from their heartache.

At first, Narcissus paid them no heed, and went about his business, which appears to have been hunting: he was a hunter by trade.

The god Nemesis – god of divine retribution – didn’t like the fact that Narcissus was completely indifferent to all of the hearts he was breaking, so Nemesis arranged it so Narcissus would come face-to-face with his own reflection in the surface of the water. When he stopped to quench his thirst in the waters of a spring one day, Narcissus promptly fell in love with his own reflection.

Wanting to kiss his beautiful reflection, he leaned into the water, and drowned – or, depending on which version of the myth you read, he pined away, or even stabbed himself when he realised he couldn’t have the object of his desire, namely himself. The narcissus flower – related to the daffodil – is said to have sprung up from the body of the dead Narcissus.

Who was Echo?

So, how did Echo come to be involved with Narcissus?

Well, here’s a question for you. What was the name of the figure who, in Greek myth, pined away for love of Narcissus and ended up killing themselves because Narcissus didn’t return that love?

Not Echo, but Ameinias, Narcissus’ male friend.

According to Conon – a Greek grammarian not to be confused with Robert E. Howard’s barbarian, Conan – in his Narrations , a collection of narratives which survive only as a summary in another writer’s work, Narcissus spurned all of his male suitors, and gave his friend Ameinias a sword with which Ameinias killed himself, over his hopeless love for Narcissus.

According to Conon, it was Ameinias who prayed to Nemesis to deliver retribution upon Narcissus for spurning all of his suitors and treating them so coldly. There’s no mention of Echo loving Narcissus.

And although the story of Echo and Narcissus strikes us as quintessential Greek myth, the introduction of Echo into the tale of Narcissus appears to have been the invention of a Roman poet, Ovid, in his Metamorphoses .

Echo was an Oread or mountain nymph whom Zeus liked to visit for … carnal relations. Hera, Zeus’ wife, was suspicious of what her husband was up to with all these nymphs, and one day followed him to spy on him. Zeus ordered Echo to distract Hera by engaging her with a lengthy conversation (giving Zeus a chance to escape back home to Mount Olympus).

Echo did this, but when Hera found out that she was protecting Zeus, she punished Echo by robbing her of all speech of her own: from now on, all Echo could do was repeat the words of others, hence her name.

Echo loved Narcissus, but she obviously found it hard to tell Narcissus how she felt about him, because she had already been cursed so that she could only repeat what others said, rather than speak for herself.

According to Ovid, after she was shunned by Narcissus she witnessed his demise after he saw his own reflection: in Ovid’s version, Narcissus fades away rather than drowns. Distraught at seeing her beloved destroyed like this, Echo pined away until, eventually, only her voice remained.

Regarding the origins of Echo’s name, the Oxford English Dictionary tells us that the termination -ώ (found at the end of ‘Echo’ in the original Greek, ἠχώ ) was common in Greek female names. The editors point out that ‘Echo’ was used in ancient Greek literature long before the nymph of the Echo and Narcissus story came along – so, Echo was named after echoes rather than vice versa.

Narcissus myth: analysis

Note that this is not the same as saying that self-love in and of itself was his downfall. The ancient Greeks talked of hamartia : the tragic flaw, if you will, that was the chink in a hero’s armour, the detail that would lead to his downfall. If we apply the concept of hamartia to Narcissus, then self-love was definitely not his flaw, because his crimes – the ones which made Nemesis decide to punish him – preceded his own knowledge of how beautiful he was.

Instead, Narcissus’ crime was his indifference to others rather than his love of his own beauty, which only came later, and then only because Nemesis tricked him into seeing his own reflection. What this all means is that Narcissus’ greatest flaw was not really narcissism at all, but self-absorption – that is, being preoccupied with oneself or one’s own business to the exclusion of other people.

About Greek mythology

The Greek myths are over two thousand years old – and perhaps, in their earliest forms, much older – and yet many stories from Greek mythology, and phrases derived from those stories, are part of our everyday speech. So we describe somebody’s weakness as their Achilles heel , or we talk about the dangers of opening up Pandora’s box . We describe a challenging undertaking as a Herculean task , and speak of somebody who enjoys great success as having the Midas touch .

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Narcissus: An Ancient Tragic Story with Many Modern Parallels

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The Greek tale of the self-absorbed yet staggeringly handsome Narcissus is a famous and ancient one. Despite its age, the myth remains famous to this day and provides a moral warning against becoming selfish and uncaring towards others.

The Narcissus story is so influential, in fact, that his name has been given to the mental condition narcissism which is characterized by an inflated sense of self-importance and a lack of empathy for others. Narcissus’ life has also influenced popular culture for centuries and even provided the inspiration for the name of the Harry Potter character Narcissa Malfoy.

Whilst the most popular and well-known versions of the myth contain nymphs, warnings from the Gods and blind seers, the integral moral of the story remains influential. The story also acts as an explanation for the origin of the Narcissus flower (daffodil) and for the origin of echoes.

Primary Sources Give Some Info About Narcissus’ Life

There are a couple of surviving stories about Narcissus’ life, all of which differ somewhat but have the same central story with the same moral teachings.

The main primary source of the myth is Ovid’s Metamorphoses where the story is told in Book III. Ovid was a Roman poet who was born in the city around 43 BC and died in 16 or 17 AD. He traveled throughout his life to a number of Greek territories like Asia Minor and Athens.

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In 2 AD he began his Metamorphoses which is considered his magnum opus comprising 11,995 lines, 15 books and over 250 myths. This colossal poem chronicles the history of the world from its beginning until the deification of Julius Caesar. It also contains the longest version of the myth.

Another earlier but less complete source for the story of Narcissus is a version composed in 50 BC and thought to be the work of the poet Partenius of Nicaea . This work was discovered in 2004 by Dr Benjamin Henry within the Oxyrhynchus papyri at Oxford. The only difference between this telling and Ovid’s is the ending.

A third source for the tale of Narcissus’ life was composed by Conon who was a Greek grammarian and mythographer. His ending is similar to that of Partenius. The tale is also told by the Greek traveler and geographer Pausanias in Book IX of his Description of Greece .

Echo and Narcissus in painting from 1627 by Nicolas Poussin. (Nicolas Poussin / Public domain )

Narcissus in Ovid’s Metamorphoses

Ovid’s telling of Narcissus’ life is perhaps the most well know version today. It begins with the birth of Narcissus. His parents were the God of the River, Cephissus, and the nymph Liriope. Ovid claims that Cephissus was not a nice man and had forced Liriope into his bed, and consequently the nymph became pregnant.

Narcissus, from his birth and throughout his life was incredibly handsome . When Liriope consulted a seer (named Tiresias) after his birth and asked if her son would live a long life, the seer stated that Narcissus would live a long life if he did not look at himself.

Narcissus managed to live his early life and not discover himself. His beauty became known, and men and women alike were said to be throwing themselves at him. However, Narcissus was not fazed by any of them and ignored all of their advances.

One day he was walking in the woods when an Oread (a mountain nymph) named Echo spotted him. Echo, like so many women before her, instantly fell deeply in love with the handsome Narcissus. She proceeded to follow him through the wood.

However, she was hesitant to speak to this beautiful man because, according to Ovid, the nymph suffered from a speech impediment that was a result of a curse by Juno (or Hera), the wife of Zeus. It was known that Zeus had a particular fondness for nymphs, and this had made Juno extremely jealous. It was said that every time Juno would almost catch Zeus with a nymph Echo would distract the unknowing wife.

When Juno eventually found out she punished Echo by removing her ability to communicate properly so she could only say the last few words that were spoken to her. She could therefore not talk to Narcissus first and instead had to wait for him to talk to her.

Another version of the hopeless heartbreak “bubble” Echo lived in because Narcissus was more interested in himself, from a painting by Francesco Xanto Avelli from 1535. (Francesco Xanto Avelli / CC BY-SA 2.0 )

After some time, Narcissus heard Echo following him through the wood and he called out “Who’s there?” Echo repeated his questions and was eventually convinced by Narcissus to reveal herself.

Echo then immediately attempted to embrace Narcissus, however, he refused and stepped away from the nymph.

“Away with these encircling hands! May I die before what’s mine is yours. She answers, “What’s mine is yours!” ( Metamorphoses , Book III)

The heartbroken Echo spent the rest of her life in misery, she lived alone in the glens until nothing remained of her but an echo.

Narcissus continues to break the hearts of numerous lovers. One even went as far as to curse him that he may suffer as he has caused others to suffer. The Goddess of Revenge, Nemesis , eventually heard of this tale and noticed Narcissus’ behavior. She decided to punish the selfish man. During the summer when Narcissus became thirsty, she lured him to a pool and when he leaned down to the water he gazed upon his own reflection. Not realizing it was his own reflection, Narcissus fell deeply in love with himself, believing it was someone else.

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He was unable to remove himself from looking at his own reflection but soon realized that his love could not be reciprocated when he attempted to kiss or hold the reflection. However, his confusion is amplified when the image in the pool reciprocated his winks and waves. Narcissus could not understand why he could not secure what he so desperately desired.

Narcissus was tormented by this and by the time he realized it was his reflection it was too late, and he had already fallen in love with himself. Because he now knew he could never obtain what he truly wanted his body melted away from the passion he felt burning inside him.

When Echo returns to the place where Narcissus had been staring into his own eyes to recover his body for the funeral , she found in his place a gold and white flower. This flower would become known as the Narcissus flower, or the daffodil.

Ameinias spurned lover of Narcissus, who committed suicide as his love turned to madness, sculpted by Malcolm Lidbury for the 2016 Cornwall LGBT History project. (Pinkpasty / CC BY 4.0 )

Narcissus According to Other Stories about Him

Parthenius tells much of the same story, however, rather than slowly decaying because of his yearning, Narcissus lost his will to live and committed suicide.

Canon’s version of the story was written at roughly the same time as Ovid’s however, this also differs slightly. First of all, rather than a nymph named Echo, a young man by the name of Ameinias falls in love with Narcissus after the latter had already turned away many male suitors.

Like those before him, Narcissus rejects Ameinias and gives him a sword. As a result of this rejection, Ameinias commits suicide on Narcissus’ doorstep. Ameinias had prayed to the gods to give the selfish Narcissus a lesson and make him learn from all the pain he had caused.

Narcissus then walked to a pool of water and decided to have a drink. As he bent down, he gazed upon his own reflection and fell in love. When he realized this love was futile, he killed himself because he could not obtain what he desired most.

In his work, Pausanias summarized Ovid’s story. Pausanias did not believe that a man old enough to fall in love would be stupid enough to not realize it was his own reflection upon which he was staring. So, Pausanias changed the story slightly, to make it more believable. Rather than falling in love with a nymph named Echo or a man named Ameinias, Narcissus was actually mourning the death of his beloved twin sister and was gazing at his own reflection to recall her features. In this telling, the spring in front of which Narcissus wastes away is located on a mountain top and is part of the river Lamus in a place called Donacon.

What all the versions share, however, is the inherent negative link between Narcissus and the act of gazing upon his reflection. It is possible that this was derived from the ancient Greek superstition that it was unlucky and sometimes even fatal to see your own reflection.

A fine Narcissus fresco from Pompeii showing the pool reflection he was in love with. ( CC0 )

Narcissus’ Legacy

The myth of Narcissus has had a lasting effect on humans. He was a very popular subject in Roman art and appears prominently in 50 paintings from Pompeii alone. His name has been given, in Freudian psychiatry and psychoanalysis, to the mental condition that leaves one with an “inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration, troubled relationships and a lack of empathy for others.” The myth also had a huge influence on Dante and Shakespeare.

After losing influence after the Renaissance, it came back and inspired more creatives. The myth appears in a number of 20th-century works of art and music and provides a warning against self-obsession which was particularly influential during the age of individualism.

The Origins of Narcissus’ Story

Because there is a lack of stories based on Narcissus and Echo, many scholars today believe that the myth may have originated with Ovid. According to Ingo Gildenhard and Andrew Zissos, this story actually interrupted the poetic pattern of Metamorphoses suggesting that the story may have been an afterthought and placed in the work to verify the validity of the prophet Tiresias (the seer). Ovid’s version, nevertheless, was then retold by later poets and has become not only an explanation for where the flower originated but also why echoes exist.

W. S. Anderson has argued that the language used in Ovid’s tale is formed in a way to discourage the audience from feeling any kind of sympathy for Narcissus. The poet stresses that he deserved everything that happened to him because of the horrible way he treated those who fell in love with him, particularly Echo.

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In Pausanias’ telling, however, the author takes a different stance. By rationalizing the story, Pausanias expresses his belief that Ovid’s version is foolish. Here, Echo and the will of the Gods are omitted. He even argues that the flower had existed long before Narcissus and his story. He effectively warped the story from one which explained the origins of the flower and of echoes into one purely for entertainment.

Despite this, and as already mentioned, both stories end with Narcissus’ death as a result of gazing into the pool and at his own reflection. Because of this he dies completely alone with no awareness of his surroundings. Both authors are conveying the same moral message that it is not good to be self-absorbed. The story warns that being so will only end in loneliness.

Top image: Echo and Narcissus in a painting by John William Waterhouse, and one senses that Narcissus has already fallen in love with himself for all time.                        Source: John William Waterhouse / Public domain

By Molly Dowdeswell

Cartwright, Mark. 2017. Narcissus . Available at https://www.worldhistory.org/Narcissus/

Fleming, Kristin and Michelle Mariorenzi. n.d. Narcissus and Echo . Available at https://www.cornellcollege.edu/classical_studies/cla216-2-a/narcissus-echo/

History Today. 2018. The Myth of Narcissus. Available at https://www.historytoday.com/archive/foundations/myth-narcissus

Lin, Kimberly. n.d.   Narcissus: Myth: Early Poets and the Ancient Society . Available at https://www.historicmysteries.com/narcissus-myth-version-poets/

Molly graduated with a bachelor’s degree in history and a master's degree in early modern history. She has a long-standing interest in the subject and enjoys researching and writing on a broad range of historical topics and is most interested in the... Read More

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A tale from the traditional myths and legends of Ancient Greece 

A very very long time ago, the people of Ancient Greece believed many gods and goddesses inhabited their land.

Cephissus, a river god, was married to Liriope, daughter of the ocean. They had a son called Narcissus. In those days, Narcissus was a strong, handsome name and Narcissus himself grew up to be very strong and beautiful.

In Greece at that time, there was a soothsayer called Teiresias who had the gift of foretelling the future. When Teiresias saw Narcissus, he knew that a terrible fate would befall the young man.

Teiresias told Liriope what he believed was going to happen:

‘Oh Liriope, Mother of Narcissus, your son will only live until the moment that he sees himself.’

Liriope was upset to hear this. She wanted her son to live as long as everyone else. She hid all the mirrors in the house and she hung curtains at all the windows so that Narcissus would never see his own reflection.

When Narcissus was grown up, he met a nymph called Echo who fell madly in love with him.

However, Echo could never tell him of her love because the goddess, Hera, had condemned her to repeat only other people’s final words and so she was unable to speak her thoughts.

Narcissus became very fond of Echo. One day he asked her, ‘Are you fond of me?’

How Echo longed to say, ‘Yes, I love you with all of my heart.’

However, due to Hera’s curse, she was unable to do this. All she could say was, ‘me … me … me.’

Narcissus was disappointed. ‘All she thinks about is herself,’ he thought.

If only Narcissus had said, ‘Echo, I love you.’ Then he would have heard Echo’s voice saying, ‘love you … you ... you.’

Their love was destined to fail.

Echo went away; she was very upset.

Narcissus went off to the riverbank so that he could cry where no one could see him.

Eventually, Narcissus stopped crying. He wiped away his tears with the back of his hand. At that moment, he caught sight of his reflection in the smooth waters of the river. He had no idea that he was looking at a reflection of himself.

He saw someone tall and good-looking. He thought that the person he saw was incredibly handsome and he couldn’t stop looking at the image.

The terrible fate foretold by the soothsayer Teiresias had come true.

Narcissus stood for such a long time on the riverbank, staring at his reflection, that the gods turned him into a flower. Narcissus remained in that same spot forever. Even today, we call the tall spring flower, with white petals and an orange centre, a narcissus.

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Narcissus in Greek Mythology

This essay about Narcissus in Greek mythology explores the story of a young man known for his extraordinary beauty and excessive vanity. Born to the river god Cephissus and the nymph Liriope, Narcissus was prophesied to live long as long as he never recognized himself. However, his life took a tragic turn when he rejected the affections of the nymph Echo and later fell in love with his own reflection in a pool of water, not realizing it was merely an image. His inability to leave the allure of his reflection led to his demise, either by starvation, thirst, or self-inflicted harm. The essay discusses interpretations of the myth in psychological terms, highlighting narcissism, and philosophically in terms of self-awareness and identity. It also notes the myth’s influence on art and literature, showcasing its enduring appeal and relevance as a cautionary tale about the dangers of self-absorption and neglect of others’ feelings.

How it works

Narcissus, a character from Greek mythology whose story has permeated deep into modern culture, epitomizes the pitfalls of excessive self-love and vanity. This ancient tale not only explores themes of beauty and pride but also serves as a cautionary narrative about the consequences of neglecting the world beyond oneself.

According to Greek myth, Narcissus was a young man of extraordinary beauty, born to the river god Cephissus and the nymph Liriope. It was prophesied at his birth that he would live a long life, provided he never recognized himself.

As he grew, Narcissus became increasingly vain, spurning the romantic advances of many suitors. Among these was the nymph Echo, who had been cursed by Hera to only repeat the words of others. Echo fell deeply in love with Narcissus, but he dismissed her affections harshly. Heartbroken, Echo faded away until only her voice remained. This tragic outcome sets the tone for the overarching moral of Narcissus’s story: the dangers of indifference and cruelty toward others.

The pivotal moment in the Narcissus myth occurs when, tired from hunting, he stoops to drink from a clear, still pool. There, he sees his reflection for the first time and falls in love with it, not realizing it is merely an image. Unable to pull himself away from his reflected beauty, Narcissus loses his will to live. As the story concludes, Narcissus either dies of starvation and thirst, continuing to gaze lovingly at his image until his last breath, or, in another version, kills himself in despair, his understanding dawned too late. From the place where he died, a flower sprang up, bearing his name and marking his memory.

This myth has been interpreted in various ways through the ages. Psychologically, Narcissus is often seen as a representation of self-obsession or pathological narcissism, a term indeed derived from his name. This condition describes individuals who exhibit extreme self-centeredness, a need for constant admiration, and a disregard for others’ feelings—echoing Narcissus’s interactions and ultimate fate.

Philosophically, the story of Narcissus invites reflections on the nature of self-awareness and identity. His fatal mistake is not just that he falls in love with himself, but that he fails to recognize his reflection as such. This failure of self-recognition symbolizes a deeper philosophical predicament about understanding our true selves and the limits of perception.

The Narcissus myth has also been a rich source of inspiration for artists and writers. It has been portrayed in numerous artworks, such as the famous paintings by Caravaggio and John William Waterhouse, which depict the moment Narcissus gazes into the water. Literary adaptations and references are plentiful, demonstrating the story’s enduring appeal across different cultures and epochs.

In conclusion, the story of Narcissus in Greek mythology serves as a timeless reminder of the dangers of self-absorption. It teaches that excessive pride and vanity can lead to one’s downfall, a lesson that resonates just as profoundly today as it did in ancient times. Through its various interpretations and adaptations, the myth of Narcissus continues to hold a mirror up to society, reflecting the human condition and the perennial challenge of balancing self-love with the love of others.

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The Myth of Narcissus: Being Vain in Greek Mythology

For a while now, the label “narcissist” has been a buzzword for “empaths” and other psychology enthusiasts online. This word describes a person’s pursuit of personal desire, at any cost. Where does it come from, and how did it enter modern lingo?

The Myth Behind the Narcissist Label

The term “narcissism” originates from the story of Narcissus, a youth of striking beauty in Greek myth . According to legend, Narcissus was the son of the nymph Liríope and the river god Cefiso. A seer named Tiresias warned his parents that Narcissus would live a long life, but only if he never saw his own reflection. His parents, seeking to protect him, removed mirrors and reflective surfaces from his surroundings. Yet, despite their efforts, the prophecy was inescapable.

As he matured, Narcissus became the object of desire for many a nymph and muse , yet he remained resisted. Among those who admired him was Echo, a nymph who had suffered a curse from the goddess Hera. Hera, angry at Echo for distracting her while Zeus pursued his infidelities, condemned Echo to repeat only the words of others. Unable to express her love, Echo followed Narcissus silently through the woods, echoing his every word.

Echo’s Tragic Love and Narcissus’ Vanity

One day, Narcissus noticed Echo’s presence and cruelly rejected her, misunderstanding her repeated words as mockery. Heartbroken, Echo retreated to a cave, where she withered away, her voice becoming a faint whisper among the rocks. Before her death, she called upon Nemesis, the goddess of retribution, to punish Narcissus for his cruelty.

Nemesis answered her plea. One day, as Narcissus bent down to drink from a river, he saw his reflection in the water. He instantly fell in love with the image, not realizing it was his own. Mesmerized, he could not pull himself away. Consumed by this infatuation, Narcissus stopped eating and drinking. His obsession with his own reflection ultimately led to his death by the riverbank.

In place of his body, the nymphs found a flower, which they named Narcissus to honor his memory. This flower serves as a lasting symbol of the Greek myth Narcissus and its warning against vanity and self-obsession.

The Psychological Introduction of “Narcissism”

The term “narcissism” was coined in 1899 by Havelock Ellis, a British essayist and physician, during his studies of sexual perversions. He used it to describe an excessive erotic interest in one’s own body, drawing directly from Narcissus Greek mythology. Sigmund Freud later expanded the term’s meaning, using it to describe a psychological condition marked by self-centeredness and a lack of empathy. Over time, “narcissism” entered everyday language, evolving from a clinical term to a broader description of excessive self-admiration.

Today, the term is commonly used to describe those who are excessively focused on themselves, often disregarding others’ needs or feelings. The myth of Narcissus, therefore, remains relevant as it continues to inform modern understandings of personality and behavior.

The Myth’s Modern Relevance

In a world dominated by social media, where self-promotion often takes center stage, the story of Narcissus Greek mythology resonates more than ever. The myth serves as a timeless reminder of the dangers of excessive self-love and the importance of staying connected to the world around us. Narcissus’ obsession with his reflection led him to isolate himself, ultimately causing his demise. This narrative warns against the perils of losing touch with reality in the pursuit of an idealized self-image.

The myth also highlights the tragedy of unexpressed emotions and miscommunication. Echo’s curse, which left her unable to speak her mind, and Narcissus’ inability to see beyond his reflection both led to their downfall. These themes underline the importance of empathy and genuine communication in maintaining healthy relationships.

The myth of Narcissus is more than just a cautionary tale from ancient Greece ; it is a reflection of the human condition. The term “narcissism,” now deeply embedded in modern language, continues to be a reminder of the perils of vanity and excessive self-absorption. In a society where the lines between self-love and narcissism are increasingly blurred, this myth offers valuable insights into the importance of balaning self-regard and consideration for others.

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The Alchemist (Coelho)

By paulo coelho, the alchemist (coelho) essay questions.

The prologue of The Alchemist includes a unique retelling of the myth of Narcissus. The traditional understanding of this myth is that it is a warning against self-love. What is the relationship of the prologue to the rest of the story?

The main difference between the retelling of the Narcissus myth in the prologue of The Alchemist and the traditional telling is that, in the version in the prologue, the lake in which Narcissus drowns also misses Narcissus because it could regard itself in his eyes. Thus, the lake is itself selfish. In many ways, The Alchemist is all about selfishness. While society tends to regard the single-minded pursuit of one's dreams as selfish, the story proposes that this single-minded pursuit is not at odds with being a moral, happy person. Central to the story of The Alchemist is the idea that one's Personal Legend, or true desire, is not at odds with the organization of the universe. In fact, the opposite is true. Discovering one's Personal Legend is the only way to understand the greater secrets of the Soul of the World. This reversal of traditional views on selfishness is foreshadowed by the unique retelling of the Narcissus story.

What is the significance of the fact that Santiago hails from the southern part of Spain? Do you think that the cultural history of this region affects the overall meaning of the book?

One of the main themes of the book is the unity of all religions. The reader sees an equivalence between the beliefs of a Christian such as Santiago and a Muslim such as the shopkeeper. For this reason, the geography of southern Spain is very important, since it is both spatially and cultural linked to North Africa. This is also highlighted by the repeated references to "the invaders" - a reference to the Moorish domination of the Iberian peninsula. Santiago sees these figures as predominantly negative in the beginning of the story, but modifies his views toward the end. The location of the story allows for a sub-theme of tolerance and understanding.

Fatima, Santiago's love interest, defines herself by her resignation to and support of Santiago's quest. What do you think the narrative is trying to say about the role of women or the role of love in general?

Pursuing one's love interests as well as one's personal desires can often present a conflict. In The Alchemist , though, this conflict is alleviated by the fact that the two things need not be mutually exclusive. The primary purpose of one's life is one's Personal Legend. Once one identifies that, identifying true love is a relatively simple matter. True love is that love which does not get in the way of pursuing the Personal Legend. We must conclude, then, that love, although a powerful force in The Alchemist , is not primary. It is secondary to the Personal Legend. In the case of Fatima, she recognizes that Santiago must complete his mission or else he will not be living up to his potential. While this seems to relegate her to a supporting role, it is suggested that this is what she truly wants, and what is accepted by her community. Thus, in a way, she is also fulfilled.

While Santiago's quest yields significant spiritual insights, its original motive is monetary gain. What is the narrative of The Alchemist trying to say about the relationship between material wealth and spirituality?

The Alchemist suggests that the line between spiritual treasure and material treasure is not that fixed. While the relationship between the gold that Santiago finds and the spiritual discoveries he makes is largely metaphorical, the reader does see that the most important thing is not what you want, but just that you want that thing with all of your heart. In Santiago's case, that happens to be treasure. In the scheme of The Alchemist one can have both material and spiritual wealth.

The Alchemist is clearly a novel about spiritual growth. Do you think that its message is at odds with organized religion?

The novel espouses a kind of ecumenicist religion, wherein all religions are–at their core–one. The central ideas which bind these religions, Christianity and Islam in the case of the book, are a monotheistic God and the fact that that God has a certain fate determined for each person. The novel is also pantheist, in that each person's personal soul is part of the Soul of the World (a term which is interchangeable with God in this sense). God is not separate from us, but is rather the conjoined souls of all existence. The novel does not expressly go against organized religions in this sense, but it does show a lack of emphasis on certain elements of organized religion (such as ritual, hierarchy, etc.).

Tradition plays a major role in Santiago's personal life and in the life of the people he meets in his travels. Describe the different viewpoints that the novel presents on tradition.

There are two very different views of tradition put forth in The Alchemist . The novel begins with Santiago leaving his traditional home and the role that his family has chosen for him–the priesthood–in order to pursue his treasure. This seems to suggest that one's own Personal Legend is more important than tradition. On the other hand, the tribes in the desert repeatedly fall back on what they simply refer to as "The Tradition." This is a body of knowledge which tells them when to go to war, what visions to trust, etc. Thus we see here a culture that values tradition highly.

When Santiago is lost and alone in Tangiers, the owner of the crystal shop offers him a position at his shop. What does Santiago learn from his time at the crystal shop?

The owner of the crystal shop teaches Santiago that one of the principle things which endangers the pursuit of a dream is one's own fear of achieving it. The crystal shop owner wants to go to Mecca, but also fears that if he does so he might lose his reason for living. Up until that point, Santiago has only been acquainted with exterior interference with achieving one's dreams, such as being robbed.

Although Melchizedek plays a major role in Santiago's decision to continue in search of his treasure, he only appears once in the book. Does he have any connection with the other characters that appear in the book?

While Melchizedek only appears once in The Alchemist he does prefigure some of the other characters in the story. He explicitly tells Santiago that he sometimes appears as other things besides the King of Salem. For example, he tells Santiago a story wherein he appears as a stone. Santiago also recognizes elements of Melchizedek's personality and philosophy in other characters, such as the shopkeeper and the Alchemist.

How do you think the style of The Alchemist affects its meaning?

The novel is written in a very plain style, using short declarative sentences and few modifiers such as adjectives and adverbs. The book also makes wide use capitalized terminology and magical situations such as visions and communication with the Wind, Desert, etc. These combined factors make the didactic thrust of the story apparent. By simplifying the psychology of the characters and featuring characters with no names (the Englishman, the Alchemist, etc.), the story takes on a more universal appeal.

Does the fact that Paulo Coelho is Brazilian affect the meaning of the novel in any way?

The Andalusia and Africa of Santiago have very little to do with historical reality. While this can be dismissed as a lack of realism on Coelho's part, it might also be due to the fact that, since Coelho is not Spanish, he is able to approach the subject matter without being encumbered by material reality. As an outsider, Coelho is able to write not about what life in Spain and Africa is like, but what it could be like.

The Alchemist (Coelho) Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for The Alchemist (Coelho) is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

how are the two locations different in regards to food/drink, religion, customs, etc.?

Which specific locations are you referring to?

Earlier in the story, the alchemist told Santiago"when you possess great treasures within you, and try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed". At the end of the story, what did he do to find his treasure?

Santiago digs a hole at the base of the tree where he had had his first dream. Sure enough, he finds a trunk full of gold–enough for him and Fatima to live happily for a long time.

According to the book, is it possible to live a fulfilling life without ever achieving one’s Personal Legend? Why or why not?

This is very much a perspective question. It would be possible to have a good life but the complete fulfillment would not be there. The crystal merchant, for example, lived a good life but not one that was fulfilled.

Study Guide for The Alchemist (Coelho)

The Alchemist is a modern fable by Paulo Coelho. The Alchemist study guide contains a biography of author Paulo Coelho, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About The Alchemist (Coelho)
• The Alchemist (Coelho) Summary
• The Alchemist (Coelho) Video
• Character List

Essays for The Alchemist (Coelho)

The Alchemist essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Alchemist written by Paulo Coelho.

• The Importance of Religion and Spirituality in The Alchemist
• How Dreams and Omens Support the Theme of Interconnection
• The Importance of Dreams

Lesson Plan for The Alchemist (Coelho)

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to The Alchemist (Coelho)
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• The Alchemist (Coelho) Bibliography

Wikipedia Entries for The Alchemist (Coelho)

• Introduction

The Picture of Dorian Gray: The myth of Narcissus

Unconsciously he defines for me the lines of a fresh school, Hallward eclared, a school that is to have in it all passion of the romantic spirit, all the perfection of the spirit that is Greek . Narcissus was Greek, so he also in a way influenced Basil. Without a doubt, Dorian and Narcissus were both distinguished for their beauty. Dorian and Narcissus have a very similar love plot; both had one true love: Dorians being Sibyl Vane, and Narcissuss being Echo.

Vengeance is a very important device in both stories, because it is eventually what leads to the death of both Narcissus and Dorian. Aphrodite was so enraged at the death of Echo that he promised to seek revenge on Narcissus, lacing an evil curse upon him which eventually lead to his death. Dorian attempts to seek revenge on Basil, when Basil points out how evil Dorian has become. Dorian couldnt take the thought that someone had thought of him as an evil person so he killed Basil.

Both Narcissus and Dorian had an overwhelming amount of self-love, and in other words, they both were narcissistic. Every women or girl fell in love with Narcissus outer beauty almost immediately. Having this happen to Narcissus all the time gave him a very high opinion of himself. Narcissus was convinced that nly a girl as fair as himself was worthy of his attention. Dorian wished upon eternal youth while his picture aged. This prayer was answered.

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Narrating Narcissus, reflecting cognition: Illusion, disillusion, “self-cognition” and “love as passion” in Ovid and beyond

Since Ovid’s version of the Narcissus narrative, numerous readings and re-narrations have emerged across the globe that are related to the ancient myth of the beautiful youth who unwittingly sees himself in a pool of water and eventually dies staring at the insubstantial image. Generating a wide spectrum of reinterpretations of values, ideas, and aesthetic aspects inherent in the ancient narrative, its reception history has continued to elicit some of the most diverse intellectual responses to Greek and Roman mythology, each of them reflecting the cultural context in which they were produced. The present article is devoted to this issue, providing introductory perspectives on the Ovidian narrative and its ramifications by giving particular examples, especially of works taking up central themes of Ovid’s version, such as reflection and deception, illusion and (self-)cognition, passionate love for another and the incurable desire for oneself. Sensitive to the cultural contexts out of which the examples emerge, the paper conceptually frames the topics of narrative and narcissism, and contextualizes them by drawing on insights from several theoretical strands and academic disciplines.

1 Introduction

Long regarded as repertoires of universal motifs, plots, and structures, Greek and Roman mythology have consistently proven their versatility and applicability within specific historical and cultural contexts. For Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860), a philosopher whose work was doubtlessly motivated by mythic aspirations, the rich and varied collection of narrative material that stems from Greco-Roman mythology provides nothing less than “a schema in which almost any train of thought [ Gedankengang ] may find illustration.” [1] That is to say, mythology marks the “path” or “passageway” [ Gang ] of thought’s expression.

The countless appropriations and interpretations of mythic narratives from antiquity to the present day corroborate Schopenhauer’s assessment, insofar as they lend themselves to an extraordinary range of cognitive, moral, and aesthetic ends, marking out the “way” for formulating ideational and emotional content. Myth has therefore long provided a profound source for reflection on the meaning of human experience. As Hans Blumenberg (1988 [1979]: 215–216) observes, “Myth, as it was transmitted by the ancient world’s texts, excited, propelled, impregnated, and stimulated the imagination and the formal discipline of the European literatures in a unique way [...].” The power of mythic narrative may lie precisely in the tension between its general influence and the “unique way” this influence is exerted. One might go so far as to say that the reception history of ancient myth is reducible to this single function: namely, to allow particular differences to be mirrored in the universal and thus reveal a “way” or “path” toward identity.

Perhaps for this reason, the story of Narcissus, which may once have had a cultic background, [2] has frequently served as the exemplary myth – as the myth of myth itself. To this day, among artists, writers, and scholars, the plight of Narcissus has continued to elicit some of the most diverse intellectual responses of any of the ancient plots. Ever since the canonical version by Ovid (43 BC–17/18 AD) in his poem of transformation ( Metamorphoses 3: 339–512), this story – of the beautiful youth who disdains those who desire him, only to fall passionately in love himself when he catches sight of his own reflection in the mirrored surface of a pool – has been the subject of adaptations and revisions. [3] Many later appropriations and interpretations of the narrative have offered variations on its themes of reflection and (first-person) identity, deception and illusion, (self-)recognition and death, desire and rejection, the excessive love for another and the incurable love for oneself – as well as the motif of the flower, discovered in place of Narcissus’ body ( pro corpore , 509) after his death. [4] Throughout most of these variations, Narcissus is faced with or joined by (one or) a number of unrequited lovers of either gender. The best known of these is the nymph Echo [5] – most probably Ovid’s own contribution to the mythic plot. [6] Depending on the intentions of the author, the implied audience or readership, and the particular circumstances of its production and reception, the basic Narcissus story is embellished with supplemental figures and deities, each of whom serves a particular function. The diversity of these variations is reflected in the rich secondary literature on the Narcissus myth, which employs the story to explore and test aspects of philology and literary theory, philosophy, and psychology. [7]

This paper provides an introduction to works that have adapted the central themes of the Narcissus myth: reflection and deception, illusion and cognition, passionate love for another and the incurable desire for oneself. After first delving into Ovid’s version in the Metamorphoses , I give examples of its ramifications, particularly in works from the turn of the twentieth century, for it is then that Narcissus, poetically coming into his own, found his way into modern, and thence postmodern, theories of the self. Out of these then grew theoretical speculations on the concept of narcissism, which remains the most influential of all productive (mis)readings of the myth. Subsequently returning to Ovid, I conclude with remarks on the issues of self-cognition and the reflexivity of love, following the “trains of thoughts” put forward by Schopenhauer, and by Niklas Luhmann (1927–1988) in Love as passion (1986).

2 Illusion and disillusion – from an ancient mirror image to contemporary digital reflection

The most widely received version of the myth is the one formulated by Ovid. While other Greek and Roman renderings of the myth – such as those in prose by Conon (first century BC/first century AD), author of the Dihēgḗseis (Narrations), or Pausanias (second century AD), famous for his Periḗgēsis Helládos (Description of Greece) – tell the story very briefly, [8] Ovid elaborates at length on events and figures by using stylistic means particularly associated with the themes. The link Ovid’s text creates between reflection, desire, cognition, and death exerted a strong influence on writers and artists of later generations, rising to special prominence in post-ancient times: Having become one of the most revered Latin authors by the late twelfth century, Ovid was credited with supplying the narrative that served as the model for all subsequent work on the Narcissus material throughout the Middle Ages and the early modern period. [9] Countless new renderings of ancient myths were inspired by the Metamorphoses during these periods, and even today, writers and artists whose reference point is antiquity still focus on his version of the Narcissus myth. [10]

2.1 Narrating Narcissus – Ovid’s myth of illusion and disillusion

The story, ornamented with much detail, is found in Book Three of the Metamorphoses , which is devoted to stories from the Theban cycle of legends . [11] According to this narrative, Tiresias, the blind seer of Thebes, was once asked whether Narcissus, son of the nymph Liriope and the river-god Cephisus, would live to a ripe old age. Tiresias replied that it was possible, provided the boy never came to know himself. Barely sixteen years old, Narcissus aroused the passions of many young men and women, all of whom, however, he rejected. While Conon refers to the “very persistent and importunate” male lover Ameinias, who killed himself (with a sword Narcissus sent him) at the very door of the beloved’s house, “after earnestly beseeching the god to avenge him,” [12] Ovid focuses on the young maiden Echo, a mountain nymph who had been punished by Juno for her excessive chatter. One day, it dawned on the goddess that Echo’s long conversations were a ruse to distract her while her husband Jupiter went off on his sexual exploits. Furious, Juno condemned the nymph to silence, except to repeat the last words she had heard. When she encounters Narcissus, then, she is able only to repeat his utterances.

By making Echo part of the Narcissus myth, Ovid sets into play a beautiful but tragic complementarity: the boy whose relation to the other will in fact be a relation to the same is matched by a maiden whose speech is only capable of returning the same. Echo “catches sight” of Narcissus and “burns” with desire – vidit et incaluit (371) – yet, limited in the power of her voice, she is doomed to woo him from a distance by echoing his voice. Narcissus, mistaking her curtailed speech for those of his hunting partners, calls for them to “come together” ( ‘coeamus’ , 386, 387), which Echo in turn misunderstands as an expression of reciprocated desire. Inspired by this signal for coitus , she boldly approaches and tries to embrace Narcissus. She is harshly rejected:

He runs, and says on the run, “Take your hands off! I’ll die before I let you have me!” And Echo comes back with nothing but “Have me!” [13]

Immediately understanding the deception of reflected words, she withdraws, her hopes dashed, to consume herself in her passion, gradually turning into stone. Faded to nothing but a voice, she lives on in the woods, unseen, but heard by all: “It is the sound which lives in her” ( sonus est, qui vivit in illa , 401). Even today, the Echo resounds.

By appending the Echo narrative to the Narcissus story, Ovid sets into motion a complex but symmetrical structure. The essence of this scheme can be roughly sketched out as follows:

The narrative’s pattern “delusion – revelation – understanding” © Renger (1999: 266)

The two tripartite phases of delusion and understanding are symmetrically reflected across the line of disillusion – the revelation that the hope of requited love was based on deception. The individual stages in the phases of delusion and understanding – three on each side, leading up to and away from disillusion – act as mirror images of each other, with the moment of revelation as the mirror itself. The beginning of the experience of love ( catching sight ) reflects its end ( death ), the emergence of the passion of desire reflects the wasting away with it, and the self- abandonment to illusion that the passion might become reality reflects the disillusionment . In other words, illusion and reality are refracted in disillusion. The illusion – the deceptive hope that love will be fulfilled – is established when the object of desire, Narcissus, is sighted, and in this moment, this “blink of an eye,” the course of the story is set. From this moment emerges the inflaming passion of the onlooker and her abandonment to the illusion of fulfilled love. And in this moment, too, her death, the extinguishing of her sight after the blazing fire of love, is anticipated.

This pattern fits both episodes in the same way. First, Echo becomes inflamed with passion for Narcissus, then the boy undergoes the same experience. Many admirers, we are told after the Echo episode, suffered the same indignity as the nymph, until one day another spurned lover raised his hands in prayer to Nemesis ( Rhamnusia , 406), asking that the prudish boy suffer the pain of unrequited love himself, The goddess of vengeance acquiesces, and one day makes Narcissus fall for his own image reflected in a pool. Not realizing that he is looking at and longing for himself, Narcissus, like Echo before him, is inflamed with passion. He talks to the phantom, woos it, tries to kiss and embrace it. As he does so, just as Echo misinterprets the reflections of words in her dialogue with Narcissus, he misreads the reflection, which shows him the image of his own wooing, as proof of requited love, until he finally recognizes the delusion. Confronted with the reality, the impossibility of fulfillment in love, he is aghast, but still consumed by passion. He wastes away, yearning for his own image until finally, exhausted, he dies (and even in the Underworld continues to gaze at himself reflected in the Styx). According to Ovid, then, even his death is followed by wasting away with desire.

Both Echo and Narcissus, through their metamorphoses, are absorbed into nature. As for Echo, “all the moisture of her body fades into air” ( in aëra sucus / corporis omnis abit , 397–398) as she becomes nothing more than an echo. As for ardent Narcissus, he fades away, burning with love for himself “as yellow wax melts over a gentle flame” ( ut intabescere flavae / igne levi cerae , 487–488). Here already we see the allusion to the colors of the narcissus flower, to which there is explicit reference at the conclusion of the episode. We are told that when mourning nymphs came to bury Narcissus, they found in place of his body a flower with a yellow throat and white petals.

The two episodes are framed by the story of the Theban seer Tiresias: his temporary sex-change, his blinding, and his gift of second sight. The seer’s prophecy at the birth of Narcissus not only sets up the boy’s narrative, but ultimately furthers his own. It is said that Tiresias’ fame spreads widely as a result of his prophecy, a fact which prompts his foretelling of the death of Pentheus. This parenthetical frame enhances the already highly symmetrical structure of the Narcissus story, in which the progression from illusion to reality, broken by a moment of revelation or disillusionment, is enacted first by Echo and later, after the invocation of Nemesis, by Narcissus. The diagram below shows this in more detail, depicting the major elements of the narrative. Secondary or transitional passages, such as those illustrating Narcissus’ behavior towards others, are omitted for reasons of clarity:

The narrative’s parenthetical frame and symmetrical structure © Renger (1999: 269)

As mentioned above, Ovid’s treatment in hexameters is the only extant ancient version to present the story of Narcissus in its entirety, not only in great detail but also with masterly artistry design. Other ancient testimonies are either written in prose or, where they are poetic, confined to a particular motif from the myth. In Ovid, by contrast, the episodes of Echo and Narcissus are ingeniously linked in form and content by the themes of reflection and fiery, unrequited passion.

Furthermore, illusion – the passing off of someone or something as reality – serves in Ovid as both a theme and a technique. The motif of reflection appears not only narratively and structurally in Echo and Narcissus’ illusory auditory and visual desires, but also in the poetics of the text itself. Ovid’s text creates illusions that refract at the very moment of their emergence; in this way, Ovid breaks the illusion of fiction itself. He portrays the fictional experiences of the fictional Narcissus with remarkable verisimilitude, yet simultaneously betrays his own mechanisms of illusion, revealing the construct of his fiction. This becomes most striking at one crucial point, when we believe that the narrator has been so taken in by the illusion of his own character, Narcissus, that he starts talking to the youth as a real person – in order to impress upon him that he, Narcissus, has been taken in by the illusion of a phantom image (432–435):

Gullible boy, grasping at passing images! What you seek is nowhere. If you look away You lose what you love. What you see is a shadow, A reflected image, and has nothing of its own. [14]

In this way, Ovid plays with the poetological and rhetorical possibilities of illusion. He makes visible how closely both deception and delusion and revelatory imagination are bound up in illusion. No sooner is the illusion of the narrator’s emotional involvement created in the reader than it is destroyed. The sudden presence of the narrator in the text reinforces the fictional nature of the perfectly composed myth. The narrator’s apparent emotion is not transferred to the reader, but rather introduces a distance to the unhappy protagonist. That this distance is imposed at this stage of reflection in the plot – or in narratological terms, at this point in the narrative arc – constitutes a break of its own, for it is at this point that Narcissus’ illusion overcomes him with special violence.

Ovid holds fast to this method in his retelling of the story of the beautiful youth. The motif of illusion is deployed with poetic finesse for aesthetic purpose – and not for, say, an ethical one. Ovid narrates; he does not moralize. Unlike many later re-narrations of the myth, Ovid’s version does not express any scorn or particular moral stance towards Narcissus.

2.2 Re-narrating Narcissus through the centuries – mirrors and reflections

In the course of the richly varied reception history of the myth, authors in search of support for their own arguments have repeatedly drawn on the core of the Ovidian narrative, the motif of the visual and (as demonstrated in Ovid’s integration of the Echo story) acoustic doubling and mirroring . [15] Ovid’s version has furthermore been the primary source for philosophical and moralistic readings of Narcissus. Various versions of the myth, both ancient and post-ancient, present the mirror image as a picture of the soul, an ideal image, or an antic in the sense of an embodiment of the transient world of the senses. Beginning in late antiquity, as the Narcissus myth became overlaid with the philosophical ideas of Neo-Platonism, and Christian ethics in particular, it was often subjected to allegorical and moralizing readings. During the Middle Ages, for instance, Narcissus’ reflection became the symbolic mirror of destructive pride and vanity. [16] These developments notwithstanding, Narcissus never became “simply a negative exemplum warning against pride and self-love, but,” as Kenneth Knoespel (1985: 104) puts it, has always continued to serve as “a narrative inviting the resolution of deception through a new vision.”

Throughout the eighteenth century, a period decisive for the transposition of the myth into the modern worldview, morally charged interpretations of the myth largely disappeared. This development may be traced to the strange turn that affected the Narcissus narrative during the seventeenth century. Amusing parodies of mythological material began to appear, and the myth of Narcissus shuffled off its moral “corset.” [17] One famous example is the non-tragic treatment of the material in the comedy Narcisse ou l’amant de lui-même (premiered 1752, published 1753) by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), himself often viewed as a kind of Narcissus in the late eighteenth-century aesthetic debate on autobiographical self-examination and self-representation. His Narcisse , a modern comedy of manners, deals with self-love arising from a deception. A young woman means to mock her vain brother and treat his vanity with a portrait of himself dressed as a girl. But her plan backfires when the conceited youth falls in love with the portrait and renounces his fiancée, until she rouses his jealousy and wins back his love. [18]

One reason the Narcissus narrative acquired new resonance in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was the emergence of the modern concept of the subject, as developed, for example, in the philosophies of René Descartes (1596–1650), John Locke (1632–1704), and Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). These new views of the subject informed various accounts of the self, and under their influence, a great abundance of poetic and theoretical texts in which Narcissus occupied a key position arose. Particularly important is the work of Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829), which interpreted the mythical youth as an exemplary figure of self-reflection by erasing the traditional accusation of vanity. [19] Many of the Narcissus texts that appeared during and after this period link the youth lost in contemplation of himself to the Romantic poet’s abjurement of the world, to the rejection of a society in thrall to industrialization. Faced with the banalization of social relations, the Narcissus story offered an opportunity to turn towards the personality of the self, towards dream, cult, and myth. Ultimately, in the work of German philosopher and social critic Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979), particularly in Eros and Civilization (1955), Narcissus became a figure of longing, a representative of an alternative reality. [20]

Another important watershed in this development arrived at the turn of the twentieth century. In the late nineteenth century, Narcissus came to embody a form of deviance and a counter narrative asserted against the cultural order of ancestors and fathers. [21] At the fin-de-siècle , the essential elements of Ovid’s narrative came to be associated with the general themes of art/poetry and artist/poet, describing images of a world within and beyond paternal structures as characterized by what Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874–1924) called a morbide Narcissus-Schönheit (‘morbid Narcissus beauty’) (1979: 197). More and more texts appeared that treated the soul of the artist as a mirror of the world and that dealt with the problem of artistic self-reflection. [22] In this way, Narcissus became a symbol of the poet par excellence , only able to experience something of the world by sinking into himself. In works by Paul Valéry (1871–1945), André Gide (1869–1951), and Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926), for instance, the mirror becomes a medium that helps to reveal authentic reality. Here, reflection has a revelatory function. Gide already expresses this programmatically in his 1891 Traité du Narciss e, in which the poet appears as a grandiose Narcissus, creating the world out of himself in his art. Reflection and self-knowledge are the dreamlike approaches to this creativity as traditional boundaries are transgressed.

Thus poetically coming into his own, around 1900, Narcissus found his way into modern, and thence postmodern, theories of the self as a case example of the problematics of modern subjectivity. [23] Overall, these theories are characterized by the insight that the subject constitutes no conclusive, essential coherence in relation to the object. Discussions therefore range across themes such as the double nature of the individual, gender transgression, the Sein-Ich ‘being-I’ and the Schein-Ich ‘seeming-I,’ the blurring of the subject-object boundary, and the riven nature of characters who are apparently sovereign in intellect, but held in check or even ruled by the unconscious.

These theoretical considerations also gave birth to the term “narcissism.” Neurologists and scholars of sexuality – Havelock Ellis (1859–1939) in the United States and Paul Näcke (1851–1913) in Germany – coined the neologism in the late nineteenth century to describe their diagnoses of nervous weakness, effeminacy, and homosexuality. [24] This culminated in Sigmund Freud’s (1856–1939) use of the term, whose implications varied greatly depending on context. Popularized in connection with the theory of libido, Freud’s concept of narcissism, as elaborated in his 1914 paper “On Narcissism: An Introduction,” suggests that the individual in infancy – at a stage without reference to the outside world – lives narcissistically to the extent that he or she invests all available libido into the ego. If the child does not overcome this “primary narcissism” by later developing libidinous relationships to the outside world, the subject suffers a state diagnosable as “secondary narcissism,” wherein the libido turns again toward the ego. [25] Freud regards secondary narcissism as a pathological development. When a subject, in choosing an object, prefers not himself but others like him, Freud reads this as a characteristic of homosexuality. With this interpretation, Freud restores the homoeroticism of the Greek version of the myth of Narcissus – which comes down to us from the above mentioned Greek mythographer Conon – that Ovid himself had obscured.

The tensions and contradictions in Freud’s arguments (not least in relation to the ancient myth) have lent extraordinary productivity to what is, conceptually speaking, an imprecise term. Through the twentieth century, “narcissism” became an explanatory template of contemporary culture. Many scholars have taken it up, some affirmatively, expanding upon it, others critically, in an effort to free it from its psychoanalytical constraints. In addition to the aforementioned Herbert Marcuse, two examples worthy of note here are Jacques Lacan (1901–1981) and Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980), who both grappled with central issues of the Narcissus myth such as reflection, illusion, and cognition. For Lacan (2006a: 75–76), these issues are pivotal to his “conception of the mirror stage,” according to which infants catch sight of their own image in a mirror(-like contraption) and thus come to “assume” it “from the age of six months.” [26] After initially considering the mirror stage a moment in the infant’s life only, he later regarded it as representing a structure in which the subject is permanently caught and captured by his or her own image ( Lacan 2006b). For Marshall McLuhan (1964: 41), the point of the Narcissus myth lies in “the fact that men at once become fascinated by any extension of themselves in any material other than themselves.” While according to Lacan’s theory, all sorts of contraptions inducing apperception can function as a mirror, McLuhan analyses technology as one such mirror. He refers to Narcissus in his elaborations on the concept of “the gadget lover” ( McLuhan 1964: 41–47), comparing the effects of media with what happened to the Greek youth by the pool, and claiming that the reflection Narcissus became fascinated with was in fact his own extension:

The youth Narcissus mistook his own reflection in the water for another person. This extension of himself by mirror numbed his perceptions until he became the servomechanism of his own extended or repeated image. The nymph Echo tried to win his love with fragments of his own speech, but in vain. He was numb. He had adapted to his extension of himself and had become a closed system. ( McLuhan 1964: 41 )

Like Narcissus, we consider media as something separate from ourselves and therefore do not recognize our own image in our technological mirrors. According to McLuhan, the dilemma of the gadget lover is that of Narcissus: He is not in love with himself, but so completely engaged with the other self he perceives to be separate that he loses his own being. Absorbed by the intensity of his extension and unable to avert his gaze from what he sees, his other senses become “numbed” to the point of stupor.

Lacan’s and McLuhan’s theories have stimulated a flood of studies. Their work is widely discussed today. To be sure, many speculations that refer to them have not broadened our understanding of the ancient narrative or the theories it inspired. In the absence of an authoritative definition, the term “narcissism” has come to be used in private and public contexts alike, in scholarship, feature writing, and entertainment, to indicate almost any form of reference to ego or self. Generally speaking, the term has a pejorative implication, inherited from psychoanalysis and cultural criticism. Such an implication is particularly prevalent where human conduct and social conditions are not being merely explained, but assessed in mythicizing terms.

Just as the term proliferated in non-literary texts, so too did Narcissus find himself frequently appearing in the literature of the twentieth century. Narcissus and his story’s motifs were as well fitted to preoccupations with concepts of the subject, subjectivity, and intersubjectivity as they had been to psychoanalytic theory. Writers in German, especially poets, frequently adopted the familiar motifs of reflection, desire, and fatal recognition, largely detaching them from the Ovidian context and allowing them narrative autonomy. [27] Particularly since the 1970 s, in addition to poems in which learned familiarity with the myth and its reception can be discerned, we find others that reflect the proliferating discourse of narcissism. [28]

The twenty-first century has witnessed the Narcissus theme emerge in yet another world, the world online, and with it McLuhan’s idea that in mass mediated society we are in a state of “Narcissus trance.” The twentieth-century cinemagoer was already recognizable as a Narcissus, captivated, sometimes fatefully, via a screen – just as the youth was via the surface of the water – by images supposedly of three-dimensional others. But whoever ventures, Narcissus-like, into the world of digital reflections faces the even more daunting task of distinguishing being from seeming, the real from the imaginary, nature from technology. [29] Here, in cyberspace, the pool is a metaphor for the digital universe that reveals itself to the eyes. Amid the continual flow of opportunities for acquiring a new (immaterial) identity, a visitor to this universe can easily fall prey to the spell of reflection. Such a visitor faces the same challenge as one who stands, enchanted, before his or her own reflection: to comprehend the benefits and hazards, advantages and disadvantages of new media – in short: to re-cognize them.

3 Reflection and self-cognition – Ovid’s Narcissus and the problematics of self-consciousness

The great proliferation of extrapolations, revisions, and rewritings of the Narcissus myth stems not least from the fact that, besides the problem of self-love, it also illustrates two “trains of thoughts” – Schopenhauer’s Gedankengänge – that concern fundamental anthropological themes: “self-cognition” and, in the words of Niklas Luhmann, who analyzed the emergence of love as the basis of personal relationships in modern societies, “love as passion.” [30] Both can be linked with the protagonist’s illuminating yet shattering insight: “That’s me!” ( iste ego sum , 463). To be sure, we must be careful not to found modern theories on ancient ideas, nor to retroactively endow the myth with a modernity it does not have. Our task is to ask and attempt to answer whether, and to what extent, Ovid expresses two fundamental issues of the condition humaine that would become special, theoretically grounded themes of attention in the modern period. Self-cognition focuses attention on something that, philosophically speaking, belongs to a theory of self-consciousness.

This theory as such begins with Descartes. [31] As is well known, Descartes attained an unshakable certainty with the cogito , the subject conscious of itself. Kant’s Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht [2006 (1798)] still betrays something of the triumphalism of modern Enlightenment self-discovery when the first book, “On the cognitive faculty,” expounding “On consciousness of oneself,” begins as follows (§ 1): “The fact that the human being can have the ‘I’ in his representations raises him infinitely above all other living beings on earth” (15). Yet this has proved to be just the start of the problem. Self-consciousness is self-perception as self-reference on the part of the thinking I, a process for which the term “reflection” (originally from optics) has gained currency.

Against this background, let us now turn again to Ovid’s Narcissus, in whom we may decipher the first dawning of a problematics of self-consciousness. Narcissus finds himself in a situation of reflection, both visually and acoustically, when Echo returns the last syllables of his utterances (Ov. Met. 3: 379–392, 494–501). The scenes that depict Echo in love with Narcissus make clear that perception requires a perceiving subject and a perceived object. In perception, then, a certain relation is found to exist.

In referring the I to itself, the subject and object now seem to coincide and thereby presumably abolish this relation. The elements of cognition seem to be identical. The emphasis is on “seem” here because two questions arise. First, can something have a relation to itself? Plato investigated this issue. Is knowledge possible when the knower takes himself as his own object? This issue is of primary importance, reaching back to the famous Delphic oracle who commanded Socrates to “know himself” [32] – a fundamental philosophical injunction that is clearly parodied by Tiresias’ prediction that the child Narcissus would live a long life, provided he never comes to “know himself.” Second, can identity be a relation? Within such a relation, knowledge of the self would come about through reflection. Yet it would seem that this circular situation presupposes that which supposedly is only recognized through perception: the I. I am able to know or recognize myself only if I already recognize or know who in fact I am.

I return to Narcissus by the pool, with his image – or himself – reflected in the surface of the water. How does the perceptual situation appear to him? It seems that, oscillating between the finding of identity and the attempt at objectification, he finds himself drawn into the circular dilemma briefly described above, and unequal to it. Ovid’s reference to the Narcissus myth in the Fasti (5: 225–226) is not alone in suggesting this conclusion – the problem of identity is particularly apparent here, as Narcissus’ personal tragedy is seen in his having been non alter et alter [33] : “You unfortunate, who were not both the one and the other” ( infelix, quod non alter et alter eras , 226). [34] Certain indications in the Metamorphoses suggest this same dilemma.

The revelation of Narcissus in Ovid’s poem of transformation, then, occurs thus: “That’s me. I have understood, and my image does not deceive me” ( iste ego sum! sensi nec me mea fallit imago, 463). The demonstrative of the object iste and the emphatic form of the first person pronoun ego are very deliberately juxtaposed. Lombardo (2010: 79) translates: “I just felt it, no longer fooled by my own image.” The boy now sees his former perception as a deception ( fallit ) revealed by his counter-image ( mea imago ). The situation leads us to expect that Narcissus will be liberated from his mirror image. But this does not happen. Instead, the looked-at and loved object – “what I desire” ( quod cupio , 466) – which Narcissus identifies as belonging to himself (“is mine,” mecum est , 466), insinuates itself again into the cognition situation as an external object: “What should I do? Beg or be begged? Why beg at all?” ( quid faciam? roger, anne rogem, quid deinde rogabo , 465). Narcissus does not, for instance, simply turn away. This seems not even to occur to him as a possible action – “What should I do?” Rather, he is asking whether he should behave as the subject or object of love: “Beg or be begged?” – without being able to answer his own question. From this emerges the wish, clearly denoted as unreal (by the imperfect subjunctive), “Oh, if only I could withdraw from my / our body!” ( o utinam a nostro secedere corpore possem! , 467, emphasis mine) – “and,” the implicit corollary, “so set my beloved free and make him a separate person!”

With this desire, Narcissus makes himself the speaker of subject and object. Admittedly, the use of the first person plural instead of the singular is frequent in Latin, but the change of number ( nostro – possem ) is significant in view of the given context, particularly as the same thing happens again in the next line: “Strange prayer for a lover, I wish that apart what I / we love” ( votum in amante novum: vellem, quod amamus, abesset! , 468, emphasis mine). Reacting to his problem of perception, Narcissus not only expresses his “strange prayer” to be apart. His love even goes so far that he, himself now ready for death (469–471), demands that the beloved lying immediately before his eyes and again belonging to him [35] should be granted a long life: “I wish that my beloved could live longer” ( hic, qui diligitur , vellem, diuturnior esset! , 472). Narcissus thus supposes that the separation of the alter ego as an (illusory) object would solve the dilemma, but in the nature of things this is not possible. Otherwise, he could not have consistently formulated his thrice-repeated wish for separation as beyond fulfillment.

It must be agreed that the scene of recognition can also be read less in epistemological terms than in terms of art theory and aesthetics. It may be supposed that Narcissus’ recognition is not a reflection of “himself” that confirms his subjectivity, but rather a recognition merely of a thing, an image or simulacrum that simply represents him. Such a view, however, has a somewhat modern ring. Narcissus would then be in the position of an observer viewing René Magritte’s famous picture of a pipe with the inscription “ Ceci n’est pas une pipe .” [36] Could anyone have ever smoked this pipe? Has anyone ever managed to conduct a real love affair with a picture?

Such arguments are readily developed and have been pursued elsewhere. The story of Narcissus, however, does lend itself to the illustration of ideas concerning aesthetic themes such as imitatio and ekphrasis , as well as to general issues of intertextuality. [37] But we must insist here that the incurable subject-object constellation remains indissoluble for Narcissus. To separate oneself from one’s own body is the attempt to conceive of the now incorporeal I as an independent fact of consciousness. But Narcissus senses that this attempt must fail; otherwise he would formulate his wishes as if they could be fulfilled. As Schopenhauer (2012 [1819]: 139) would later assert, essentially summing up the scholarly status quo of his time, “the ‘I’ is an unknown quantity, in other words, it is itself a mystery and a secret.”

Besides his life as Narcissus in physical form ( corpore / corpus 417, 467, 493, 509), then, Narcissus remains trapped in the circular dilemma of the apparent identity of perceiving subject and perceived object. Even after his death, “even after he had gone to the world below” ( postquam est inferna sede receptus , 504), the situation continues unchanged. “Even then” ( tum quoque , 504) he continues in vain to seek awareness of himself, looking at “himself” ( se , 504) in the waters of the Styx without bringing the act of looking to a conclusion: “he beheld himself in the Stygian water” ( in Stygia spectabat aqua , 505). For even as he bends over the Styx, he is only another being himself, he is, to recall the perspective of Book 5 of the Fasti , “not both the one and the other” ( non alter et alter , 226), and no union is possible.

4 Concluding remarks

The stimuli of the reflection experience, which permits no unambiguous view of reality, have led to diverse readings and re-narrations of the myth of Narcissus. They attest to the human fascination with reflection and (self-re)cognition and show how mirror images constantly manifest themselves as open, experimental image spaces in which places and times, wishes and fears, dreams and realities, in particular pertaining to love and desire, can become interwoven.

Let me conclude by referring once more to Schopenhauer (2012 [1819]: 139). The metaphysician postulates the will as the temporal and substantial “ prius ,” and regards love as the most striking manifestation of the will, anticipating Freud’s drive theory – man is not “master in his own house,” but subject to subconscious irrational forces. Even though one risks plunging forward deep into modern thought in doing so, I mention this because, in Ovid, the problematics of love and cognition coincide and interweave. The reflection scene is designed in such a way that we could ask:

Is it one, a living being That divides itself in two? Or are they two, so well agreeing That we them as one construe? [39]

Thus deliberated Johann Wolfgang Goethe in Gingo Biloba, his famous poem published in West-östlicher Diwan (West-Eastern Divan), albeit referring to fulfilled love as prototypical duality. Let us not forget, however, that the love of Narcissus also began with fulfillment. It was a simple love for – a passionate inclination towards – another person. To this extent, it was no error. Love for John remains love for John, even if it later turns out that John is really Jim. False assumptions about qualities and contingent circumstances, even about the fact of existence, do not efface the quality of love from the passionate turn toward the beloved object. Love is, in the language of the contemporary sociology of system theory, a “process” that has become “self-referential” and can be called “reflexivity”: To quote Luhmann (1986: 30), “love refers to love, seeks love, and grows to the extent that it finds love and can fulfill itself as love.”

Revealing the reflexivity of love implies that love is directed “at an I and a you, to the extent that both” are “part of the love relationship,” that is, they enable each other, make “it possible for the other to have such a relationship” ( Luhmann 1986: 138). Subsequent events may therefore, as we say, “open the lovers’ eyes” and trigger the experience of disillusion, as Ovid’s Narcissus undergoes it, with its suffering and contradictions in behavior. Yet the insights that open the lover’s eyes, even if they are valid and of consequence to the future, cannot retrospectively invalidate the former actual condition of love as having been erroneous, false, or inauthentic. Luhmann writes: “One can only surrender to love itself, only live in the present and for the present: thus submitting inadvertently to the difference between sincerity and insincerity. All the same, this reference to the present remains relevant by virtue of the concept of passion” (105). If love, then, has found its “object,” it is then in its reflexivity “more than just the consciousness of the ego co-functioning in love” (138). The latter remains behind, tortured by unfulfillment, by its object’s disappearance.

For this complex of ideas, too, the narrative of Narcissus may be read as a “schema” (Schopenhauer): the “drama” of Narcissus, whose last words – “Ah, my boy beloved in vain!” (‘ heu frustra dilecte puer!’ , 500) – so painfully express the sensation of vanity, was also one of disappointed, lost love. [40]

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Guest Essay

Do Politicians Realize How Difficult and Rare Immigrating to the U.S. Legally Actually Is?

By Jorge Loweree

Mr. Loweree is the managing director of programs and strategy at the American Immigration Council.

During the Republican National Convention, speakers repeatedly tried to draw a contrast between asylum seekers who’ve crossed the southern border in recent years and immigrants who’ve entered the country through other channels. As Vivek Ramaswamy put it, legal immigrants like his parents “deserve the opportunity to secure a better life for your children in America.” Others deserve deportation, “because you broke the law.”

Elected leaders like to invoke this narrative that there’s an easy, “right” and a hard, “wrong” way to immigrate to the United States, because it makes the solution for fixing our broken immigration system seem simple. We just need more law-abiding people to get in the right line.

But the reality that is all too clear to immigrants navigating our byzantine system, and the lawyers and advocates who try to help them, is that there is no line to get into for a vast majority of people who wish to come to the United States. If the government is serious about securing the border, we have to make it easier for people to come through legal channels.

The U.S. admits a tiny fraction of people who want to immigrate

Number of people who said they want to immigrate or who legally applied, compared to those granted permanent residence

158 million people would like to immigrate to the U.S.

32 million people actually began the application process in 2021

family members

Only 900,000 people were allowed to enter legally

Sources: Gallup, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

Note: Data was originally compiled in “ Why Legal Immigration Is Nearly Impossible ” by David Bier for the Cato Institute. The number of people who would like to immigrate is taken from a 2018 Gallup poll.

Our system of legal immigration isn’t set up to reward “good” choices. It is littered with arbitrary caps, bureaucratic delays and redundant processes that wring years of effort and money out of the precious few who qualify.

The current system is largely designed to favor those who have family ties here: namely, spouses, parents and adult children who are U.S. citizens and spouses and children of lawful permanent residents.

For some countries, the wait time to get a family-based visa stretches into centuries

Estimated wait time for family-sponsored visas in capped categories as of 2021

Visa for an unmarried adult child

Philippines

Married adult child

Sibling of adult citizens

YEARS TO PROCESS

All other countries

Sources: U.S. State Department, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

Note: Data was originally compiled in “ Why Legal Immigration Is Nearly Impossible ” by David Bier for the Cato Institute. “All other countries” represents the average.

The green card approval rate is at a historic low point

Share of legal immigrants that were approved for permanent residency

GREEN CARD APPROVAL RATE

Until the 1920s, almost anyone could arrive in the U.S. and be granted permanent residency.

Rates rose during the 1960s when Congress added new visa categories and exceptions to allow more people to immigrate.

They fell in the 1980s after the creation of the green card lottery, as many more people began applying.

Sources: U.S. Department of State, U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service

Note: Data was originally compiled in “ Why Legal Immigration Is Nearly Impossible ” by David Bier for the Cato Institute.

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