History of narcissism true or false self". Narcissus was a handsome Greek youth who rejected the desperate advances of the nymph Echo. As punishment, he was doomed to fall in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. Unable to consummate his love, Narcissus 'lay gazing enraptured into the pool, hour after hour', and finally pined away, changing into a flower that bears his name, the narcissus. The story was retold in Latin by Ovid in his Metamorphoses, in which form it would have great influence on medieval and Renaissance culture. 'Ovid's tale of Echo and Narcissus...weaves in and out of
The Man with the Flower in His Mouth the grand soliloquy of the protagonist. He lucidly analyses his last sensations on earth, evoking scenes of common life, particulars of a quotidianity which are receding from him irremediably and which, for this reason, make precious the memories of even the most trivial events. In the solemnity of his solitude, he seems to have gained unexpected awarenesses of the life that is leaving him and of death. With no sense of regret or repentance, he almost seems to bitterly enjoy his unrepeatable experience marked by the echo of the end, which allows him to dedicate himself with interest to observing