How does 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' by Oscar Wilde use paradox to explore its aesthetic standpoint
How does 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' by Oscar Wilde use paradox to explore its aesthetic standpoint?
By Oliver Walsh
In the 'Picture of Dorian Gray' Wilde uses paradox throughout the novel to express, explore, question and test the philosophy of aesthetics. The characters in the book are seen through the eyes of Wilde's moral standpoint, and the fates of individuals are all steeped in opposite dualistic meanings. Wilde is writing about aestheticism in a Victorian era where it flourished partly as a reaction against the materialism of the burgeoning middle class, assumed to be composed of philistines (individuals ignorant of art) who responded to art in a generally unrefined manner. In this climate, the artist could assert himself as a remarkable and rarefied being, one leading the search for beauty in an age marked by shameful class inequality, social hypocrisy, and bourgeois complacency. Wilde weights his argument heavily on the benefits of aestheticism and plays down its negative aspect, like the lack of morality, until the end of the novel when Dorian is confronted by the painting which dramatically illustrates and exposes his corrupt soul and the darker side of pursuing a hedonistic lifestyle.
The character of Henry Wotton is constructed as the philosophical idea of aesthetics. He includes in most conversations linguistic paradoxes, contrived in epigrams which subverts conventional views and manufactures truths to support his aesthetic ideology. "Philanthropic people lose all sense of humanity, it is their distinguishing characteristic". Henry's influence moulds Dorian life into one of aestheticism, however, by so doing he paradoxically contradicts his own philosophy by saying, "All influence is immoral....because to influence a person is to give him one's soul." Whist he attempts to heavily influence Dorian, Basil sees Dorian as having a kind of aesthetic value because of his youth and beauty. He worships Dorian's form or surface as an appreciative artist, reiterating the paradox of Dorian being an amalgamation of nature and art. In the later stages of the novel Basil is the single figure of conventional morality that condemns Dorian by challenging the depraved level to which Dorian has sunk. This conflict between friends can be identified as the traditional idea of depth and essentialism.
Dorian lives a hedonistic life for several years, according to the guidelines established by Henry and the 'yellow book'. (A book given to him by Henry which details sinful but desirable things this has a profound effect on Dorian, influencing him to predominantly immoral behaviour over the course of nearly two decades). While the face in the painting has turned ugly, Dorian remains young, beautiful, and innocent. People talk about Dorian's hedonistic life style and his dreadful influence on the people around him, which criticises the aesthetic ideal, highlighting the devastation and corruption it causes to life and ...
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Dorian lives a hedonistic life for several years, according to the guidelines established by Henry and the 'yellow book'. (A book given to him by Henry which details sinful but desirable things this has a profound effect on Dorian, influencing him to predominantly immoral behaviour over the course of nearly two decades). While the face in the painting has turned ugly, Dorian remains young, beautiful, and innocent. People talk about Dorian's hedonistic life style and his dreadful influence on the people around him, which criticises the aesthetic ideal, highlighting the devastation and corruption it causes to life and to beauty. Finally, Dorian shows the portrait to Basil, who begs Dorian to repent of his sin. "Good God, Dorian what a lesson .....Forgive us our sins wash away our iniquities". This statement by Basil is paradoxical as it comes from a character in the aesthetic mould and the quasi religious use of language is, therefore, paradoxical. Instead of taking Basil's advice Dorian kills him and hides his body. By murdering Basil Wilde expresses the paradox which is common in much of the final chapters of the book. How can Aestheticism, which is the appreciation of beauty through experience lead to the heinous and ugly act of murder? The concept that vileness and beauty run parallel, co-existing as one, is another example of Wilde merging two opposites.
The paradoxical symbolic nature of the painting of Dorian becomes clear following his brief relationship with Sybil Vane. This liaison can be seen as his first steps into an aesthetic life style, and his initial cruel act towards another person. Sybil commits suicide, because of Dorian's rejection of her, which tarnishes his soul as revealed in the picture. The picture inexplicitly changes as a response to Dorian's actions, the image reflects his conscience and his true self, and serves as the mirror of his soul. The prevalent view at that time was the soul is metaphysical, but the painting shows it physically and symbolises the inversion of art/nature, body/soul - binary oppositions. Wilde uses the picture to explore much of the paradox in the novel through the symbolic device of the picture and the role of the painting is to merge seemingly opposite ideas. After Dorian wished for eternal youth he is made up of both art and nature. His self is divided between his perfect unchanging physical form and the horrors of his degraded soul in the portrait. Only through this splitting of his self does he truly become a 'visible symbol' for the aesthetic movement.
Dorian's visit to an opium den says a great deal about the paradox of morality/immorality in Dorian. Dorian, as an aesthete should live life for experiences, sensation, and of course beauty. Wilde paradoxically reintroduces conventional morality through the concept of guilt that finds Dorian escaping the effects of an aesthetic lifestyle through losing consciousness in opium induced stupor. This paradox of moral condemnation within aestheticism leads to the ultimate downfall and the death of Dorian.
The opium den allows Wilde to explore the position at that time between social classes. Aestheticism is a philosophy which can realistically only be practiced and enjoyed by the aristocracy. Henry considers the middle classes as philistines and is dismissive of the working classes. "I can sympathise with everything except suffering.....It is too ugly, too horrible, too distressing. There is something terribly morbid in modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathise with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life". It is interesting to note that Henry's aesthetic argument criticises the morality and conventions of the time, however his position and comfort depend wholly upon the hypocrisies he tends to expose and criticise, like the duality of good and evil, one cannot exist without the other. Wilde paradoxically makes comparisons between a criminal and an aesthetic by remarking on their shared acts of subversion. Finnegan comments on this point by saying. "Like the criminal, the artist is opposed to the ordering principles of society, but, while the criminal sins for material profit, the artist-criminal violates social conventions to attain a higher morality." This comparison of classes is a paradox found in the opium den. Dorian is a beautiful aristocrat who uses the same opium dens as the lower criminal classes. It again indicates the binary opposites of beauty and ugliness, good and evil in Wilde's thinking. In this novel aestheticism is portrayed as a concept of beauty and is given great value but it has transient meanings which are different in every example. The central role of beauty in aesthetics can be seen itself as a paradox.
The destruction of the painting by Dorian also brings about his own death and it is interesting to note at this point that a novel that prizes individualism-the uncompromised expression of self-that the sacrifice of one's self, whether it be to another person or to a work of art, leads to one's destruction.
Wilde uses paradox in this novel as a method of deconstruction which is similar to the theory, developed mainly by the modern French Philosopher Jacques Derrida, which analyses text and the creation of meaning. He argued that most systems of thought can be based on a single word such as God, self, love or nature. Deconstruction attempts to dismantle such ideas to show how meaning depends on its relation to other values usually the opposite. The manipulation or inversion of truth is exactly what Henry achieves when he defines his aesthetic philosophy. This is pointed out by Damian Finnegan in his dissertation 'Wilde's Relativism'. "Wilde's method of inversion resembles Derida's strategy of deconstruction....By exposing every metaphysical truth as an ideological construction (by revealing its hidden presumption) deconstruction destroys the foundation of any transcendental truth. In Damian Finnegan's 'Investigation of Wilde's aestheticism in relation to postmodernism' he comments: "Wilde in his work used the paradoxical epigram as the strategy par excellence to avoid any settled custom of thought or stereotyped mode of looking at things". "The paradox puts prevailing truisms into perspective by turning them upside down." The novel itself is a paradox as it argues for aestheticism and then heavily criticises and denounces it.
In conclusion Wilde appears to sit on the fence with this novel in some respects as although he strongly puts forward a positive argument for the Aesthetic movement he counter balances this with the price to be paid for living a life of aestheticism. Perhaps the cautionary tale told in this novel display his cynicism towards aestheticism directly from his own hedonistic life style as an aesthete. Wilde uses paradox as a method of deconstruction and exposure of the hypocrisy of Victorian values by turning them upside down. Although he may have succeeded in freeing his art from the confines of Victorian morality, he has replaced it with a doctrine that is, in its own way, just as restrictive.
(1,522 words)
Bibliography
The Picture of Dorian Gray - by Oscar Wilde - Penguin classics 2000
Damian Finnegan - 'Wilde's Relativism'