{"id":1254,"date":"2023-11-02T14:45:05","date_gmt":"2023-11-02T18:45:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/?p=1254"},"modified":"2023-11-02T14:45:05","modified_gmt":"2023-11-02T18:45:05","slug":"youll-be-the-prince-and-ill-be-the-princess-the-aesthetics-of-heterosexuality-in-dorian-gray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/2023\/11\/02\/youll-be-the-prince-and-ill-be-the-princess-the-aesthetics-of-heterosexuality-in-dorian-gray\/","title":{"rendered":"You’ll Be the Prince and I’ll Be the Princess: The Aesthetics of Heterosexuality in Dorian Gray"},"content":{"rendered":"

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this is soooo us – Dorian<\/p>\n

“Romeo and Juliet” by Julius Kronberg (1886)<\/p>\n

I think it is safe to say that heterosexual love is the most perennially popular of Western literature topics, for better or worse. Even the Odyssey is framed with a heterosexual marriage. And Taylor Swift has reportedly become a billionaire this week. All this love stuff has to make a mark on the psyche, and it certainly does for our lovebirds Dorian and Sibyl.<\/p>\n

Dorian Gray becomes infatuated with Sibyl when he sees her acting in Shakespeare plays. Dorian says, \u201cShe is all the great heroines of the world in one. She is more than an individual\u2026 I want to make Romeo jealous. I want the dead lovers of the world to hear our laughter and grow sad. I want a breath of our passion to stir their dust into consciousness, to wake their ashes to pain. I love her, and I must make her love me,\u201d (Chapter 4). Dorian sees no value in Sibyl Vane herself, only what she can become in his and the world\u2019s imagination. He hopes that when he makes her love him, he will become a part of this long and storied tradition of lovers. He may not be fully immortalized until he is part of a conventional straight narrative and must be the very best of these. There is also a sense of this making him prove his masculinity: to make Romeo jealous is to emasculate him, to cuckold him.<\/p>\n

Sibyl also desires to be part of this tradition, but deeper, stronger emotions underly her affection. When thinking about her \u201cPrince Charming,\u201d \u201cA rose shook in [Sibyl\u2019s] blood and shadowed her cheeks,\u201d (Chapter 5). By putting flowers (which have romantic and sexual connotations) in Sibyl\u2019s very blood, Wilde already draws the deeper connection between Sibyl and this fantasy. Sibyl\u2019s love is surely caught up in images, though, as she says she loves him because \u201che is like what love himself should be,\u201d (Chapter 5). Dorian is an ideal, and being loved by this ideal makes her \u201cfeel proud, terribly proud.\u201d Being the object of Prince Charming\u2019s affection feeds her ego, like becoming Prince Charming feeds Dorian\u2019s ego. She also echoes Dorian when she says \u201cto be in love is to surpass one\u2019s self.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Sibyl performs poorly, she cites the reason as her really falling in love with Dorian. But for Dorian that isn\u2019t the case. He loses all love for her when she grows \u201csick of shadows,\u201d (Chapter 7). When Sibyl becomes real, when Galatea comes to life, she disgusts Dorian. Real love, according to Wilde, makes convention feel like a sham, and Dorian is only interested in appearances.<\/p>\n

Sibyl before and after Dorian showed his true colors (smh)<\/p>\n