{"id":1274,"date":"2023-11-02T19:32:29","date_gmt":"2023-11-02T23:32:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/?p=1274"},"modified":"2023-11-02T19:32:29","modified_gmt":"2023-11-02T23:32:29","slug":"do-you-see-what-i-see-idolatry-in-the-picture-of-dorian-gray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/2023\/11\/02\/do-you-see-what-i-see-idolatry-in-the-picture-of-dorian-gray\/","title":{"rendered":"Do You See What I See? Idolatry in The Picture of Dorian Gray"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

\u201c\u2018I <\/span>don\u2019t<\/span> believe it is my picture.\u2019 \u2018Can\u2019t you see your ideal in it?\u2019 said Dorian, bitterly. \u2018My ideal, as you call<\/span> it…\u2019 \u2018As you called it.\u2019 \u2018There was nothing evil in it, nothing shameful. You were to me such an ideal <\/span>as<\/span> I shall never meet again<\/span>. This is the face of a satyr.\u2019 \u2018It is the face of my soul.\u2019 \u2018Christ! What a thing I must have worshipped! It has the eyes of a devil<\/span>\u2019\u201d (Wilde, 132).<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n

In his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray<\/em>, Oscar Wilde paints a portrait of the dangers of idolatry in art and appearance. The above passage is from a conversation between Dorian and Basil in the middle of chapter 13, when Basil sees the portrait of Dorian as it has transformed to reflect his soul. Basil cannot \u201cbelieve it is [the] picture\u201d he painted of Dorian because it is now so ugly. Dorian asks Basil is he can still see his \u201cideal\u201d in the portrait, to which Basil replies, \u201cthere was nothing evil in it, nothing shameful.\u201d The \u201cit\u201d in the sentence could be Basil referring to the original painting as something that wasn\u2019t \u201cevil\u201d or \u201cshameful\u201d when he first painted it. However, the \u201cit\u201d could also refer to Basil once considering Dorian to be his \u201cideal.\u201d

Basil seems to be defending his idolization of Dorian when he says, \u201cthere was nothing evil in\u201d this idolatry, \u201cnothing shameful.\u201d However, Basil reckons with his idolatry when Dorian confides that the portrait in its current state \u201cis the face of [his] soul.\u201d Basil\u2019s own acknowledgement of having idolized Dorian is most apparent when he exclaims, \u201cChrist! What a thing I must have worshipped!\u201d Basil did not just admire Dorian, nor was he simply obsessed with him \u2013 he worshipped Dorian in a god-like way.

The passage seems to be suggesting that idolatry is dangerous because you can never fully know the ins and outs of who or what you are idolizing. Dorian\u2019s appearance is beautiful, but as the portrait reflects, his soul is ugly. What you think could be \u201cChrist!\u201d, as Basil ironically says in his reaction to the portrait being a depiction of Dorian\u2019s soul, could very well be the \u201cdevil.\u201d Perhaps, the novel is making a broader statement about religion and art \u2013 that to put art in the place of God is a wrongful glorification of beauty and appearance.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201c\u2018I don\u2019t believe it is my picture.\u2019 \u2018Can\u2019t you see your ideal in it?\u2019 said Dorian, bitterly. \u2018My ideal, as you call it…\u2019 \u2018As you called it.\u2019 \u2018There was nothing evil in it, nothing shameful. You were to me such an ideal as I shall never meet again. This is the face of a satyr.\u2019 … Continue reading Do You See What I See? Idolatry in The Picture of Dorian Gray<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5365,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125361],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2023-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5365"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1274\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}