{"id":327,"date":"2016-03-29T14:35:42","date_gmt":"2016-03-29T14:35:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/?p=327"},"modified":"2018-09-02T22:05:24","modified_gmt":"2018-09-02T22:05:24","slug":"wilde-within-dorian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/2016\/03\/29\/wilde-within-dorian\/","title":{"rendered":"Wilde Within Dorian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dracula<\/em> and The Portrait of Dorian Gray<\/em> have a lot in common. They share a fear of the outsider. Our discussion of vampires and werewolves made me think about how the fear of the outsider operates in Wilde\u2019s novel. Given Wilde\u2019s later trial and his sexuality, I think a lot of The Portrait of Dorian Gray<\/em> exposes the fear of the outsider, or uses it to generate interest in the plot. As with Dracula<\/em> and the feeling that \u201cvampires walk among us,\u201d perhaps in Wilde\u2019s novel the fear is that \u201cgay men walk among us,\u201d or that murderers\/people who look harmless but are dangerous go unnoticed in our society.<\/p>\n

If fin de si\u00e8cle fears revolved around the worry that regardless of modernization, things still fell through the cracks, then perhaps Dorian Gray re-expresses that. Everyone praises Dorian for his beauty and assumes his character is pristine and \u201cinnocent\u201d because of his \u201cyouth\u201d and \u201cbeauty.\u201d But as the novel progresses, Dorian becomes more of a criminal. At the end of the novel, he has killed someone and covered up the murder. According to law, he should be in jail. But Henry continues to praise Dorian\u2019s unblemished character, making Dorian feel unbearably guilty. \u201cI am so glad that have never done anything, never carved a statue, or painted a picture, or produced anything outside of yourself. Life has been your art\u201d (Wilde 207).<\/p>\n

Vampires, homosexual men, and murderers are all illegal members of Victorian society. In Dracula <\/em>and The Portrait of Dorian Gray<\/em>, it is difficult to catch the outsider and tease out who deviates from society, because everyone fits in, whether by looking human but being a vampire, or by being extremely beautiful. These both represent the fear of overlooking clandestine threats to a stable society.<\/p>\n

Another way The Portrait of Dorian Gray <\/em>is another iteration of \u201cmissing\u201d something is that fact that Oscar Wilde was accused of illegal homosexual behavior, and people used this novel as evidence in court. I believe a lot of Wilde\u2019s feelings hide behind Dorian\u2019s guilt. There are moments when Wilde writes something that is more of a pondering, unrelated to the story, and it feels confessional. Throughout the novel, Dorian struggles with trying to confess or unburden himself, but his friends silence him because they already believe he is so good. Perhaps Wilde\u2019s guilt for living contrary to England\u2019s law made its way into the character of Dorian Gray. Henry says, \u201cThe books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame\u201d (208). Is this a moment when Wilde speaks directly to his reader, hoping they will understand that this <\/em>book is a form of confession, exposing \u201cshame[ful]\u201d aspects of society and Wilde himself? Later, Dorian ponders his life. \u201cHe knew that he had tarnished himself, filled his mind with corruption and given horror to his fancy; that he had been an evil influence to others, and had experienced a terrible joy in being so; and that of the lives that had crossed his own it had been the fairest and the most full of promise that he had brought to shame. But was it all irretrievable? Was there no hope for him?\u201d (209). I view this passage as a desperate outcry from Wilde, trying to atone for his \u201csins\u201d under the guise of Dorian\u2019s character.<\/p>\n

To me, Dorian represents Wilde\u2019s guilt, and Wilde used Dorian\u2019s character to try tell the world his sins, as well as to think through them himself. The book represents a fear that we cannot see what is right under our nose: people overlook Dorian\u2019s sins and he walks free; Wilde wrote a book in which he seemingly hints at his feelings for men. The Picture of Dorian Gray<\/em> is another iteration of fearing what we can\u2019t \u201ccatch.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dracula and The Portrait of Dorian Gray have a lot in common. They share a fear of the outsider. Our discussion of vampires and werewolves made me think about how the fear of the outsider operates in Wilde\u2019s novel. Given Wilde\u2019s later trial and his sexuality, I think a lot of The Portrait of Dorian … Continue reading Wilde Within Dorian<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3038,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[123782,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2016-blog-post","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327","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\/3038"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}