Dorian Gray Syndrome

Pleskovo Comprehensive Orthodox Christian Boarding School Dorian Gray Syndrome Modern society’s cognitive disease: origin, features and therapy. Author Daniil Igorevich Chugaev a senior student Supervisor Irina Vladimirovna Nickishina an English teacher 2012 Contents Prologue Oscar Wilde’s novel «The Picture of Dorian Gray»: • author’s short biography; • summary of the novel; • theme analysis. Pages 3 through 6 Keynote Dorian Gray Syndrome: • myth about Narcissus as a representation of ancient society; • becoming a trend of modern society; • origin and features; • ways of treatment. Pages 7 through 9 Conclusion Page 10 Credits Page 11 2 Prologue Oscar Wilde’s biography Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. Today he is remembered for his epigrams, plays and the circumstances of his imprisonment, followed by his early death. Wilde's parents were successful Dublin intellectuals. Their son became fluent in French and German early in life. At university Wilde read Greats; he proved himself to be an outstanding classicist, first at Dublin, then at Oxford. He became known for his involvement in the rising philosophy of aestheticism, led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin. He also profoundly explored Roman Catholicism, to which he would later convert on his deathbed. After university, Wilde moved to London into fashionable cultural and social circles. As a spokesman for aestheticism, he tried his hand at various literary activities: he published a book of poems, lectured in the United States of America and Canada on the new "English Renaissance in Art", and then returned to London where he worked prolifically as a journalist. Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress, and glittering conversation, Wilde had become one of the most well-known personalities of his day. At the turn of the 1890s, he refined his ideas about the supremacy of art in a series of dialogues and essays, and incorporated themes of decadence, duplicity, and beauty into his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). The opportunity to construct aesthetic details precisely, and combine them with larger social themes, drew Wilde to write drama. He wrote Salome (1891) in French in Paris but it was refused a licence. Unperturbed, Wilde produced four society comedies in the early 1890s, which made him one of the most successful playwrights of late Victorian London. At the height of his fame and success, whilst his masterpiece, The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), was still on stage in London, Wilde had the Marquess of Queensberry, the father of his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, prosecuted for libel, a charge carrying a penalty of up to two years in prison. (Libel Act of 1843) The trial unearthed evidence that caused Wilde to drop his charges and 3 led to his own arrest, tried for gross indecency with other men. After two more trials he was convicted and imprisoned for two years' hard labour. In prison he wrote De Profundis (written in 1897 & published in 1905), a long letter which discusses his spiritual journey through his trials, forming a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure. Upon his release he left immediately for France, never to return to Ireland or Britain. There he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life. He died destitute in Paris at the age of forty-six. Wilde was initially buried in the Cimetière de Bagneux outside Paris; in 1909 his remains were disinterred to Père Lachaise Cemetery, inside the city. The Picture of Dorian Gray The Picture of Dorian Gray is the only published novel by Oscar Wilde, appearing as the lead story in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine on 20 June 1890, printed as the July 1890 issue of this magazine. Wilde later revised this edition, making several alterations, and adding new chapters; the amended version was published by Ward, Lock, and Company in April 1891. The Picture of Dorian Gray is considered a work of classic gothic fiction with a strong Faustian theme. At the outset of the novel, Dorian Gray is a tabula rasa. The young man’s encounter with artist Basil Hallward and socialite Lord Henry signifies the launch of his descent into a life of debauchery and hedonism. When confronted with his own beauty through the eyes of the two men, Gray is loath to part with it and he thus wishes to remain as untainted and lovely as the masterpiece that Hallward has painted of him. He wishes that the portrait could age in his stead. A supernatural force grants his wish, and Gray’s sins and age are manifested in his portrait. He is free to live a life of decadence and immorality without paying the physical cost. He is immortal. Gray’s initial vulnerability makes him excellent clay for Lord Henry’s willing hands. Lord Henry moulds and manipulates Dorian Gray with ideas of pleasure-seeking and hedonism by maintaining that intense experience is the key to true beauty, even when the experience itself is something sordid, ugly, or grotesque. Gray’s life is punctuated by momentary happiness but it is fraught with pain and anxiety, much like Narcissus. 4 Theme Analysis Homoerotic love Homoerotic love is an underlying theme of the novel, although it is never stated directly. Both Lord Henry and Basil Hallward are deeply attracted to Dorian Gray on account of his great physical beauty. Basil insists that his love for Dorian is “noble and intellectual,” and there is no reason to doubt him. But he also speaks about Dorian in terms that a man would normally speak about a lover and about falling in love. “I worshipped you,” he says to Dorian. “I grew jealous of every one to whom you spoke. I wanted to have you all to myself. I was only happy when I was with you” (Chapter 9). Basil sublimates any erotic dimension to his feelings about Dorian by pouring them into his art. Lord Henry prefers the company of Dorian to that of his wife, and he consistently expresses misogynist views. He worships youthful male beauty as embodied in Dorian, and he encourages Dorian to give full rein all his secret desires. When he says the following to Dorian, he may well be suggesting that Dorian has a previously unacknowledged sexual attraction to men: “You have had passions that have made you afraid, thoughts that have filled you with terror, day- dreams and sleeping dreams whose mere memory might stain your cheek with shame-” The language here, and the use of the word “shame,” suggests that Dorian’s “sins,” although they are never explicitly described, may be of a sexual nature. One has to remember that in the Victorian age, attitudes to homosexuality are very different from what they are today. Art vs. Life The novel presents a contrast between art and life. Art possesses beauty and form; it is contrasted with the ugliness and shapelessness of real life. Lord Henry encourages Dorian to treat his own life as if it were a work of art. He must experience it fully, as one would a piece of art, but at the same time remain detached from it, in the way that one might appreciate a great painting or a play. This involves a paradox: he must be at once involved and uninvolved, fully participating, not drawing back from anything, but always remaining a spectator. Such is Lord Henry’s notion. He is depicted as being a connoisseur of all the arts and surrounds himself with objects of beauty. He maintains the essential detachment that enables him, or at least he claims it does, to avoid the pain of the world. It also means that he does not adopt moral positions on anything, since that would mean taking life more seriously than art. For Lord Henry, the purpose of life is not to exhibit one’s moral prejudices but to contemplate beauty. The contrast between art and life can be seen in the chapters that describe Dorian’s walk to the theater where Sibyl Vane performs and on his ride to the opium den. 5 In both instances, the sordidness of these parts of London is described. Dorian feels this keenly, and he takes refuge in the art that Sibyl creates. Her value to him is that she enables him to live out Henry’s creed. When she ceases to show an interest in art, Dorian ceases to be interested in her. On the ride to the opium den, Dorian’s position has changed. He now embraces the ugliness of life. He has forgotten the creed that Henry taught him. He has exchanged art for life-and that itself is a sin, in Oscar Wilde’s credo. Sensual Gratification Lord Henry’s philosophy of life, which is adopted by Dorian, is that the senses should be indulged to the full. In the fleeting sense experience lies the intensity of life, and all life is simply a series of these intense moments. This is not intended as a mindless indulgence for the sake of it, but is a conscious quest for beauty. Dorian thus learns to cultivate all kinds of sense experience, passions and sensations in the pursuit of beauty. He studies exotic perfumes, he collects musical instruments and precious stones. He once went to a costume ball wearing an outfit covered with 560 pearls. Neither Henry nor Dorian believe in any restrictions on desire, because desire is life itself, whereas self-denial in the name of morality is exactly that-a denial of life.

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