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Dorian Gray As a Symbol of Living a Double Life

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Dorian Gray As a Symbol of Living a Double Life Masaryk University Faculty of Education Department of English Language and Literature Character Analysis: Dorian Gray as a Symbol of Living a Double Life Final Thesis Brno 2018 Supervisor: Author: Mgr. Zuzana Kršková, Ph.D. Mgr. Zuzana Charvátová Declaration I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary sources, secondary sources and works consulted as well as listed in the bibliography. ___________________________ 22ndMay 2018, Brno Author’s signature 2 Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisor, Mgr. Zuzana Kršková, Ph.D., for her helpful guidance, patience and valuable advice, as well as for motivation and words of encouragement during the process of writing the thesis. 3 Anotace Román Obraz Doriana Grayenapsaný Oscarem Wildem je v dnešní době považována za jedno z klasických děl anglické literatury a byla akademiky zkoumána z mnoha perspektiv. Cílem této práce je analýza osobnosti Doriana Graye se zaměřením na jeho tajný druhý život v období viktoriánské Anglie. Dále se práce zabývá morálními zásadami a hodnotami tehdejší společnosti se zaměřením na život jaký lidé vedli na veřejnosti a jaký život vedli za tzv. zavřenými dveřmi. Klíčová slova Dorian Gray, dvojí život, Viktoriánská společnost, manipulace, veřejný život, život za zavřenými dveřmi, hřích, akt vraždy, sebevražda 4 Abstract The novel The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde is nowadays consideredas British classical piece surveyed by many scholars from various perspectives. The aim of this thesis is to assess the personality of Dorian Gray in relation to his double life on one hand, and the backdrop of Victorian England on the other hand. Moreover, it examines Victorian society moral values and rules of that time focusing on people´s public life and their private life behind closed doors. Key Words Dorian Gray, double life, Victorian society, manipulation, public life, life behind closed doors, sinful life, the act of murder, suicide 5 List of Contents 1 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 8 2 The Victorian Society .................................................................................................. 12 2.1 Victorian Morality ................................................................................................. 13 2.2 The Novel in the Victorian Society ....................................................................... 17 3 The Phenomenon of Double Life ................................................................................. 19 3.1 Lord Henry Wotton’s Double Life ........................................................................ 21 3.2 Basil Hallward’s Double Life ................................................................................ 23 3.3 Dorian Gray’s Double Life .................................................................................... 25 4 The Dorian Gray Syndrome ......................................................................................... 37 4.1 Defining the Term “Dorian Gray Syndrome” ....................................................... 37 4.2 The Selfie Phenomenon ......................................................................................... 40 5 Modern Adaptations of the Novel ................................................................................ 43 5.1 Theatre Adaption Selfie ......................................................................................... 43 5.2 Film Adaptation The Picture of Dorian Gray ........................................................ 45 6 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 47 Bibliography .................................................................................................................... 49 6 Among the writers identified with the 1890s, Wilde is the only one whom everyone still reads. (Ellmann13) 7 1 Introduction The influential book written by Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde, known as Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray(1890),is one of the most studied novels of all times. The novel was written in the late Victorian period, in the last decade of the Queen Victoria rule. Anne Shepherd describes this historical period as the time full of rapid changes and developments in almost every sphere, “from advances in medical, scientific and technological knowledge to changes in population growth and location” (Shepherd). The Victorian society was based on values represented by Queen Victoria herself “as a young wife, as the mother of nine children, and as the black-garbed Widow of Windsor in the forty years after her husband’s death in 1861” (Abrams 1044).Families were large and patriarchal. Hard work, respectability and religious conformity were regarded as important moral qualities. “While this view of nineteenth-century life was valid”, as Shepherd sums up,“it was frequently challenged by contemporaries”. For example, the way how women were often portrayed was entirely different from the previous periods. Before the rise of the novel, the representation of women in literature was limited both in quantity and in quality: women were not frequently portrayed, and when they were, they were sketched as flat characters rather than developed in any complexity. They were typically seen through male eyes as idealised objects of romantic desire, not as individual human beings with distinctive qualities and peculiarities of their own. In the Victorian period, however, representations of women in literature became more varied. Women were now portrayed at least in two modes:as virtuousMadonnasor as immoral whores. The traditional role of the woman was the one of a loyal wife and mother, but because of the increasing educational and employment opportunities,a lot of women gained control over their lives and started to be more independent of their families. It was difficult at first for the Victorian society to accept the changing role and the increasing independence of women. Although this progressive period was open to various technological innovations and scientific discoveries, the Victorian society itself was very conservative. The publication of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Graywas,therefore,a shocking challenge to the society. It has provoked a lot of controversial opinions and criticism. The book was criticised as immoral because its protagonist devotes his life to pleasure, 8 enjoyment and beauty and eventually even becomes a murderer. Readers and critics of the novel thought that the story was inappropriate and that the book did not educate the readerthe way it should. It is, however, important to see Wilde’s novel as “a highly serious meditation upon the moral role of the artist - an interior challenge, in fact, to the insouciance of the famous pronouncements that would assure us that there is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book” (Oates 420).Like the Victorian society, Victorian literature was expected to be serious and serve not only as amusement but also asan education. Oscar Wilde, among other late Victorian writers such as Walter Pater, Dante Gabriel Rossetti or Algernon Charles Swinburne, however, challenged this idea. Oates believed that art did not need to serve any particular purpose, such as promoting proper moral values. Instead, he argued that art was of a value on its own. Art should not be criticised as moral or immoral but should be judged based on its aesthetic value.The concept of art was having an intrinsic value on its own nevertheless does not mean that art may not deliver any message, moral or other. The primary value of art is aesthetic, but there can also be an added value in the form of a message to the audience, who might learn something from it. What Wilde seemed to oppose was the demand of his contemporaries that art should be wholesome and moral in content – which was an issue that concerned him personally because a lot of his art was dismissed by the Victorian society as indecent and immoral. In other words, Wilde argues that when his book chooses to show immoral behaviour, it does not mean that this book is immoral itself. Contrary, as in the case of The Picture of Dorian Gray, by showing immoral actions, the book exposes the drawbacks of immoral behaviour and so may lead the reader to conclude that moral actions are a better choice. The Victorian society appeared to be an exemplary one, but this ideal did not always correspond to the reality. A more realistic description of the society at that time is a hypocritical one with secrets that should be hidden. This is connected with the idea of doublelife when a person presents his or her respectable face to the public but secretly indulges in unrespectable or immoral behaviour. The idea of double life in the Victorian period is a way for the writer to explore the essence of the human being. Characters leading double lives typically show, onone hand, what the society requires and, on the other hand, what the individual’s wishes and desires are. This idea is famously explored in another Victorian novel, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case 9 of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde(1886).The protagonist of the novel, the respectable Dr Jekyll, seeks to get rid of his undesirable qualities and in this process, he discovers a way to separate his dark side and materialise it in the shape of seemingly different person, Mr Hyde, who not only looks but also behaves very differently. Dr Jekyll is well-liked,
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