The Purple Thread of Doom: Aestheticism and Dysfunction in the Works of Oscar Wilde By Sara Gonzalez Spring 2020 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a baccalaureate degree in English in cursu honorum Reviewed and approved by: Submitted to the Honors Program, Saint Peter’s University May 7, 2020 In Loving Memory of Rabbie 2014-2020 May you have all the raisins and bananas your little heart desires in Heaven. You won’t have to chew on God’s ankles for them. Acknowledgments First and foremost, I would like to thank my advisor Dr. Scott F. Stoddart for undertaking this project with me. He helped me fashion my high school fascination into something tangible and mature, and his kindness and dedication have been nothing short of extraordinary. I would also like to thank Dr. Rachel Wifall, Dr. Jeanette Wilmanski, and Lauren Squillante of the Honors program for their patience throughout this process. I would like to thank Dr. William Luhr for his support and his knowledge of the Victorian era, Dr. Michael K. Walonen for teaching me how to think and write, Dr. Raymond Conlon for his wisdom and humor, and Professor Brian Morgan for encouraging me to nurture my writing skills. If there is anyone who has witnessed my character development over the past four years, it is Dr. Katherine S. Wydner. She took me under her wing when I was a freshman and supported me as I found my direction in life. My friend and colleague Bianca Cantillano has known me for just as long. I thank her for her lively spirit and her wisdom that seems to go beyond her years. I would like to thank Nicole Font for her Lord Henry-like influence and urging me to “be afraid of nothing.” Her intelligence, wit, and (good) advice have always charmed me, and I am proud of the person she has become. I must thank my best friends Dominique Brown and Amber Malik for putting up with me going MIA once in a while and enduring my lengthy monologues. Their love is as rare as rubies and their loyalty as precious as sapphires. My English Capstone class—Matthew Blumensteel, Amber Camacho, Khier Casino, Marina DeSantis, Jenny Martinez Rojas, Hector Pena, Aliyah Rawles, Annel Reich, Mahreen Shahzadi, and Tania Velez—has been supportive of me and I must thank them for bringing me into their fold. Special thanks to my high school teachers Mr. Steve Saullo and Mr. Stephen Nyarko. They knew I was meant to wield the pen, but I didn’t listen. I soon found out that beakers shatter into pieces when they’re dropped. Pens don’t, though. Finally, I thank my sister Yolanda, my number one fan, for first introducing me to the curious world of the Victorians through Sherlock Holmes. It all just went downhill from there. Abstract Late 19th century Irish poet, playwright, and novelist Oscar Wilde challenged the norms and hypocrisy of Victorian society through his life and works. He was a follower of aestheticism, a counter-cultural movement that embraced “art for art’s sake,” which rejects the idea that art should advance a social or moral cause. Instead, beauty was upheld as art’s only aim. The movement’s reach soon went beyond the arts and crossed over into life, taking with it the amorality and detachedness that should be only applied to art. This thesis will demonstrate the incompatibilities between aestheticism and life that appear in three of Wilde’s works: the fairy tale “The Happy Prince,” the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, and the play Lady Windermere’s Fan. This will be performed through the application of Wilde’s aesthetic triad of the artist, critic, and public within the medium of life. Each text’s conflict is a result of the failure of one or more persons of the triad to adhere to their roles. Table of Contents Introduction ………………………………………………………………………………………6 Wilde’s Aesthetic Theory ……………………………………………………………………….11 The Art as Artist in “The Happy Prince” ……………………………………………………….18 The Spectator as Art in The Picture of Dorian Gray……………………………………………32 The Artist as Critic in Lady Windermere’s Fan ………………………………………………...53 Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………………………70 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………..73 Gonzalez 6 Introduction In The Importance of Being Earnest, Gwendolyn Fairfax explains why she never travels without her diary: “One should always have something sensational to read in the train” (363). The waiting room of a doctor’s office does not have much in the way of “sensational” reading material—unless one counts old magazines and health brochures. That would be a matter of taste, though Oscar Wilde makes it a point that there is such thing as having bad taste. I decided to take my work with me and bring along my copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray to read while I waited. A woman seated to my left peered down at my book. With curiosity, she asked if I was reading a romance novel. Having had the book for so long, I had gotten used to its cover and it never occurred to me that others would give it a second glance. It features a portrait by John Singer Sargent, a 19th century American expatriate famous for his scandalous Portrait of Madame X. Appropriately titled Man Wearing Laurels, the portrait depicts the top half of a muscular youth with a crown of laurels encircling his head of thick, black curls. Light from an unseen source shines from his right, leaving the left side of his pale face and body in dark shadow. The weak light barely illuminates the background which forms an even greater contrast with his body. The young man’s eyes are heavily obscured, and it is as if one is looking into two empty voids. I explained to the woman that the novel has some romance but it is mostly about beauty. Dorian Gray, the beautiful young man who is afraid of growing old and losing his beauty, unknowingly gives up his soul to trade places with his portrait. The portrait takes on what would have been his: his age and the sins of his actions. Dorian no longer has a conscience, so he acts without remorse, and with every bad action, an imperfection is added to his portrait. The romances in The Picture of Dorian Gray are doomed to fail because Dorian cannot give or receive love. He rejects the love of an actress, Sybil Vane, and of the painter of his portrait, Basil Gonzalez 7 Hallward. At this point, I could not discuss the novel any further without some context, so I began to speak about Oscar Wilde and how he sought to challenge the norms of Victorian England through his life and work. I explained that homosexuality was considered a crime in the late 19th century and Wilde was tried and convicted for “gross indecency.” The very novel I held in my hands was used to implicate Wilde at his own trial. I finished speaking to find that I had the attention of everyone in the room. One man somberly recalled the old adage of not judging a book by its cover. Some asked to take pictures of the cover so they could recommend the novel to the book lovers in their life. Others asked if there was a movie. I immediately realized that what I did on that one day, Oscar Wilde did on a daily basis. With grace, forethought, and wit, he made commanding attention an art. Wilde wrote and lived according to the doctrines of Aestheticism, a movement that redefined the creation and purpose of art and literature. It contended with the common Victorian propensity for moralizing and pushing for social reform. Those who utilized their creative talents were known as “artists,” regardless of their discipline. Artists did not concern themselves with relaying a moral or taking a side in social or political issues in their works. Instead, they were focused on creating beautiful works of art, and beauty was the only standard by which a work of art’s value is judged. The movement was mocked and satirized, not only for its moral aloofness but for the lifestyles adopted by its followers, the aesthetes. Aestheticism was also a way of life, and the aim of life, according to an aesthete, was self-improvement. This was best realized through pleasure and surrounding oneself with beautiful things. Although there were several prominent figures in the movement, no one lived it quite like Wilde. He found his fame in America in 1882, where he traveled across the country and delivered lectures on the movement (Eckhardt et al. 12). Wilde laid out its doctrine and instructed on fashion and house decoration. Americans, beholding such a Gonzalez 8 grandiose character from across the Atlantic, were both bewildered and amazed (Ellman 166). Caricaturists took to depicting him in his outlandish garb with a sunflower in one hand and a lily in the other, and his name and image were used in advertisements (Holland 58). With his newfound fame, Wilde returned to England where, as an Irishman, he was also an outsider. He eventually got married and had two sons. Now having a family to support, Wilde became more dedicated to writing. In 1890, he shook the nation with The Picture of Dorian Gray, his only novel. Many took offense to its indifference toward morality, but others lauded it for its philosophical examination of human nature (Ellman 323). Wilde soon dominated the stage with his plays, and successfully veiled his critiques on society’s hypocrisy and sensitivities with effortless wit and humor. In 1891, Wilde became smitten with the beautiful and reckless Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas (Holland 141).