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They say Oscar Wilde wrote about Dorian Gray's life in his novel entitled ¡§The portrait of Dorian Gray¡¨, but I tend to believe he wrote about the character's stolen life, his death state in fact. My paper will attempt to prove this argument in order to reach a more general conclusion regarding the real main theme of the novel ¡§The Picture of Dorian Gray¡¨.
The painted portrait of the main character stands for a work of art first of all and, as we know, one of the main characteristics of art is that it is created by human beings; the creators of art, human beings, are said to ¡§acknowledge their self-consciousness when confronted with their own image offered by art¡¨(Dan Grigorescu ¡V ¡§Prefata¡¨). We may try to apply this when discussing the main character's (Dorian Gray's) reaction on watching his portrait's transformations too. But can we? Is his portrait what a portrait generally represents, accordingly, a static image of oneself?
As we know, the picture becomes alive, it is the one that alters in time, adopting this typical human characteristic. A reciprocal change of state has occurred at a certain point in the novel, which can be called the ¡§mad prayer¡¨ moment the alive ¡V Dorian - becomes dead and the dead ¡V the portrait - becomes alive. From this symbolical process on, whenever Dorian Gray looks at his portrait he doesn't in fact acknowledge his self-consciousness, but the lack of that! He cannot acknowledge a feature that belongs only to the portrait and not to himself. Art has gained life while he won eternal life, the main characteristic of a piece of art. Since his ¡§mad prayer¡¨, Dorian isn't alive anymore.
He gradually becomes aware of this state as he ventures through life, experiencing all the sins a human life implies and coldly observing their influence ¡V more precisely their lack of influence ¡V on him. First, he notices his incapability of offering love in return to a woman's love, during his relationship with Sibyl Vane; it is also impossible for him to feel any remorse as a normal consequence of this misbehavior ¡§She explained it all to me. It was terribly pathetic. But I was not moved a bit. I thought her shallow.¡¨ This obvious lack of compassion is a clear proof of the inhuman. And the paragraph continues as follows ¡§Suddenly something happened that made me afraid. I can't tell you what it was, but it was terrible.¡¨ My interpretation of this fearful ¡§something¡¨ does not concern, as one may infer, Dorian Gray's ¡§acknowledging of his self-consciousness¡¨ (I have already proved it to be impossible), but his first acknowledging of his own death, an eternal and inescapable life. Neither his infatuation with Sibyl, nor his cruel rejection of her signal feeling, the natural human reaction.
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This experience pushes him further into verifying his newly discovered feature, his lack of humanity, of life. Sins, the very substance of human life, do not influence him but the portrait ¡§Eternal youth, infinite passion, pleasure subtle and secret, wild joys and wilder sins ¡V he was to have all these things. The portrait was to bear the burden of his shame that was all.¡¨ When analyzing this quotation, I noticed that the two verbs, ¡§to have¡¨ and ¡§to bear¡¨ are very relevant to my demonstration from a semantic point of view. The first actually implies lack of participation in the action, a certain passiveness ¡V to have, to own something, to receive something ¡V while the latter clearly indicates emotional implication. Dorian Gray travels through life passively from the emotional point of view; the real active participant is the portrait.
Going further into the plot, Dorian's committing of sins like indulging into luxury (buying most valuable things), running after fame, consuming drugs, getting involved with easy women, and finally murder are desperate trials to feel remorse, to feel alive. He cannot (only the portrait does) ¡¨I must admit that this thing that has happened does not affect me as it should. It seems to me simply like a wonderful ending to a wonderful play. It has all the terrible beauty of a Greek tragedy in which I took a great part, but by which I have not been wounded.¡¨ Indeed, as the quotation clearly points out, Dorian is in fact the passive spectator of his own life whereas the portrait is the real actor, another proof of the reciprocal change of state which has taken place between art (the portrait), normally a simple unaltered witness to life, and human being (Dorian Gray), always an actor in the play called life.
The paradoxical consequence of this ¡§interchange¡¨ process, if I may call it that way, is that the main character has the opportunity to enjoy life to the full but he is not alive anymore. Thus this state of ¡§eternal youth¡¨ is in fact a synonym to the state of death. Eternity means in fact death.
Under normal circumstances, art enjoys ¡§eternal youth¡¨, eternal life, art stands for death, the eternal prison of a moment in time. It imprisons time, which stops within its frames. When the moment is preserved, it cannot continue its flow anymore but dies inside that piece of art. Because art means death, eternity, ¡§eternal youth¡¨, the reality, as opposed to art, represents life, the transient but never stopping human life. Reality means in fact life.
According to my previous demonstration regarding the interchange process between art and human being, we cannot interpret Dorian's final act, his suicide as a consequence of the character's powerful remorse feelings after having killed Basil Howard, the creator of his portrait; Dorian has proved to be incapable of such or any feelings for that matter. His suicide is a desperate attempt to unite life and death, reality and art. The ¡§mad prayer¡¨ represents thus a distorted expression of this ideal. This is in the end Dorian Gray's true tragedy, his impossible ideal BREAKING THE WALL BETWEEN ART AND REALITY, between death and life. This third alternative (after life and death) does not exist.
The wildean ideal of perfection, this unification between life and death or their representatives, reality and art, cannot be achieved as it has been proved through Dorian's death.
The main issue of the novel ¡§The Picture of Dorian Gray¡¨, this permanent and indestructible relationship of opposition between art and reality has been thus demonstrated by telling the story of a picture called Dorian Gray.
¡§Ach, Gott! Die Kunst ist lang
Und kurz ist unser Leben¡¨
Goethe, ¡§Faust¡¨
(act I, scene I)
„_ Wilde, Oscar ¡§Portretul lui Dorian Gray¡¨, Editura pentru Literatura, Bucuresti
16
„_ Grigorescu, Dan ¡§Prefata¡¨ la ¡§Portretul lui Dorian Gray¡¨, Editura pentru
Literatura, Bucuresti 16
„_ Source of quotations the Internet.
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