PROMPT: [The significance of the aging portrait of Dorian. How does it relate to the theme of aesthetics? Also, how does the portrait show Wilde's view on the relationship of art/artist and morality?]
Eternal youth and innocence. These two
fascinating words-in many ways portraying very similar symbols and nuance-have
captivated people regardless of time and place. Many who were enthralled by the
concept, including Emperor Shi Huangdi from Qin dynasty of the ancient China
and Juan Ponce de Leon, set out ridiculously lengthy journeys to defy the
natural flow of time. Similar line of captivation can be found not only in the
lives of historical figures, but also in literature: Oscar Wilde’s masterpiece
which was heavily influenced by the Aesthetics movement. In the novel, a
beautiful young man named Dorian Gray succeeds in getting both, or at least
superficially; he himself does not age or decay, but a fine-looking portrait of
him gets old and deformed instead. Every time he does something morally
unacceptable, his portrait self takes the blame instead. Such radical
demolition of the boundary between real-life and artistry is of huge
significance.
Art is a mirror
of one’s life for both Dorian and Lord Henry. They even happily take the
extreme stance of considering their lives as pieces of art, which basically
illustrates the Aesthetics attitude of life. Such attitude is well reflected in
the magical switch of Dorian’s life and his image. The young one is so obsessed
with total appreciation of the arts is that he even views his own life as an
on-going work of art, and thus blurs the boundary between artist’s life and the
artwork. Fascinating and sweet it may sound, but the having such extreme
attitude is a violation of an important axiom in the preface: “It is the
spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.” Dorian violates this warning
that artists should not reveal themselves in their artwork; he not only puts
much of himself into his work, but also becomes a part of it by treating his
life as a dramatic work of art. For that misdemeanor, Dorian later gets
punished: He not able to atone for his sins and is finally left with no other
choice than to kill his own soul-by stabbing the demoralized self in the
portrait.
From the
crippled misbehaviors of Dorian, the author Oscar Wilde poses a debatable
question: Can morality be violated for artistic causes? Generally, moral
standards have to be kept no matter what because doing so is a respectable sign
of being human. However, the field of arts, considered largely individual and
distant from other values in life, may be the only exception in the
aforementioned generalization. In other words, artists sometime brazenly defy
moral standards of society. Dorian, too, considers his work of art-his Hyde
self-first priority in front of all other societal virtues and morality. He
sometimes even seems to be glad at his despicable deeds mainly because his
artistic representation takes all the blame. Nevertheless, Wilde never gives up
hope in regard to human conscience. All the time Dorian committed hideous
actions and never seemed to feel guilty, his sense of guilt had been reflected
in the painting-his hidden Jekyll inner side. At the denouement, Dorian tries
to atone for his sins by stabbing the image in the portrait and eventually pays for them through his death.
