earticle

영어

Kang, Jun-soo. “The Human’s duplicity in The Picture of Dorian Gray.” Studies in English Language & Literature. 38.4 (2012): 1-19. In The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wilde reveals the puritan hypocrisy and materialism of Victorian society. He suggests the relation between art and morality, and between art and real world. He is against Victorian vulgar materialism, moralism and philistinism. His The Picture of Dorian Gary is the most representative homosexual novel among his works. In view of Wilde's aesthetics, art predominates and includes reality. Wilde's understanding with an assertion that "Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life," presents his attitude about art and life. Although Wilde concludes the novel with Dorian's death, he achieves his aim, which is to reveal Victorian hypocrisy and its corrupted mores. Wilde is interested in describing the follies of the Victorian morality and satirizing the hypocrisy of the Victorian upper classes at the end of the nineteenth century. Wilde is interested in Basil's duplicity, which is connected with Wildean dualism in relation to aesthetics. Basil who is a puritan character in this novel, represents the hypocrisy, which is dominated by the materially oriented people. The modern notion of homosexuality is revealed by Basil. Basil's effusive longings for Dorian not only means artistic desire but also means homosexual desire. From this point of view, Basil who believes in Christianity but cannot suppress his homosexual desire, represents Victorian hypocrisy. At the beginning of the novel, Dorian is described as an image of good but gradually becomes an image of evil. Dorian has come to realize that good and evil coexist in himself. Wilde's view of human nature in his aesthetics is that man has good and evil simultaneously. (Anyang University)