Gender and Sexuality in 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'

 by Phoebe Clark

I read the 1890 edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray that was published in Lippincott’s magazine, which was diluted and altered by author Oscar Wilde’s publisher after he remarked that they were unduly and overtly homosexual. There are lines, that are noted to have changed in the second edition, that so clearly depict homo-eroticism (homo-sexuality would not have been a recognised term at Wilde’s time) that I am not surprised the book caused such a societal uproar at the time. Although it is not directly addressed, due to the time and setting in which Wilde wrote and published it, it is implied in the presentation of characters.

The most evident example would be in the first chapter when Basil is painting Dorian and repeatedly mentions his adoration for the young man’s looks. Homo-eroticism is also displayed in Lord Henry’s philosophical ideas when he talks about temptation and that one should ‘yield it’ allowing clear sexual connotations. Importantly, he says that “your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful” this mention of ‘forbidden’ could be seen as male on male love, thought as a monstrous perversion at the time. This book gives us an invaluable insight into Wilde’s own life especially as he famously said ‘Basil is what I think I am, Lord Henry is what the world thinks I am, and Dorian is what I would like to be’ showing Wilde’s own characteristics through the book’s lens. 

Oscar Wilde was nicknamed the ‘High Priest of the Decadents’, an artistic genre that includes the aesthetic and the fin de siècle movements, which were both rebellions against conventions of morality in literature. The Picture of Dorian Gray could be seen as a moral book, due to the painting being a record of Dorian’s treacherous sins. However, the sins in question are not disclosed, except for one or two, which restricts the reader from making a judgement or learning from his mistakes, a classic tenure of moral books. Therefore The Picture of Dorian Gray cannot be called a moral book in my opinion. Dorian is not condemned by anyone but himself for his sins, which suggests that men always see their own sins.

However, the picture puts Dorian in a unique position of being able to become a spectator of his own life, through the visual repercussions that the portrait undergoes. Which Wilde clearly included due to his influence of Walter Pater’s essay, ‘The Renaissance’, which is an aesthetic book that presents his theory that ‘to become an observer of one’s own life is to escape the suffering of life’. Therefore, I think it could be argued that the visual immorality of Dorian, mirrored in his soul, is used to theorise his demise, guiding the reader using characteristics of a fable, a moral book. This use of doubling and the supernatural were popular characteristics of Gothic novels, especially at this time, which Wilde might have used to popularise the book. However, within the story, all characters that are shown to be moral, such as Basil Hallward and Sibyl Vane, are shown to be fragile and feeble, whereas Dorian, who is presented as the epitome of iniquity, is stronger and more forceful. Therefore, the message from Wilde is that being good and well behaved is not the same as being strong, or long-lived for that matter.

The book is also misogynistic as a by-product of the focus on male relationships. Wilde presents women, mostly through Sibyl Vane as there is a lack of women altogether, as shallow, intellectual, uncultured and empty-headed. The character of Sibyl doesn’t even have her own personality, she simply absorbs the characters of Shakespeare that she is playing every night in the theatre. She is shown to be unappreciative of those as well. I think this reflects the type of society that Wilde was writing for, excluding females and led by males, and strengthens his focus on males and the homo-erotic undertones.