Aestheticism and its cultural significance

Joyce Carol Oates sees "The Picture of Dorian Gray" as a revelation as to another side of Wilde; one that questioned the aestheticism professed by Lord Henry and other characters in the novel.

She claims that the book evokes Faust and the devil, as the portrait of Dorian Gray was surely evil and the aesthetic beauty of Dorian corrupted by demonic influence. In this light, A Picture of Dorian Gray is a cautionary tale and its protagonist a tragic hero that is eventually overcome by his own carnal lusts. Oates focuses on the homoerotic undertones of the book and that by invoking Dorian's beauty, Basil sewed the seeds of his own fate.

What she fails to recognize in the book, however, is the role of pederasty and how Basil is in effect a tragic hero, as is Humbert in Nabakov's Lolita. A careful read of Wilde's work will show us that Basil succumbs to Dorian's beauty and that his creation of the portrait is a metaphorical description of a homosexual act between the two men. Whereas Lord Henry is a less sublime corruptive influence in that he openly extols the virtues of promiscuity, Basil reveals Dorian's beauty to him by painting a portrait. Basil's love for the boy gives Dorian power, and the portrait is a device relaying the nature of that power. As Basil's portrait is an act of mastery whereby he is able to 'capture' Dorian, it is Basil that is entrapped by Dorian's Adonis-like beauty. We see this reflected in Wilde's personal life if the movie 'Wilde' can be believed: the enraptured pederast will always see the playful youth as a projection of his own desires, no matter how crooked or terrible the truth may be. In this respect, Dorian is far from the victim; the portrait serves as his transformation, however subtle, from his role as unknowing, unsuspecting child to that of a skilled manipulator of adult lusts.

Oates' interpretation of the novel quo Faust is entirely wrong. Faust gave his soul to the devil of his own free will and suffered the consequences when his worldly wealth was revealed to be little. However, Faust's decision to 'sell out' was of his own free will, however uninformed he later attested to have been. On the other hand, Dorian, as a child, cannot be expected to have free will in the sense that an adult would. His knowledge of his own beauty was only revealed to him through Basil. In Lord Henry we see a lecher; in Henry, Wilde portrays the traditional conceptualization of the slimy homosexual pederast and Dorian cannot take his revelation of his own beauty seriously because in him all things are skewed from what is normal. However, as Oates says, Basil is an innocent with nothing of the devil about him; his role is simply to reveal Dorian's beauty to Dorian. Basil is a pederast in the sympathetic manner in which Wilde sees himself; rather than expressly create beauty, they invoke the 'mirror to nature' by succumbing to Dorian's beauty, thereby prematurely handing Dorian the reins to his own sexual power.