Bloom's Literary Themes - ymerleksi - home

152
Oscar Wilde
death: “So I have murdered Sibyl Vane” (Wilde 233). Henry justifies
Sibyl’s death as the inevitable result of her lapse in art, which makes
it possible for Dorian to dismiss his guilt and continue his singleminded
life of pleasurable pursuits and no consequences. On the very
same night that he has admitted to having killed one who loved him
deeply, Dorian is able to visit the opera and appreciate the acting skills
of other, better actresses than Sybil.
Sybil’s death marks the beginning of Dorian’s descent. Like the
legendary Faust, Dorian barters moral responsibility for what he most
desires: pleasure through art, perfumes, exotic music, and forbidden
homosexual love. Wilde also suggests that Dorian’s self-destruction
follows his reading of Joris-Karl Huysmans’ A Rebours. Here Wilde
emphasizes the significant influence of art by indicating how his hero
embarks on a forbidden journey only after having read a book with
a similar character. Rejecting a world of ethical responsibility, Dorian
embraces the world of amoral literature. In a telling commentary on
this influence of amoral literature on Dorian, Wilde states, “There
were moments when he looked on evil simply as a mode through
which he could realize his conception of the beautiful” (270). This
idea is a consistent framework in Oscar Wilde’s dialogue, The Decay of
Lying where he points out famously, “Life imitates Art far more than
Art imitates Life” (Wilde 337).
Standing in opposition to Henry, Basil confronts Dorian in his
unrelenting journey of amoral passions and unrepentant sins. Basil,
who has stood for the moral dimension of all artistic endeavors, chooses
to counter Henry by becoming a figure of conscience for Dorian. Basil
is also the first and only character in the novel to openly claim his love
for Dorian in an admission of homosexual passion. In certain ways,
Wilde is creating a wish fulfillment in this section of the novel. Unlike
Wilde’s own life, where he constantly chose to hide his homosexuality
and went on to marry and have a family of his own, Basil’s declaration
of his love for Dorian stands as the one single act of honesty
and morality in the novel. 5 It is appropriate that this confession by
Basil frames the other more insidious confession that Dorian makes
as he reveals the degeneration of the portrait to its creator. The first
confession by Basil flagrantly breaks Victorian taboos against homosexual
relationships in general; but, ironically, the forthright honesty
of this confession gives Basil the authority to explain to Dorian where
he has gone astray. Basil promises to withhold all judgment against