Wilde, Dorian Gray, and Motive

Oscar Wilde was many things to many people. He was a dandy, a "somdomite," a realist, an aesthete, and one of the greatest literary minds of his generation (Class notes). He is a favorite target of scholars seeking to promote one philosophic perspective or another, and not without cause. There exist countless readings and interpretations of the motives behind Wilde's novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, thoughWilde ultimately remarked during his trial that "[his] work never aims at producing any effect but that of literature" (Holland 74). By existing, these two realities throw each other into doubt. Are the scholars wrong in interpreting The Picture of Dorian Gray as anything other than a piece of literature, or was Wilde being fatuous in the evaluation of his own work?

Ultimately, it is hard to believe that a novel so charged with moral sentiment could be so devoid of moral purpose, however ambiguous that purpose may be. At the time of its publication, Clausson writes that "the popular secular press denounced Wildes novel for 'spiritual putrefaction" and yet "Christian publications... interpreted it as an ethical parable or moral fable" (2). Neither of these seemingly opposing statements can fully explain Wilde's moral philosophy as exhibited in The Picture. It seems to be, instead, a blend of the two, a dialogue between self-realization and the harm principal of John Stuart Mill. This dialogue produces a synthesis that is essentially Wilde's theory of the limits on action in the pursuit of self-realization, that the limit to self-realization is the instant of other-harm.

With the introduction of Lord Henry Wotton in the second chapter of The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wilde begins building a theme of self-realization. Wotton powerfully philosophizes that "the aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly- that is what each of us is here for" (The Picture 19). Wotton's epigrammatic speech is thought-provoking and deserves some amount of unpacking: what, exactly, is self-realization?