Abstract
The paper traverses the issues of female existence and gender transgression in Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. The leading personas of the narrative are celebrated beauty, anesthetic principles, and beauty in men. The male characters display femininity not just because of their desire and feminine beauty but also their acts and taste. However, the significance of feminity in men yields the absence of women in the novel. Women are eradicated and silenced in the narrative due to the naturalism that dissolute authors chartered women. Therefore, the paper aims to traverse the narrative’s male character femininity, which is considered immoral, and show how it has influenced the existence of women in the story.
Introduction
The publication of The Picture of Dorian Gray was in the year 1890 in the Lippincott Magazine. The novel was considered indecent hence the editor had to delete some parts. In 1891 Oscar increased the narrative volume, published it as a novel. However, as much as the author had edited the book, it was still considered immoral and highly criticized. The story is one of the recommended novels reflecting on period concerns. The need for entirely male scope, the absence of female existence (in the first publication), the inherent feelings of deterioration, the artistic morality, and dark London discussed to make the novel worth to be analyzed concerning the shifting of gender interaction at the climax of the 19th Era in Britain.
Therefore the paper will analyze how gender is initialized that the narrative discusses and its foundation of making a female or a male valuable (Morhaim). Critics and scholars have thoroughly researched the topics of femininity and dandyism in Dorian gray; however, I found the absence of a female character has been neglected. My paper centers its attention on sexuality that male characters present and transgress feminity and analyzes the few female personas in the story to demonstrate that the absence or silencing of females applies to the dissipated literary production. The research question that I am ideally focusing on is how hypocrisy, morality, and double standards have affected society, why women are absent in the novel, and the role Dorian mother and Sybil have in the play
Ideals of Youth and Beauty
The Picture of Dorian Gray is a narrative about perception and looks. The protagonist Dorian gray becomes inflexible as art after his beech his stunning looks persistently at his image. His beauty and youth make him look innocent and pure, resulting in him evolving as a despicable and selfish being. The self-development journey is characterized by his visit to whore houses and opium dens and rejection of affection (Hwang 347). It perfectly mirrors decadent literary and aesthetic production, as it is male-dominated, and the characters aspire to be so. The novel also outlines the shift in the discernment of virility in the existence of idolized dandies and feminized. Dorian’s appearance is similar to that of a woman; however, they are represented through the coverage of Hellenistic and aestheticism ideas that concentrate on the man’s body’s exaltation. The artistic and Hellenistic impact on the novel is essential for understanding the novel’s perception of masculinity and feminity.
Feminity in the Narration
In The Picture of Dorian Gray, discerning is deterioration and can gratify the soul through the sensation. The storyline supports the elucidation of shapes, colors, jewels, and curtains. These delineations exist from commencing the narrative, as they mirror in the first segment of the novel. For instance, when the studio is described, it is filled with the smell of roses. In the book, anything that exists and Dorian gray does not take time to describe it is highly celebrated as he the kind of character who takes time to explore something. That is in the case of decorative elements, jewels, music, and books. These items have traditionally been associated with women as they concern having a good appearance.
Women in the 19th Era were expected to involve themselves with roles such as drawing, reading, and sewing in substantial of being pretty. The women’s activities were concerned with innovating non-utilitarianism compared to men who modeled utilitarian objects (Kennedy 10). The activities will occur in exclusive environments which are dominated. Moreover, decorating and taking care of the house was also considered a role associated with women. The novel’s multiple social activities occur in private homes, theaters, or places related to deterioration, such as opium dens or cribs.
When the exclusive residential areas are addressed, they focus on decoration; for example, in the Illustration of Lord Henry’s home, it is cream colored and has long silk, fringed Persian rugs. Attending social gatherings and theatre were also related to women in the 19th decade, which the male personas in the novel seem to enjoy. In chapter eight, there is a shooting party which is an activity that is linked to masculinity and manliness, but Dorian fails to participate. The novel illuminates senses, symbolism, and beauty. Although the tendencies are related to feminity, the qualities and activities are celebrated by men in the book.
Feminity in the Personas in the novel
The novel exhibits a male universe where the artistic, Hellenistic, and male homosocial inclination for enchantress can be elucidated as concealment for homoeroticism. In addition, the male persona reflects feminine attributes, thus eliminating the women’s presence in the novel. The book contains few female characters; however, the 1891 edition incorporated some in the story.
Female Characters
In the male monopolize world of the picture of Dorian, gray women are entirely silenced. This elimination of female characters is even more discernible in the 18th Era publication of the story. Apart from Sybil Vane, women are placed in chapters three, five, and seven incorporated into the 1891 version of the book. The novel plot of the storyline does not develop; hence the characters fail to evolve (Khairulina 30). In the novel, a female character pointed out that outstands the others is the Duchess of Monmouth, as she is described as good-looking along with Dorian’s mother and Sybil Vane. She is portrayed as one who loves jokes and supposes women can govern the world; however she remains a minor character in the novel despite all.
Sybil Vane is the most significant female character of the narrative and plays an important and unique position in the novel. Acting in the book is desirable as it is a form of aesthetic pressure and act. The stage is the scope of presence and possibility and imparts a frame for expressivity and representation. A person in a theater can presume that it was just an act and realize the action making it distinct from real life. In contrast, there is no space to participate in the imaginary show; thus, the lord defends because he does not like scenes except when they take place on stage. Lord Henry supports that women at no time know when curtains have fallen; however, Dorian had made a mistake. However, after speculating on Sybil performing on stage, he emphasizes that she is the most fantastic heroine in the acting industry worldwide.
Dorian is not fascinated by Sybil’s acting but by the prospect of how women can multiply in the art industry. For him, Sybil speaks for the transformation of women rising above the inaction of corporeality they present. Sybil only subsites onstage for Dorian while she is Offstage; he views her as art so that materiality does not disappoint his fantasy, which is influenced by the male gaze she presents. Sybil’s acting makes her take different characters, taking up other Parts in the play. She plays Shakespeare characters such as Imogen, Ophelia, and Desdemona (Puskin 20). These characters may be analyzed concerning the male-created world and the context. Juliet, Ophelia, and Desdemona die out of tenderness, with the distinction that Ophelia and Desdemona are the killers indirectly by their beloved while Juliet takes her life.
The perverted authors wrote optimistically of women who lived, unfortunately, aestheticizing them. It is disclosed with Lord Henry’s remarks expounding on Dorian’s mother’s escape from a low-class man and dying a year later. Sybils partakes in two roles in Rosalind Imogen’s character, which displays a different quality of cross-dressing. Dorian is fascinated by Sybil’s performance on the third night when she partakes in Rosalind’s role as she can take up different positions and outdo other individuals.
However, he is still not yet interested in knowing Sybil as a person as he is interested in her diversity. Sybil has been on stage. The only prospect for her to grow is by presenting as someone she is not and conveying perspective and modification in a man-constructed world. Offstage, she has to face the reality of being identified by historical frame and assimilated features such as materiality and comfort accustomed to her. She layers get engaged to Dorian, and from the expectation of her taking up a woman’s role, this breaks her spell in the acting industry. Sybil resolves this by taking drugs and ending her life after seeing she has no future in acting.
Acting has been used to conceal one’s ideologies as the person represented on stage is very different from the actual individual. When the book ends, the narrator’s state that His appearance had integrated Dorian’s failure. In addition, it also says that Sybil’s death was a terrible one as she was an outstanding character in the acting industry. Later on, Lord Henry is girded to admit that they are no longer actors in the industry, but they are spectators. Dorian can be described as a tragic and dramatic character; when basil takes a look at the portrait he had designed years after, he describes it as irony and paradox. The passages represent the illusion and deception highlighted in the acting.our personalities can involve insincerity built on ourselves. The narrative favors the show’s life that Dorian had lived for years, making him live a life that was not his as his true personality was masked from the actual reality of life.
Conclusion
Summing it up, the article analyzes how the shifting of gender influenced the make authors when they were writing literature. This perspective has generated the absence of women in the novel. Moreover, the homosexuality represented in the story has also influenced the silencing of women in the book. The overall construction of the novel of a man admired for his feminine qualities controls the position of women. It silences her to prioritize men as more knowledgeable and sophisticated beings (Yang 50). The sexuality or effeminacy of a character such as Dorian gray is still applicable today, and the reaction to the misdeed he presents is multiple. Part of these responses makes the novel more traditional regarding sexuality and gender. In some movie adaption of the novel, amend has led to new female personas such as Gladys edition in 1945. Conversely, Dorian gray has been displayed as a woman in several retelling or adaptions.
The changes are essential as they interpret his gender as feminine to bring back his gender performance to a naturalized female gender, or he is displayed as a man. Dorian is presented as heterosexual as he romances with Sybil and other characters. Through these changes, the authors or the producers point out that the story is relevant in studying sexuality and gender. If the book was authored today, it is unlikely that Dorian would go through the climax he establishes in the novel. However, he would require beauty as a mask since it would have been helpful in today’s social interaction in media pretense and appearance. Oscar’s novel provides scope for thinking about sexuality and gender in the context and the 21st-century occurrences.
Works Cited
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