A Hegelian Dialectic Reading of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray

Year 2022, Volume: 12 Issue: 23, 169 - 187, 27.01.2022

Cenk Tan

https://doi.org/10.33207/trkede.993260

Abstract

Oscar Wilde’s only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray has been the subject of analysis from a wide variety of theoretical and thematic perspectives. This study endeavours to conduct a philosophical interpretation of the renowned Wildean work of fiction. In specific, the article aims to carry out a dialectic reading of The Picture of Dorian Gray by concentrating on the protagonist and the path he takes throughout the narrative. To this end, the novel is discussed through the framework of GWF. Hegel’s dialectic triad of the thesis, antithesis and synthesis. The theoretical section of the study focuses on the Hegelian dialectic system and scrutinises the three stages with references to various texts and sources. The second part of the study contemplates to establish a dialectic reading of Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, identifying these three stages within the story and exposing the vital dialectic choices the protagonist makes along his quest to preserve youth and beauty forever. The article concludes that Dorian Gray exposes the dialectic nature of human beings and highlights the significance of making the right choices through a rational and moral state of mind. In particular, it has been concluded that Dorian experiences the thesis and the antithesis but ultimately gets caught up in the antithesis and does not manage to achieve the synthesis stage, causing his early self-destruction.

Keywords

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Hegelian Dialectic, Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis

Thanks

I am grateful to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Cumhur Yılmaz MADRAN from the department of English Language and Literature at Pamukkale University, Denizli for his immense contribution to my understanding of continental philosophy during my doctoral studies.

A Hegelian Dialectic Reading of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray

Abstract

Oscar Wilde’ın tek romanı, Dorian Gray’in Portresi geniş çapta pek çok kuramsal ve tematik bakış açısıyla günümüze dek analiz konusu olmuştur. Bu araştırma, Wilde’ın ünlü eserine felsefi bir yorum getirmeyi amaçlamaktadır. Özel anlamda, makale, ana karaktere ve onun hikâye boyunca kendine çizdiği yola odaklanarak Dorian Gray’in Portresi’nin diyalektik okumasını gerçekleştirmeyi hedeflemektedir. Bu bağlamda roman, GWF. Hegel’in diyalektik triad olarak bilinen: tez, antitez ve sentez çerçevesinden yola çıkarak tartışılmaktadır. Araştırmanın kuramsal çerçevesi Hegel’in diyalektik sistemine odaklanmakta ve belirtilen üç aşamayı çeşitli metin ve kaynaklara yapılan referanslarla incelemektedir. Araştırmanın ikinci bölümü ise Wilde’ın Dorian Gray’in Portresi’nin kurgusunda söz konusu üç aşamayı tanımlayarak, ana karakterin gençliğini ve güzelliğini sonsuza dek koruyabilmek amacıyla hikâye boyunca yapmış olduğu ve hayati önem arz eden diyalektik seçimleri açığa çıkarmaktadır. Böylece makale, Dorian Gray karakterinin insanlığın diyalektik doğasını açığa çıkardığı ve bununla birlikte rasyonel ve ahlaki bir zihin yapısı ile doğru tercihlerin yapılmasının ne denli önemli olduğu sonucuna varmaktadır. Daha özel anlamda, Dorian Gray karakterinin tez ve antitez evresini deneyimlediği ancak nihayetinde antitez aşamasında sıkışıp kaldığı ve sentez aşamasına ulaşamayarak, kendi erken yıkımına sebebiyet verdiği sonucuna ulaşılmaktadır.

Keywords

Dorian Gray’in Portresi, Hegel Diyalektiği, Tez, Antitez, Sentez

References

• BAUR, Michael (2015), G. W. F. Hegel: Key Concepts, New York: Routledge.
• BEISER, Frederick C. (2008), The Cambridge Companion to Hegel and Nineteenth-Century Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• BENNETT, Michael Y. (2017), Philosophy and Oscar Wilde, Springer.
• BLOOM, Harold (2010), Oscar Wilde, New York: Chelsea House.
• BOLEA, Ştefan (2016), “The Three Shadows from the Picture of Dorian Gray”, Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai - Philosophia, 61.2, 71-81. Retrieved from https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=443533.
• BURKE, Edmund (1968), A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, J. T. Boulton (Ed.), Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
• CARROLL, Joseph (2005), “Aestheticism, homoeroticism, and Christian guilt in The Picture of Dorian Gray”, Philosophy and Literature, 29.2, 286-304. doi:10.1353/phl.2005.0018.
• DAY, Melody (2019), Psychographic Persona Development in the Picture of Dorian Gray (Undergraduate Honors Theses. 64, University of San Diego), Retrieved from https://digital.sandiego.edu/honors_theses/64
• DUGGAN, Patrick (2008), “The Conflict between Aestheticism and Morality in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray”, Boston University Art & Sciences Writing Program Journal, 1, 60-68. Retrieved from http://www.bu.edu/writingprogram/journal/past-issues/issue-1/duggan/.
• GORDON, Jan B. (2013), “Wilde’s Investment in Negation: The Picture(s) of Dorian Gray”, English Literature Review, 57, 31-60. Retrieved from http://repo.kyotowu.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/11173/1489/1/0020_057_002.pdf.
• HEGEL, Georg Wilhelm (1894), Hegel's Philosophy of Mind, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• HEGEL, Georg Wilhelm (1977), The Phenomenology of Spirit (A. V. Miller, Trans.), Oxford, UK: Clarendon.
• HEGEL, Georg Wilhelm (2010), Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: The Science of Logic, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• LAWTOO, Nidesh (2020), “The Excess of Mimesis: Reframing the Picture of Dorian Gray”, Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas, 18(2), 213-238. doi:10.1353/pan.2020.0021.
• LI, Hao (2017), “Vision and Self-Consciousness in the Picture of Dorian Gray”, Canadian Review of Comparative Literature / Revue Canadienne de Littérature Comparée, 44(3), 565-578. doi:10.1353/crc.2017.0046.
• MACAULAY, Marcia Irene (1972), Oscar Wilde, Philosopher and Aesthete: An Examination of the Evolving Aesthetic of Oscar Wilde (Master’s thesis, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada), Retrieved from https://macsphere.mcmaster.ca/bitstream/11375/9846/1/fulltext.pdf.
• MC TAGGART, John Ellis (2000), Studies in the Hegelian Dialectic, Batoche Books, Kitchener.
• MUELLER, Gustav E. (1958), “The Hegel Legend of Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis”, Journal of the History of Ideas, 19(3), 411. doi:10.2307/2708045.
• RABY, Peter (1997), The Cambridge Companion to Oscar Wilde, New York: Cambridge University Press.
• SAFA, Sara, and SOKHANVAR, Jalal (2018), “The impact of psycho-ideological hero: A Žižekian study of Oscar Wilde’s the picture of Dorian Gray”, International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature, 7.6, 18. doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.7n.6p.18
• SAMSON, Amber-Jean Vlasti (2019), The Dialectical Circumplex Model: A Theory of Dialectic and Its Implications for Education (Unpublished doctoral dissertation), University of Kansas, Kansas.
• SHUTTLEWORTH, Kyle Michael (2017), “Existential Themes Within the Picture of Dorian Gray: A Heideggerian Perspective”, Eds. S. GOTTLÖBER & J. H. MAYNOOTH, Yearbook of the Irish Philosophical Society, 181-199, Mullen Print, Dublin.
• STONE, Alison (2014), “Adorno, Hegel, and Dialectic”, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 22(6), 1118-1141, doi:10.1080/09608788.2014.952264
• WHEAT, Leonard F. (2012), Hegel's Undiscovered Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis Dialectics: What Only Marx and Tillich Understood, New York: Prometheus Books.
• WILDE, Oscar (2000), The Picture of Dorian Gray, London: Penguin Classics.