Эстетизм в творчестве О.Уайльда

 

That they are beautiful it would be idle to deny. Still we have the sure and dexterous pen employed upon them. There is no faltering in phrase, no hesitation of artistry. It is said by many people who heard the poet recite these stories upon social occasions, tell them to please, amuse, or bewilder one of those gatherings in which he was the centre in a constellation, that, spoken, they were far more beautiful than when at length he wrote them down and published them in the review. I can well believe it. On the two occasions when I myself heard Oscar Wilde talking, I realised how unprecedented his talent for conversation was, and wished that I also could hear him at times when he attempted his highest flights. Yet, even as pieces of prose, the title the author chose for them is perfectly justified. They are indeed "poem" in prose and triumphant examples of technical accomplishment and mastery.

 

Yet, the condemnation of their teaching can hardly be too severe. With every wish in the world to realise that a paradox is only a truth standing on its head to attract attention, with every desire to give the author his due, no honest man, no Christian, no Catholic, no Protestant, but must turn from these few paragraphs of allegory with sorrow and a sense of something very like shame.

 

And it is for this reason.

 

The poet has dared an attempt of invasion into places where neither he nor any artist has right. With an insane pride he dares to patronise, to limit and to explain the Almighty.

 

Nowhere in this Appreciation have I made a whole-hearted condemnation of anything Wilde has written. Even at times when I most disagreed with his attitude I have attempted, I hope with humility and sincerity, to present the other side of the shield. Here I do not see there is anything to be said in favour of at least two or three of the prose poems those two or three which give colour to the whole.

 

There is one of them called "The Doer of Good." It begins in this wise :

 

"It was night time and He was alone,

And He saw afar off the walls of a round city and went

towards the city."

Our Lord is meant.

 

The allegory goes on to say that when Christ came near to the city He heard music and the the sounds of happiness and joy. He knocked at the gate and "certain of the gatekeepers opened to Him."

 

Our Lord passes through the beautiful halls of a palace and sees upon a "couch of sea purple" a man bearing all the signs of an ancient Greek stupefied by pleasure and by wine. The Protagonist asks the man He sees "Why do you live like this?"

 

Then Wilde's prose goes on to tell how the young man turns and recognises his interlocutor and answers that he was a leper once, that Christ had healed him. How else should he live?

 

Our Lord leaves the palace and walks through the city, and he sees another young man pursuing a harlot, while his eyes are bright with lust. He speaks to the young man and asks him the reason of his way of life, and the young man turns and tells the Saviour of Mankind that he was once blind and that He had given him sight, and, therefore, at what else could he look?

 

The allegory goes on, but it is not necessary to continue an account of it. All it is necessary and right to say is, that the allegory is blasphemous and horrible--horrible with the insane pride of one who has not realised his imminent fall, who has realised the horror of his mental attitude no less than the life he was proved to have been leading at the time.

 

I have purposely refrained from quotation here. But let it again be said that the artistic presentment of these parables is without flaw.

 

I do not think it would be a kindness to the memory of Oscar Wilde, nor be doing a service to anyone at all, to continue this ethical criticism of the "Poems in Prose." Let me say only that Wilde, in another story, takes a sinner to the Judgment Seat and introduces God the Father into a dialogue in which the sinner silences the Almighty by his repartee. All these "Poems in Prose" are written beautifully, as I have said, but also with an extraordinarily adroit use of actual phrases from the New Testament. I will permit myself one quotation before I conclude, which is surely saddening in its significance in the view of after events.

 

And God said to the Man: "Thy life hath been Evil, and the Beauty I have shown thou hast sought for, and the Good I have hidden thou did'st pass by."

 

It remains to say something about Wilde's final essay, entitled "The Soul of Man," which also appeared in The Fortnightly Review. Upon its appearance it was called "The Soul of Man under Socialism," but it has since been republished under the title of "The Soul of Man."

 

This essay, brilliant in conception, brilliant in execution, has none of the old lyric beauty of phrase. It can in no sense be considered a masterpiece of prose, but only a piece of fine and cultured writing. In it paradox obscures the underlying truth. The very first words strike the old weary note. "The chief advantage that would result from the establishment of Socialism is, undoubtedly, the fact that Socialism would relieve us from that sordid necessity of living for others, which, in the present condition of things, presses so hardly upon himself and everybody."

 

As far as the prose artist is concerned, the essay has little to recommend it. He was tired, tired out, and had no longer the wish or the stimulus to produce the marvellous and glowing prose to which we have been accustomed in these other statements of the writer's attitude towards art, towards morals and towards beauty. Yet, at the same time, the man's love of individualism drove him to write this essay, and at certain points it comes strangely into impact with Catholic truth.

 

The more Catholic the conception of religion and of art becomes, the more surely the socialistic idea obtains. Certainly our Lord taught that individual character can only be developed through community. The great socialistic organ of England attempted the value and weight of Oscar Wilde's defence of Socialism in the following words:

 

"Christ taught that individual character could only be developed through community. Some say he opposed Socialism because, when two young capitalists came to him wrangling about their private property, he ignored them, saying, 'Who made me a divider among you?' I suppose these objectors still think that Socialism means dividing up. When his enemies were closing in upon him, and his life hung in the balance, a woman came and anointed his feet, and wiped them with her hair, and the good people were shocked, and complained of the waste. Might not the ointment have been sold, and the money doled out to the poor? Christ defended her generous impulse, and remarked: "The poor you have always with you. You have plenty of opportunities of helping them. Me you have not always." This is erected into a great pronouncement that we must not attempt to abolish poverty! To such amusing shifts are Christian Individualists driven!

 

"But our contention is that although Christ was not a State Socialist, his spirit, embodied in the Christian Church, inevitably urges men to Socialism; that the political development of the Catholic Faith is along the lines of Socialism; and that, as the State captured the Church in the past, so now it is the business of the Church to recapture the State, and through it to establish God's Kingdom on earth."

 

I quote them here in order to show what sympathy the essay awakened, even though that sympathy is utterly alien to the belief of the chronicler. And now let us finally bid farewell to Oscar Wilde as Æsthete, or, rather, as prophet and expounder of the aesthetic.

 

I have placed on record not only my own small opinion of his teachings, but a very solid and weighty consensus of condemnation of his attitude.

 

And I hope, from the purely literary point of view, I have made obeisance and given every credit to one of the greatest literary artists of our time.

 

 

 

 

The Role of Aestheticism in Oscar Wilde’s

“The Picture of Dorian Gray”

 

            Around the time of the later 1800’s, in the Victorian Era during which Oscar Wilde was at the peak of his career, the aestheticism movement was a popular social attitude formed in opposition to traditional Victorian values. With the influence of his poetry and plays, Oscar Wilde was a major proponent of this movement, and its philosophies are a dominant theme in his novel ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’. In the novel, the characters’ revelations about the soul, their pursuit of pleasure, and their treatment of art all reflect the ideas supported by the aesthetes’  philosophy on life. When it was first published in 1890 in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine, ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ was purported to be immoral, so Wilde revised his novel and had it published again a year later with the preface that clearly outlines the aesthetic approach he intended. In this preface he states that “There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.” Thusly does Oscar Wilde state his opinion that the only purpose of art is to be beautiful, and leads his readers into the decadent world of Dorian Gray.

 

            The belief of the aesthetes of the Victorian Era was that purity of soul could only be achieved through the “wholeness of being”  and one’s sense-perception of one’s own being (Terpening; ‘Epicurus and Victorian Aesthetics’). Epicurus, the Greek philosopher who influenced the birth of the aestheticism movement, wrote that “There exists nothing in addiction to the totality.” (Terpening; ‘Epicurus and Victorian Aesthetics’). In ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’, Dorian’s internal moral decay is concealed by his stunning good looks to every person who does not thoroughly contemplate his personality, and therefore, by aesthetic belief, not one person ever truly knows him, except for Basil Hallward, who pays for that knowledge with his life. Wilde creates Dorian’s character this way to illustrate the feeling that an “object must be studied in its entirety, or else it is not the object that is being considered, but a fragment that has no meaningful relationship with the whole.” (Terpening; ‘Epicurus and Victorian Aesthetics’). Without an understanding of Dorian’s soul, his superficial charm and good looks are meaningless pleasures; like art in the aesthetic ideal, Dorian serves no purpose but to be beautiful, as Lord Henry Wotton says on page 180 of the novel: “…[Y]ou have never done anything, never carved a statue, or painted a picture, or produced anything outside of yourself! Life has been your art… Your days have been your sonnets.” Basil Hallward’s portrait of Dorian, as it ages and withers with the effects of Dorian’s sins, evolves in Dorian’s mind as a separate entity from himself that he come to loathe. Despite his hatred of the portrait, Dorian keeps it and continues to check on it as it changes, because it has become his only perception of his own true nature, and of his own soul. Dorian’s being ceases to be whole when he prays that the portrait, rather than his own face, might age to reflect his sins. By making that prayer, he splits his soul and his body apart and consequently loses his ability to sense the decrepitude of his own moral nature. In observing the detriment of his soul portrayed on the portrait’s canvas, Dorian is overcome by self-loathing, which he perceives as hatred for the painting, and so decides to destroy the painting in a desperate attempt to separate himself from his own corrupt soul. “Dorian never approaches the Epicurean [aesthetic] goal of being free from disturbance; rather, he is continually troubled… [and eventually] becomes hideous in death.” (Terpening; ‘Epicurus and Victorian Aesthetics’). The final sentences of the novel show the ugly, real fate that Dorian finally meets as a result of his actions: “Lying on the floor was a dead man, in evening dress, with a knife in his heart. He was withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage. It was not till they had examined the rings that they recognized who it was.” (Wilde, pg 186). Dorian’s failure to come to terms with his entire self is the cause of his demise, and the aesthetic lesson that “…a handsome aspect does not constitute a beautiful creature,” regardless of the pleasures that they may give or enjoy (Terpening; ‘Epicurus and Victorian Aesthetics’).

 

            A dominating motive behind the actions of the characters in ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ is the pursuit of pleasure. The originator of the aesthetic ideal, Epicurus, declared that pleasure was man’s greatest good, and rejected pain, deeming it to be evil. However, he understood that often in order to achieve pleasure, some amount of pain would be necessary (Terpening; ‘Epicurus and Victorian Aesthetics’). The main character in the novel, Dorian, is a man who “has a passion for ‘the colour, the beauty, the joy of life,’ but avoids becoming involved with any experience for fear of it causing him possible pain.”  (Dawson, Dorian Gray as Symbolic Representation of Wilde’s Personality). Rather than enjoying life with what the Victorians advocated as ‘refinement’  or ‘taste,’ Dorian indulges in hedonistic pleasures and devotes himself to the study of perfumes, embroideries, and other benign aspects of fine art (Terpening; ‘Epicurus and Victorian Aesthetics’). “[T]his passion for objets d’art, so lengthily described in chapter XI, is simply a way ‘by which he could escape, for a season, from the fear that seemed to him at times to be almost too great to be borne.’” (Dawson, Dorian Gray as Symbolic Representation of Wilde’s Personality). In a paradoxical manner, Dorian is afraid of life, even though he has been blessed with the means and the ability with which to enjoy life and all its pleasures to the fullest (Dawson, Dorian Gray as Symbolic Representation of Wilde’s Personality). In his book, ‘A Book of Words,’ Rudyard Kipling wrote: “[T]he Black Thought…  is the one emotion that all men of imagination have in common. It is a horror of great darkness that drops upon a man unbidden, and drives him to think lucidly, connectedly.” (Kipling, A Book of Words). It is this fear, this ‘Black Thought,’ as Kipling calls it, which drives Dorian to seek refuge in pseudo-aestheticism, the utopia of ‘art for art’s sake,’ and surround himself with beautiful things that foster pleasure and nothing else (Dawson, Dorian Gray as Symbolic Representation of Wilde’s Personality).  “[T]here was to be, as Lord Henry had prophesied, a new Hedonism that was to recreate life, and… to teach man to concentrate himself upon the moments of a life that is itself but a moment.” (Wilde, pg 109). So Dorian seeks pleasure in jewels and “ecclesiastical vestments,”  and, when consumed by his passion for music, performs his “curious concerts.” However, he remains detached from these experiences, seeing things solely from an aesthetic point of view (pleasure as the supreme ‘good’), and never really becomes involved in his own life; rather, he watches events unfold in the way a spectator would (Dawson, Dorian Gray as Symbolic Representation of Wilde’s Personality): “[Dorian] was leaning against the mantelshelf, watching with that strange expression that one sees on the faces of those who are absorbed in a play when some great artist is acting.” (Wilde, pg 130). Dorian’s pursuit of pleasurable things leads to his emotional detachment from humanity, but surrounding himself with those objects of exquisite beauty is not his greatest sin, because those objects promote pleasure, which is the greatest good, according to the aestheticism belief. Dorian’s greatest sin is that he grows to depend upon those things to maintain an interested in life (Terpening; ‘Epicurus and Victorian Aesthetics’). According to the aesthetes, it is not materialism in itself, but rather “materialism that substitutes for spiritualism that is undesirable.” (Terpening; ‘Epicurus and Victorian Aesthetics’). 

 

            At the heart of the aestheticism movement was the belief that art should not have any purpose other than to be beautiful. Oscar Wilde stood by this view very strongly. In his play ‘The Decay of Lying,’  a character named Vivian states that “Literature should frankly accept that it is fiction, a form of lying, and that the telling of beautiful untrue things is the proper aim of art.” (Faulkner, ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray: Introduction’). In the preface to ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray,’ Wilde elaborates even further on this stance by saying “No artist desires to prove anything,” and “No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. Not artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything.” (Wilde, pg 1). With this preface, Wilde wastes no time in making his view very clear to readers, and his view continues to be seen throughout the novel in the words and actions of the characters. When Dorian first discovers, quite by chance, the beautiful actress Sibyl Vane, he returns to the theatre nightly just to watch her stunning performances, and she never disappoints him. For as long as Dorian simply enjoys Sibyl’s art he loves her because she is beautiful to observe, but once he is given the opportunity to speak with Sibyl and get to know her, Dorian associates his love with her acting, thereby giving the art of performance a purpose besides entertainment. When Sibyl decides to exchange her acting for Dorian’s love, Dorian rejects her, saying, “Without your art you are nothing.” (Wilde, pg 74). Dorian gives Sibyl’s acting, her art, the purpose of maintaining his love for her, and when she disregarding her art as a thing without purpose, abandons it, Dorian callously abandons her (Gates, ‘Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray’). Sibyl becomes a victim of art, and commits suicide by swallowing prussic acid: her death is an example of the terrible consequences that the aesthetes believed could occur as a result of saddling art with responsibility (Gates, ‘Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray’). Later in the novel, years after Sibyl Vane’s death, Dorian accuses Lord Henry of “poisoning” him with the unnamed yellow book that Henry lent to Dorian when they were young. Dorian claims that it was the book that led him astray and caused him to behave deplorably: “You poisoned me with a book once. I should not forgive that. Harry, promise me that you will never lend that book to anyone. It does harm.”  (Wilde, pg 181). This claim is in direct opposition to the beliefs of the aesthetes of the era, and Lord Henry, in defense of his actions, takes a wholly aesthetic stance on the situation. He says to Dorian: “My dear boy, you are really beginning to moralize… As for being poisoned by a book, there is no such thing as that. Art has no influence upon action. It annihilates the desire to act. It is superbly sterile.” (Wilde, pg 181). This statement purports the purity or ‘sterility’ of art: as something created without an intention behind it, art cannot influence the intents of people. Rudyard Kipling shared this aesthetic opinion that art is a creation without direction, and in “A Book of Words,’ he writes: “No one embraces the career of Art, any more than one enters Science or the Services, with the direct idea of making money. The material rewards of art are so small that men may be forgiven if they sacrifice themselves and their belongings to make an appeal to the next generation, while they neglect their own.” He also describes artists as “men who devote their skill to producing things and expressing ideas for which the public has no present need.” (Kipling, ‘A Book of Words’). These descriptions of a career in art as totally non-profitable and of artists as people who create things that are not necessary falls directly in line with the aesthetic motto, “art for art’s sake.” It also compliments the preface to ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray,’ because, as Oscar Wilde says, “We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.” (Wilde, pg 2).

 

            Art in the Victorian Era was considered to be a tool for education, social interaction, and moral enlightenment, but not a thing that was to be enjoyed merely for the sake of enjoyment (Sparknotes, ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’). In the late 19th century, a group of people formed what came to be known as the Aestheticism Movement, which sought to release art from the responsibilities of having to be an educational and moral tool. Prominent among these aesthetes was Oscar Wilde, and in his novel ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray,’ he exemplifies the beliefs of the aesthetic ideal through his characters’ experiences with the soul, their various pursuits of pleasure, and their opinions of art. It could be said that ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ is a cautionary tale to warn of the dangers that may result from placing a functional purpose on works of art; ironically, for the message is delivered via a piece of literature, which, as it falls under the category of art, should have no purpose according to aesthetic principles. In the preface to the novel, Wilde writes: “Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.” Readers may interpret the story in any way they wish and draw what conclusions they may, but as the final word on the subject, Oscar Wilde states: “All art is quite useless.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Conflict Between Aestheticism and Morality in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray

Patrick Duggan

 

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Oscar Wilde prefaces his novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, with a reflection on art, the artist, and the utility of both. After careful scrutiny, he concludes: “All art is quite useless”  (Wilde 4). In this one sentence, Wilde encapsulates the complete principles of the Aesthetic Movement popular in Victorian England. That is to say, real art takes no part in molding the social or moral identities of society, nor should it. Art should be beautiful and pleasure its observer, but to imply further-reaching influence would be a mistake. The explosion of aesthetic philosophy in fin-de-siècle English society, as exemplified by Oscar Wilde, was not confined to merely art, however. Rather, the proponents of this philosophy extended it to life itself. Here, aestheticism advocated whatever behavior was likely to maximize the beauty and happiness in one’s life, in the tradition of hedonism. To the aesthete, the ideal life mimics art; it is beautiful, but quite useless beyond its beauty, concerned only with the individual living it. Influences on others, if existent, are trivial at best. Many have read The Picture of Dorian Gray as a novelized sponsor for just this sort of aesthetic lifestyle. However, this story of the rise and fall of Dorian Gray might instead represent an allegory about morality meant to critique, rather than endorse, the obeying of one’s impulses as thoughtlessly and dutifully as aestheticism dictates.

In the novel, Lord Henry Wotton trumpets the aesthetic philosophy with an elegance and bravado that persuade Dorian to trust in the principles he espouses; the reader is often similarly captivated. It would be a mistake, however, to interpret the novel as a patent recommendation of aestheticism. To the aesthete, there is no distinction between moral and immoral acts, only between those that increase or decrease one’s happiness; yet, Dorian Gray refutes this idea, presenting a strong case for the inherent immorality of purely aesthetic lives. Dorian Gray personifies the aesthetic lifestyle in action, pursuing personal gratification with abandon. Yet, while he enjoys these indulgences, his behavior ultimately kills him and others, and he dies unhappier than ever. Rather than an advocate for pure aestheticism, then, Dorian Gray is a cautionary tale in which Wilde illustrates the dangers of the aesthetic philosophy when not practiced with prudence. Aestheticism, argues Wilde, too often aligns itself with immorality, resulting in a precarious philosophy that must be practiced deliberately.

Dorian Gray is often read as an explicit proclamation of the worthiness of living life in accordance with aesthetic values. This is due in part to the flourishing Aesthetic Movement of Victorian England at the time of the novel’s publication, as well as Oscar Wilde’s association with the movement itself (Becker 660). The Aesthetic Movement, which coincided with the Industrial Revolution at the end of the nineteenth century, emphasized the artistic aspect of a man’s work in producing a variety of goods, from furniture to machines to literature (Becker 660). Oscar Wilde, however, proposed that the principles of the Aesthetic Movement extend beyond the production of mere commodities. In Joseph Pearce’s biography, The Unmasking of Oscar Wilde, Pearce recalls Wilde’s own perspective on the popular movement. Speaking of aestheticism, Wilde is quoted:

It is indeed to become a part of the people’s life . . . I mean a man who works with his hands; and not with his hands merely, but with his head and his heart. The evil that machinery is doing is not merely in the consequence of its work but in the fact that it makes men themselves machines also. Whereas, we wish them to be artists, that is to say men. (qtd. in Pearce 144)

In his exposition of aestheticism, Wilde applies the philosophy in a more universal sense, stressing the positive influences of aestheticism in one’s life beyond mere craftsmanship. Just as the machines that mass-produce materials with the intervention of human thought are labeled “evil,” Wilde similarly condemns men who act as metaphorical machines, programmed to behave in accordance with society’s ideas of propriety rather than allowing themselves to act freely and achieve the greatest amount of happiness. Wilde’s eloquent advocacy of an aesthetic lifestyle is paralleled in his depiction of Lord Henry in Dorian Gray. Lord Henry lectured to the impressionable Dorian, “We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind, and poisons us. . . . Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden itself”  (Wilde 9). Wilde, through Lord Henry, laments the stifling nature of his contemporary Victorian society and how the supposed morality it boasts necessitates self-denial and rejection of life’s most beautiful aspects. Lord Henry warns that without an enthusiastic embrace of aestheticism, one will perpetually anguish with the desire of precisely what he must deny himself, all for the sake of propriety. This philosophy espoused by Wilde and Lord Henry often leads, not surprisingly, to the conclusion that Dorian Gray is a declaration of Wilde’s, promoting the adoption of purely aesthetic lives without qualification. This, however, is too shallow of an interpretation.

Opponents of a purely aesthetic lifestyle will certainly cite what they consider an inevitability: one’s desires and impulses, though when acted upon result in a more pleasurable life, will at times be undeniably immoral. It is at these times that the virtues of the wholly aesthetic life become questionable. The ruination of Dorian Gray, the embodiment of unbridled aestheticism, illustrates the immorality of such a lifestyle and gravely demonstrates its consequences. Wilde uses Dorian Gray not as an advertisement for aestheticism, but rather, he uses Dorian’s life to warn against aestheticism’s hostility toward morality when uncontrolled. Wilde himself admits, in a letter to the St. James’s Gazette, that Dorian Gray “is a story with a moral. And the moral is this: All excess, as well as all renunciation, brings its own punishment” (Wilde 248). Aestheticism does well to condemn the renunciation of desires, but it is an excessive obedience to these desires that is subversively dangerous. Therefore, in the practice of Wilde’s aestheticism, forethought and constraint are necessities, yet too often lacking, and without them, one is doomed to suffer the same fate as Dorian Gray.

The character of Dorian Gray and the story of his profound degeneration provide a case study examining the viability of purely aesthetic lives. Dorian lives according to what Lord Henry professes without hesitation, and what Lord Henry inspires Dorian, through persuasive rhetoric, is an attitude indifferent to consequence and altogether amoral. As Wilde writes, Dorian’s newfound position is “never to accept any theory or system that would involve the sacrifice of any mode of passionate experience. Its aim, indeed was to be experience itself, and not the fruits of experience, sweet or bitter as they may be”  (Wilde 125). Under Lord Henry’s mentorship, Dorian, once the epitome of wide-eyed youth, behaves with no regard for the ramifications of his actions, diligently pursuing instant gratification without thought of its implications, whether they be “sweet or bitter.”

Dorian’s relationship with the actress Sibyl Vane plainly illustrates this marked change in personality. Dorian pursues Sibyl from first sights, intent on acquiring her before he ever attempts to truly know her. Indeed, Dorian’s love for Sibyl is overtly superficial, as evidenced by Dorian’s own description of his infatuation with Sibyl: “I loved you because you were marvelous, because you had genius and intellect, because you realized the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the shadows of art” (Wilde 101). Dorian is not attracted to Sibyl’s character of personality, but rather her acting talent and enthralling performances; this is what enchants the aesthetically inclined Dorian. When Sibyl leaves the stage, then, she no longer serves a purpose in Dorian’s aesthetic life, and thus, Dorian abandons her unceremoniously. Dorian does not regret informing Sybil that, “Without your art, you are nothing” (Wilde 101). The tragedy of Sybil’s later suicide, brought about by utter despair at her desertion, is lost on Dorian, who instead enjoys the dramatic intrigue of the occasion. For Dorian, whose uncontrolled aestheticism rejects the concept of morality, the immorality of his actions goes unrecognized. In fact, Dorian declares excitedly, “It seems to me to be simply like a wonderful ending to a wonderful play. It has all the terrible beauty of a Greek tragedy, a tragedy in which I took a great part, but by which I have not been wounded” (Wilde 114). Here, the adverse consequences of aestheticism surface in Dorian’s life. In his pursuit of his own pleasures, a distinctly narcissistic attitude emerges, and the incompatibility of morality and unconditional aestheticism becomes all the more apparent.