Conflicts And Coincidence Between Arts And Morality

Oscar Wilde was an advocator and practitioner of artistic aestheticism, insisting that art should not be related with morality. He exerted every effort to write according to his aesthetic principles. Characters in his works are all transcendence over ethical reality, whether characters in his fairy tales such as the happy prince, the nightingale, the giant, the fisherman or Dorian in his novel The Portrait of Dorian Gray or Salome in his drama Salome.Wilde thinks that art should be separated from morality, and holds this as the essential proposal of aestheticism. However, despite of his consistent devotion to the practice of this aesthetic ideal, the characters in his works are found to be impossible to be personalities totally isolated from the society. In fact, the very attempt of Oscar Wilde to separate his characters fromthe society shows by itself that all the aesthetic images and characters are existence on the premise of morality. It is based on this idea that this dissertation believes that Wilde's aestheticism can only be an artistic ideal which is unable to be realized in literary practice. Oscar Wilde first put his aesthetic ideals into practice by employing the plainest form of literature-fairy tales.But as we can find, Oscar Wilde fails to implement his aesthetic principles in his fairy tales, his characters and themes having no difference from those of traditional fairy tales that always serve as moral instruction. Oscar Wilde's fairy tales are unable to avoid the thematic concerns of morality and his characters all aim to be didactic. In general, characters in his fairy tales embody not only clear moral concepts but also represent a unity of art and morality. Therefore, the function of his fairy tales, like the function of traditional fairy tales, are all didactic, both laying emphasis on the ethical value of fairy tales. For instance, moral examples are represented by the good-deeds done by happy prince and the little sparrow, the conversion of the giant from selfishness to (?)selfishness, the moral implication of the faithful friend, and the fisherman's repentance for selling his, (?)ls,all of which (?) to the making of (?) moral principles. In stead of becoming the artistic images of his aestheticism, these tales exnibits the moral function of art.To some extent, images of Wilde's fairy tales are typical of the moral reality. Subjectively Wilde intends to create characters that could transcend the moral reality, but objectively his images and characters are reflections of certain moral principles and ethical values. Therefore his literary practice violates his artistic ideal. His insistence on "art for art's sake" proves to be Although Wilde wishes to create artistic images that could transcend morality, his literary practice shows he fails to realize his ideal. To the contrary his writing is an embodiment of certain moral principles and thus a violation of his aestheticism. His fairy tales well illustrates this, so does his novel. In The Portrait of Dorian Gray, although Wilde tries to shape Dorian as an aesthetic figure, we find him a person living in reality. He is, from the beginning to the end, morally associated to the reality. His evil action itself shows his inseparability from both the reality and morality.To illustrate his aestheticism, Wilde artistically transfers the evil aspects of Dorian to the picture so as to conceal them. From the surface, Dorian, whose appearance is not changed, looks like an aesthetic figure, as he has nothing to do with evil. However, Wilde's attempt to transfer Dorian's evil and make him an example of aestheticism cannot change Dorian's moral quality in reality. The Dorian in reality is under great moral influence of the society. The picture of Dorian, which is the moral carrier of Dorian, is a device for Wilde to realize his aestheticism. It is through this picture that Wilde intends to erase or transfer or deposit the morality of Dorian, but such an artificial intervention fails to remove the morality of Dorian. The picture is intended by Wilde as a carrier of the evil aspects of Dorian, it serves as a foil to the shaping of a perfect image of Dorian. But Wilde cannot separate Dorian from reality by a simple picture. The evil transferred to the picture is gradually building up and finally becomes a heavy burden upon Dorian, who initially has no moral restrains and is now unable to bear the moral pressure at the sight of the change of the picture. At last, Dorian pierces through the picture and by this action he is piercing himself. This artistic suicide should be his natural choice as a response to the unbearable moral burden. Undoubtedly, Dorian is Wilde's conscious aesthetic ideal, but in reality it is impossible for him to become a character that could transcend morality.It should be pointed out that Wilde's literary practice undergoes a change after his writing of Dorian. He turns from aestheticism to realism. This can be found in Salome, his first drama that marks the transition of his artistic pursuit. Although Wilde still tries to cling to his aestheticism while writing Salome, we find in it his gradual giving up of aestheticism to realism. As a figure to represent his aestheticism in drama, Salome is in nature different from the previous characters. Wilde is unable to create Salome as a character like Dorian , because Salome is a figure living in moral reality that cannot be morally hidden and removed . In Salome we can find moral qualities that cannot be separated from her moral environments.Salome is the aesthetic image of her step-father, but the conspicuous moral features in her gradually make her get rid of the figure of aestheticism and turn her instead to a figure of morality. This may be ascribed to: 1) Salome is situated in very complicated moral circumstances. She is denounced by the prophet and threatened by the incest of her step-father.2) The prophet regards her as "the daughter of incestuous mother", an immoral burden befalling her pitilessly. Salome is thus filled with moral features and her image as a pure aesthetical figure gradually develops into a moral image. This may on one hand be caused by the moral situation Salome is involved and on the other hand indicate the change of the writer's artistic view. It is through Salome that we find such a change. Thereafter Wilde basically turns away from his aestheticism and moves to the path of realism. The characters he creates in his subsequent works come nearer and nearer to the ethics of reality. This change shows that Wilde exhibits less concern for aestheticism and more interest in exposing social reality .In his works we even find his rejection of aestheticism and a return to a realistic position. Salome is the product of the change of the writer's literary view. In his subsequent four social comedies, Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of no Importance, An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde make full use of realistic devises to reflect aspects of his contemporary social life such as marriage, family, politics,etc. These are the questions that his previous works have never touched upon. After writing Salome, Wilde has become a realistic dramatist. His literary practice focuses more and more on society and morality.