An Analysis Of The Modernity In The Picture Of Dorian Gray From The Perspective Of Gothicism

Oscar Wilde was a celebrated English novelist,playwright,essayist and poet in late Victorian Age.He was also the pioneer and practitioner of English Aestheticism.His representative and only novel The Picture ofDorian Gray① is the first "aesthetic Gothic" of its genre.Gothicism is a unique way to present modernity,for modernity comes out of and is reflected in delegitimization of the norm,such as religion,morality,social hierarchy and so on,while the Gothic express the anxiety and fear for the loss of the norm and the latent impulse of redefining the norm.This thesis studies the themes and aesthetics of modernity in Dorian Gray from the perspective of Gothicism.The thesis consists of three parts.The first chapter discusses the cause and symptom of modernity—the collapse of the norm in culture and society."The uncanny" type of horror in Victorian Gothic displays the anxiety and fear for this collapse in social unconsciousness.Christianity is the central norm of Western civilization.Its decline has much to do with modernity.On the one hand,Wilde portrays Dorian as an image of a decadent Gothic Christ using various metaphor and symbols to aestheticize and sensualize Christianity;on the other hand,the decline of Christianity is also reflected in the presentation of ancient pagan belief in the novel.Both are oppositional to Enlightenment reason and the conservative morality of Victorian society.The second chapter explores specific classic Gothic archetypes depicted or embodied in the novel,including doppelganger,vampirism and the Other overseas,each of which symbolizes the return of certain aspect in the shadow of society and culture,accompanying the collapse of the norm.Those Gothic monstrosities respectively represent the latent threat to the ethnic trinity of individual,society and nation.The third chapter explores Dorian Gray’s aesthetic pursuit,attempting to redefine art as the new norm to rebuild central meaning,but to end in failure.There are two categories of worlds presented in the novel:the world of eternal aesthetic ideal represented by art and form;the world of death and disorder represented by Gothicism and nature.Dorian tries to elevate the latter through the former.Nevertheless,art is a much weaker force in bounding individuals and society than religion and morality,and the latter overwhelms the former eventually.To conclude,Dorian Gray reflects the relationship between Gothicism and modernity and the zeitgeist of late Victorian Britain which was undergoing the transition from traditional society to modern society,marking its shift to modern Western culture.