2.1 分析其中的例子，到底美在何处
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2.2	“三个角色之间的矛盾”如何能说明美

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Acknowledgements

To me, supervisor Wang Haixia is much more than a teacher. For her patience, insight and encouragement I remain grateful, and without her help I could not have finished this thesis. I am also obliged to my internet friend Yanc, to her careful reading and precious opinion I owe my gratitude. Last but not least, I thank Dou Tianxi, one of my best friends, for being there. I earn much through the exchange of ideas with him, and whose companionship allows me to go through all this way.
All in all, the most cordial gratitude to all these people who have offered help for me in the process of essay writing. Thank you all.










王尔德的矛盾之美
——评《道连?葛雷的画像》

摘 要

作为十九世纪英国唯美主义的奠基人之一，王尔德断然反叛传统和权威，宣布“为艺术而艺术”， “生活模仿艺术”， “艺术与道德无关”。然而他注定是一个充满矛盾的人。这些矛盾不仅仅体现在他试图将艺术独立于功利和道德说教却总是功败垂成,宣称艺术的真正目的是撒谎却又把艺术看作绝对真理而顶礼膜拜,高度重视形式却无法否定内容等。这些矛盾和冲突反映了一个作家在艺术探索道路上的必然经历。更体现在他人生和小说以及其文学理论的各个角落。可以说，矛盾贯穿了王尔德的一生。而正是因为这些矛盾才造就了惊世之才的王尔德。我们只有深入研究其矛盾冲突,才能正确认识其理论的价值和意义。《道连?葛雷的画像》就是一面镜子，集中体现了王尔德自己，那些由悖论组成的美亦贯穿全文。本文的目的即是分析作者的美学是如何与其矛盾性互相作用的。

关键词：唯美主义；矛盾；王尔德；道连?葛雷



Paradoxical Beauty of Wilde:
 Comments on The Picture of 
Dorian Gray  

Abstract

Oscar Wilde insisted on the divorce of art from morality, and believed that it was not the art that reflected nature, but it was nature that imitated art, and that the function of art was to entertain the readers . With his wit and keen observation, Wilde produced his great work The Picture of Dorian Gray which obtains immense theatrical success for him and thus becomes the most renowned literaty work in London , or more exactly, the most controversial ( like himself ). This work does not only produce entertainment. But also reflects the writer himself. He made a lot of paradoxes aesthetic contestation as well as in his writing. However, these paradoxes gave more beauty to his work actually. 
Paradoxes did not only appear in Wilde’s work and his contestation. From whatever aspect we observe him, he appears as a man of continual variety and contradiction. Contradiction had gone through all his life. On the surface he was all movement and change, shifting fitfully from one mood to another, dispensing iridescence so patently superficial that those who have never taken the trouble to penetrate below the surface dismiss him as an obvious charlatan. But beneath the glittering ripples there are depths of thought and feeling, stirred by conflicts rising from the same basic impulse towards personal realization.
Thus my thesis aims at analyzing the contradictions between the novel and Wilde’s aesthetic contestation, and see how they work in his artistic thought and his work.

Key Words: atheism; paradox; Oscar Wilde; Dorian Gray











Table of Contents

Introduction………………………………………………………….1
Chapter One The Background of The Novel………………………..3
1.1 Brief Introduction…………………..………………………3
1.2 Oscar Wilde and the Novel The Picture of Dorian Grey…...3
1.3 Wilde’s Aethetism…………………..………………………5
Chapter Two The Dialectic Relation between Aesthetism and Paradox in the Novel……………………………………………...9
    2.1 Beautiful Statements in the Novel—Oxymoron and Paradoxical Debate..…………………………………...………...10
2.2 The Contrast among the Three Characters……………......12
Chapter Three The Origin of Paradox………………… …….….…16
3.1 The Twisted Society of Victoria Era………………….…...16
3.2 The Theory of Mask, Wilde’s Self-Protection…….……..18
Conclusion………………………………………..………………...20
Bibliography………..………………………………………………21 
Paradoxical Beauty of Wilde : Comments on The Picture Of Dorian Gray

Introduction

“There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about”. So Wild’s Lord Henry commented in The Picture of Dorian Gray. Ironically, however, this willful paradox, like many others that Wilde has said, seems to suggest exactly what happens to the ingenious artist who was once so insolent. With his wit and keen observation, Wilde produced a series of satirical comedies that stitch the middle class and amuse the lower classes as he wishes; the artist obtained immense theatrical success and thus became the most renowned literate in London (the most controversial, to be exact).
Focusing on the theory of “art for art’s sake”, He advocated some series of astonishing theories, such as “life imitates art”, “art has nothing to do with morality”, “art is lying”, and “form is everything”, etc. Wilde objected to traditions and authorities tremendously. On the other hand, he tried to build a beautiful ivory tower but couldn’t distract his attention from the mortal world, he separated art from utilitarianism and preachment but always failed on the verge of success, he announced that lying is the proper aim of art, but at the same time took art as absolute truth and paid his homage, he highly emphasized the form but at the same time was unable to deny the content. 
These contradictions and conflicts of Wilde demonstrate an inevitable process of hesitation, repetition and even self negation of an artist in pursuing his art. As long as we study these contradictions and conflicts deeply and thoroughly, we can understand the significance of Wilde and his theories.

   



 
Chapter One The Background of the Novel 

1.1 Brief Introduction 
 Wilde, Oscar (1854-1900), the celebrated Irish-born wit, novelist, playwright, poet, and critic, was the chief proponent of the aesthetic movement, based on the principle of “Art for Art’s Sake”. He insisted on the divorce of art from morality, and believed that it was not the art that reflected nature, but it was nature that imitated art, and that the function of art was to please and to produce enjoyment. The Picture of Dorian Gray is Wilde’s only novel. Although it encountered severe criticisms at first, it finally got its value acknowledged in the 20th century.
1.2 Oscar Wilde and The Picture of Dorian Grey                            
In this section, we will introduce the basic cognitive notions of relevance and the Cognitive Principle of Relevance. It’s a risk to jump to a conclusion of a person in a serious tone. Although the fact that the person has been the topic of debate for centuries may already reduce the risk. When the ambitious Oscar Wilde came to London he had no idea about this. At that time, he had not become a writer yet, busy in making efforts to shape him into a symbol of art to the upper class for example. And the time being stayed in Oxford made him meet Pate and John Ruskin largely developed differing strains of the contrasts in his character under the influence of them. He became attractive like a huge palace with shiny eye-catching wall, and also provided a internal dark space.
Some people will say that beauty is superficial. Perhaps so, but at least beauty is not more superficial than their mind. What can be imagined is that the author of this statement lived in London, and the London was in a whirlpool of struggle between new Wave and the old customs. It’s also conceivable that the author is not a moral abandoner, but a pursuer of a higher form of morality, which is a moral of instinct.
A U.S publisher J. M. Stoddart once had invited Conan Doyle and another writer for a dinner together . During the dinner Stoddart invited them to write articles for his magazine Lippincott. Conan Doyle wrote The Sign of Four. And the other person was Oscar Wilde, he wrote The Picture of Dorian Gray. This is how The Picture of Dorian Gray began. If we call this a coincidence cause, then the inevitable cause is, Oscar Wilde seriously knew that it was a dangerous thing to jump to a conclusion of himself and society .
The Picture of Dorian Gray was a modern fable with weird plots. It was a strikingly ingenious story of a handsome young man’s degeneration. Dorian’s good friend, Basil Hallward, a painter, drawled a perfect picture for him. Dorian wished that he could be as young as the picture forever. Through Basil, he became acquainted with Lord Henry Wotton, a dandy with a queer and attractive theory, and got great influence from him. He started to indulge in creature comforts, even corrupt public morals and did evil deeds. As he wished, he himself remained fresh and healthy in appearance while his exquisite portrait mysteriously changed into horrible images of his corrupted soul. At last, he wanted to destroy this evidence of his evil deeds, so he stabbed the picture, only to commit his own suicide and restore the beauty to the picture. In this novel, Wilde explored the relationship between art, morality and life, and through this book, he realized his anesthetic theory, that is, art is above life. 
1.3 Wilde’s Aesthetism
The trend of thought in aestheticism appeared at the end of the 19th century. Aesthetes held the thought that art had its independent life. They paid special attention to the beauty of the forms of literature and art, exerted themselves to explore styles of literature and probe into the relation between literature and music and drawing so as to develop the expressive force of literary works. Oscar Wilde was the most active advocator and also the earnest practitioner of aestheticism.
To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim, Wilde said. As the representative of Aestheticism, his aestheticism played an essential role in terms of his life philosophy, social and artistic creation. His aesthetic theory was diverted from that postulated by Matthew Arnold. This thesis also re-examined the nineteenth-century literary aesthetic tradition. In the late nineteenth-century, Matthew Arnold, Water Pater and Oscar Wilde represent three critical phases. Matthew Arnold was the pioneer of the three who tried to write critism. 
Wilde embodied his aesthetism theory not only in his life style but also in his novel. In his The Critic as Artist, he proclaimed that aesthetic are higher than ethics and put more emphasis on the development of the individual than on the sense of right and wrong. Those mottoes were practiced in The Picture of Dorian Gray. There were two versions of the Dorian Gray in the text, one was a teenager made of the ivory and rose petals with beautiful appearance like Narcissus, and the other one was a portrait full of mystery. The latter one symbolized the eternal art, while the former one was the reality corresponded to art. In fact, in the text the picture and reality was interchanged, the portrait became Gray himself and reflected his actions, marked the passage of time together in record. Gray turned into a portrait of him, this portrait was privileged by God with the skill of being forever young, unbridled live the way of life advocated by Lord Henry. Since he said it’s not that art reflects life, but life imitates art, we may say that his artistic concept is very similar to the idea of Plato. In the interpretation of Wilde's view of aesthetism, he mentioned the idea of Plato: There, like breeze bring health from the high ground, the beauty as the soul of art on show before their senses, children's soul will be unknowingly, gradually lead to a level knowledge and intelligence are in perfect harmony He was referring to Plato's perfect city, which is in the idea of a prototype city. The beauty he aspired was impacted by Plato’s concept. Wilde also said: In this era of instability and chaos, in this terrible moment of strife and despair, only the hall of beauty can make people forget, make people happy, where else can we go beside it. 
 Obviously, here the hall of beauty is only a utopia for him and his aestheticism. Utopia had never been there, but beauty is always there. He transcended the categories of good and evil by dedicating himself to the aesthetic beauty. 
Chapter Two The Dialectic Relation Between Aesthetism and Paradox in the Novel

As the statue of Venus, beauty does not only exist in the sense of harmony. Indeed, the beauty of harmony and integration can please people, but in certain conditions, the beauty in conflicts can be more attractive. Sometimes, beauty is also a kind of paranoia and extreme. 
Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, mutually exclusive things get together, the different tones create the most beautiful harmony. There was a view in history of western aesthetics that beauty is in relationship (Diderot).
And the relationship is contradiction.
From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician, Oscar Wilde said. If we accept this way of thinking, then the deliberate pursuit of the harmony beauty will be like dull music. All things that are able to resonate with people are natural. Beauty in contradictions is like music such as those with cello for background, and inside the violin or guitar were played, sounds like a marry string, rapid flows.

2.1 Beautiful Statements in the Novel—Oxymoron and Paradoxical Debate
Oscar Wilde’s wit is mainly manifested in paradox, it’s also his wisdom and characteristics. It’s hard for people to refute his debate of logic paradox. His clever wording of the statement is the embodiment of wit. The readers’ rational senses were deluded by his confusing paradoxes, if they think with their inherent rational logic, they would be plunged into these paradoxes. These emerging and impeccable paradoxes in the novel let theory give off the radiance of truth and give the text charming beautiful color. 
Here are some instances in the novel：
(1)Young men want to be faithful and are not; old men want to be faithless and cannot(Oscar Wilde 24).
(2)The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is sheer terror. We think that we are generous because we credit our neighbors with the possession of those virtues that are likely to be a benefit to us(Oscar Wilde 30). 
(3)There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating - people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing(Oscar Wilde 35).
(4)Sometimes, however, a tragedy that possesses artistic elements of beauty crosses our lives. If these elements of beauty are real, the whole thing simply appeals to our sense of dramatic effect. Suddenly we find that we are no longer the actors, but the spectators of the play. Or rather we are both. We watch ourselves, and the mere wonder of the spectacle enthrall us… To become the spectator of one’s own life is to escape the suffering of the life(Oscar Wilde 48). 
(5)Life itself was the first, the greatest, of the arts. And for it all the other arts seemed to be but a preparation. He sought to elaborate some new scheme of life that would have its seasoned philosophy and its ordered principles, and find in the spiritualizing of the senses its highest realization. It appeared to Dorian Gray that the true nature of the senses had never been understood, and that they had remained savage and animal merely because the world had sought to starve them into submission or to kill them by pain, instead of aiming at making them elements of a new spirituality, of which a fine instinct for beauty was to be dominant characteristic. As he looked back upon man moving through History, he was haunted by the feeling of a loss. So much had been surrendered, and to such little purpose! There had been mad willful rejections, monstrous forms of self-torture and self-denial, whose origin was fear, and whose result was a degradation infinitely more terrible than that fancied degradation from which, in their ignorance, they had sought to escape, Nature, in her wonderful irony, driving out the anchorite to feed with the wild animals in the desert and giving to the hermit the beasts of the field as his companions(Oscar Wilde 51).    
2.2 The Contrast among the Three Characters
The three main characters, Dorian, Basil and Henry in the novel were intimate，but their images were totally contrast to each other. Dorian exchanged his soul with eternal youth. His picture would be the one which to take the burden of age. It was a repetition of Faust. The perfect picture was painted by Basil, but Basil is not Mephistopheles. He was the one who give interpretation to beauty. He was set can be free from influence from Henry. But on the other hand, he was fatefully to sacrifice for aesthetic. Gray started his appearance in Basile praising. Basile felt beautiful things with a touch of artist's sense, he pursued purely aesthetic. Mephistopheles in this novel was Lord Henry. He presented to Dorian ideas that he had not thought of before, and allured him into a more fascinating world he had never seen before. Unconsciously, Dorian made himself fascinated by the enticement that Henry presented to him. This collision of the difference of the three characters eventually led to a splendor climax. Afraid of his so many evil conducts, he tried to destroy the picture and to destroy the innocent soul altogether, and the souls were back in place—evil soul to Dorian and innocent to the picture—as he decided Dorian was too corrupted to save.
In a letter to one of his friends, Wilde once said that, Basil was the image that he thought he was; Henry was the image that the public people regarded he was; and Dorian was the image that he expected he could be. So to some extent, the novel was a truthful reflection of the contradictory triple personalities of the author Oscar Wilde: the three main characters, Dorian, Basil and Henry, faithfully reflected the three levels of Wilde’s personality — the id, the superego and the ego. According to Sigmund Freud, id, ego, and superego are the three divisions of the personality. The id operates according to the pleasure principle, regardless of the social morality, and its only purpose is to pursue pleasure and avoid pains. The superego is the idealist part of the personality, which operates according to the moral principle. Its function is to supervise and standardize one’s behavior. Both id and superego are the unconscious parts, while the ego is a conscious part and operates according to the reality principle. It ensures that the impulses of the id can be gratified in a manner acceptable to the real world. 
Dorian Gray, the protagonist who changed from an innocent youth to a degraded killer in the process of pursuing the sensual pleasure and eternal youth, well represented the id of Wilde, who considered beauty and youth to be the most precious thing in the world. He had “a simple and beautiful nature” at the beginning. However, under the influence of Henry’s fascinating poisonous and delightful theory, the instinct in his deeper heart woke up. Henry made Dorian believe that “nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.” Dorian walked the way of fulfilling his sense in order to satisfy his instinctive desires.
Basil, who behaved as the conscience in the novel, was the best reflection of Wilde’s superego, He stood for the highest part of human’s personality. He (Superego) has restriction for the id and the ego, guiding them to achieve morality and perfection. It is governed by the morality principle and his final murder just symbolized the sharp conflict between the id and the superego. 
Henry was the reflection of Wilde’s ego. Just as the ego is the go-between of the id and superego, which functions as mediation between id and superego, Lord Henry was the go-between of Dorian and Basil, who marked the two extremes to some extent. Dorian (the id) was innocent at the beginning, which means he was free from the corruption of the society. It was Henry (the ego) who got him to have a relationship with the society with his theory of hedonism. He influenced Dorian. As it has been mentioned, ego stood for reason and circumstance, therefore Henry and his theory was to some extent the common sense of the society.
The contradiction between the three characters in the novel well illustrated the painful struggle between the three parts of Wilde’s personality.
 
Chapter Three The Origin of Paradox
 
3.1 The Twisted Society of Victoria Era　
Oscar Wilde lived in the British Victorian era, a era often used to be described as“Prudish”, “Prim and proper”, “repressed” and “old fashioned”. Victoria’s obsessive mourning for 10 years influenced what would become the Victorian mentality. Her influence was so great that both a political era and a literary epoch were named after her. It was a An age of great conflicts. Although Christianity also reigned, since Darwin, Marx, and Freud all emerged during this time, this was the first time that institutional Christianity was truly called into question. The bourgeois rule was unprecedented consolidated, the capitalist economy was in a rapid development, and national strength was also turning increasingly powerful, but many social problems also appeared. For example, the disparity between the rich and the poor, sharp class conflicts brought about by the polarization. Middle class grew rapidly, but they could never attain the wealth. The bourgeoisie grabbed enormous wealth, became the new upper class society groups. Their wealth integrated with material desires of this era, on one hand, it led to the prosperity of some arts, on the other hand, it results the distortion of the society，especially the moral degeneration in upper class. The conflicts between old and new trend in High society was intense. The society was almost in a distorted shape. 
In this case, Oscar Wilde’s desired aesthetic ideals of the arts were nearly impossible, what can be seen is only the reality, which produced beauty only from social contradictions and distortions. Then Wilde’s life was full of controversy. For “Life for Art’s Sake” was his principle for life, he wore eccentric clothes, lived in his “Aesthetic Home” in Tite Street which is decorated in oriental style. Besides that, his lifestyle also gained much attention--infamously. Homosexual in an era that was anything but acceptable, he was found guilty of indecent behavior and sentenced to two years in prison, where he stayed until 1897. Unfortunately, his health turned for the worse while incarcerated and he died not long after, some historians suspect of syphilis.
Just like his works, Wilde’s work was full of controversy too. Dorian Gray and Lord Henry Wotton had been the targets of violent criticism from the moralists who stood for the hypocritical morality in the late Victorian society. Even Basil’s special feeling towards Dorian had been considered as the evidence of Wilde’s homosexuality and was presented as proof against him at the court during his trials. Salome is another object being rebuked by the public. The heroine’s violent and crazy love offended against the conventional morality and annoyed the government at that time. Consequently, the play was banned by Lord Chamberlain when it was still inrehearsal.


3.2 The Theory of Mask, Wilde’s Self Protection

Oscar Wilde said: When a person personally speaks, he is not himself the most. Give him a mask, he will be able to tell you the truth. In his view, literary artists have to use a mask to hide themselves in the literary works skillfully to express their true ideology, reveal the truth to the reader. In the preface of The Picture Of Dorian Gray, he was more specific on his Mask Theory: “To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim.” In the ninth chapter, he added: “What hidden by artists is far greater than what is demonstrated.” The most important task of masks is to hide the artists. Under the protection of the mask, artists should express their real thinking boldly, ridicule and expose social evils without scruple. 
    Social reality and the phenomenon need to be reflected in literary and artistic works, so it is said that literary and artistic work as a mirror, in which we will see a mask. But the image in the mask is literarily fictitious, we should not correspond ourselves to them precisely. If you think that piece of work describes exactly what you are, then it will all depend on yourself. This exposition hides the real objective of literary artists and manages to reflect the social reality through the literary works, more importantly, it protects the author. This is the best way of a criticist to conduct in the community. When the author disguised himself, the works will no doubt disguish itself as well, so it is inevitable to be paradox. Therefore, Dorian in fiction wore the mask of the never-be-old and beauty, the true face in the frame perished.




 
Conclusion

The purpose of this thesis has been to study and analyze the relation between paradox and aethetism in the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. In this novel most beauties were generated from conflicts, and the beauty itself was paradoxical. 
The essential purpose of this thesis is to enable readers can understand this work better integrating of Wilde. This work is a mirror to Wilde himself actual, as he said Basil was the image that he thought he was, which reflected Wilde’s self-restriction of his superego. Though he wanted to be as free as Dorian, his superego restricts him to the things that the society regards acceptable.
Traditional critics think that Wilde’s multiplicity of conflicts is a defect of him. In fact these conflicts didn’t reflect Oscar Wilde, for these contradictions are not from his own personality, they reflected the whole society of Victorian era very well. 
As a statement in the work: The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame. The Picture of Dorian Grey is just a case in point.