For her interview, Emma Merk ‘24 talked about “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde which tells the story of Dorian Gray’s descent into vice and corruption as he interacts with Basil and Lord Henry. As Dorian is drawn further and further into his pursuit of impulse and excess, the beautiful and pure portrait that Basil gifted him at the beginning of the book becomes contorted and disgusting all while Dorian remains untouched. Dorian acts as a pristine facade of who he wishes to be perceived as while the painting transforms to represent who he actually is. The book shows us the ways in which we often hide our true selves to present a picture or disguise free from blame and venality. Dorian chooses to give in to impulsive pleasures all while showing a vice free self that enabled him to continue his descent into despondency.
These themes we see in Dorian are struggles we engage with daily. How we choose to present ourselves to others and how that disguises the truth of our ubiquitous imperfection is not an uncommon consideration, especially in college. We are in a small community where the constancy and familiarity makes us feel like we are always being perceived. Everyone has those people who they walk by every Tuesday or awkwardly recognize in some absurdly long line for Collins whose names and personalities we know nothing about. And they may feel the same way. Just as we look upon others, we know them to be looking upon us. There is a terrifying effect this knowledge has on us. We feel as if there is a sort of (as our friendly bud Sartre would describe it) “look” that is inflicted upon us by everyone who sees us. They look upon us and they surmise a being of us that is up to their choosing, separate from how we understand ourselves. It is alienating, our true understanding of self is pulled away from our being and we are left simply as their best guess of who we are. We are the sum of their biases, their shortsighted assumptions, and what little they have perceived to give them these notions.
So in this inauthentic game what do we do? Wilde suggests that we respond to this by reconstructing our external selves. We curate a facade to show others who we wish to be. Our clothes, our rhetoric, our social media, our physical appearance, all of these can be altered to alter the us which others view. I may dress differently or talk differently or even start working out (at least I would really like to) to take control of that little sliver of self that I show to others. This feels, to me, at the root of what we observe in Dorian. Dorian has severed his external self from his internal self through the painting. He leaves his sense of being, the part of ourselves which makes us feel responsible for our authenticity, behind, and is free to show whichever self he pleases. It is in essence our own attempts to curate our external self different from our internal self amplified to an extreme.
What can we learn from Dorian Gray? On the surface, the book presents like a parable. It tells us of the immorality of giving into our impulses and vices, and it shares a warning of the dangers we may encounter if we are deceptive of our true identities. Dorian, in hiding his authentic being from others, began to lose a grasp of it as well, and when he was finally forced to confront who he had become, he crumbled under the pressure and rage, acting out in violence. But I think that “The Picture of Dorian Gray” has more to offer than this upfront moral of the story. More than communicating the dangers of separating our outward self from our authentic self, it gives an interpretation of how we conceive of “selves” in the first place. In showing how Dorian separates the sides of his self through the painting, Wilde shows that Dorian sees the self as having something essential, or internal, and the part that is internal. Dorian views these two as completely distinct. The inner self has its sanctuary of preservation, while you are free to be as corrupt and viceful with your external self. But, evidently, these two cannot be separate. Our sins of the external self are destined to seep in and taint anything internal.
This argument from Wilde has more strength than simply discouraging excessive self curation on social media, personality, or whatever it is kids are doing these days. Wilde is giving us a reason why we should fundamentally change the way we conceive of our “selves.” Dorian’s story suggests that we likely ought not separate them at all, for any deceit in our external selves only stands to seep in and taint our entire self. In an almost Socratic sense we can see this as an argument to pull the two closer together, to redefine being as non-compartmentalizable. We should be more authentic in our presentation of ourselves, not simply because of external standards where people tell us to “be ourselves” or something like that, but because it is more desirable even by our own standards in seeking pleasure and happiness. As we saw, we only alienate ourselves to madness with our facade.
By Nic Burtson ‘24