Supplemental Essay: "Gender Personas" in
Chapter 20 of Sexual Personae

Chapters 19 and 20 of Sexual Personae are both about Decadent androgynes. The feature that the androgynes have in common is a desire to calm their anxiety.

 

To recap: Society was mostly hierarchical and Apollonian in the past. But in modern times democratic reforms have resulted in greater freedom and a shift toward Dionysianism. However, extremes of Dionysian freedom eventually turn into a free fall of chaos resulting in anxiety due to the loss of order, stability, and predictability. The androgyne finds closure and peace by detaching himself from the world and living a life of self-completion and solipsism. With no needs or desires, the interest of the androgyne is only stirred by the exceptional: Great beauty, great ugliness, or some other form of exceptionalism or hierarchy.

 

From his bubble of detachment and self-completion, the Decadent androgyne surveys the world with daemonic Apollonian discrimination and seizes upon individual things or people that grab his attention. His main challenge is to avoid being drawn out of his bubble of detachment by obsessing over some attraction or passion. If the androgyne obsesses and over-indulges, he may get drawn into a self-destructive course of action that eventually triggers society's condemnation and punishment.

 

Dionysian-leaning androgynes versus Apollonian-leaning androgynes

The Decadent androgyne can assume different forms. As I said in my notes on Chapter 19, Paglia sees the Decadent androgyne in terms of two components that coexist and complement each other: A primitive Dionysian component and a sophisticated or modern Apollonian component. But that can show up as two different types: The Dionysian-leaning androgyne and the Apollonian-leaning androgynes. Chapter 19 depicts the former, and Chapter 20 describes the latter:

• Chapter 19 ("Apollo Daemonized: Decadent Art") of Sexual Personae described Dionysian-leaning Decadent androgynes: Dionysian-leaning androgynes indulge their Dionysian side by seeking out commanding mother figures and becoming devoted to them. They normally repress their Apollonian side; but if they become overly obsessed in their devotion to mother figures, their repressed Apollonian side may return in daemonic form as asceticism and hierarchism; it may turn their attraction to mother figures into a masochistic worship of cruel, punishing mother figures in the form of female vampires. Pain and subservience to such vampires provide Apollonian hierarchy and structure; see my comments on the poet Swinburne in the notes for Chapter 18. Eventually such androgynes may rebel and destroy the object of their devotion in the hope of breaking free and restoring their detachment from the world.

• Chapter 20 ("The Beautiful Boy as Destroyer: Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray") of Sexual Personae describes Apollonian-leaning Decadent androgynes: Apollonian-leaning androgynes indulge their Apollonian side by practicing aggressive aestheticism and hierarchism. They normally repress their Dionysian side; but if they become overly obsessive in their aesthetic pursuits, their repressed Dionysian side may return in daemonic form as hedonism and loss of self-control; it may turn their aestheticism into cruelty, chaos, and self-destruction. Again, eventually such androgynes may rebel and destroy the object of their devotion in the hope of breaking free and restoring their detachment from the world.

 

Oscar Wilde, author of The Picture of Dorian Gray and the subject of Chapter 20, was an Apollonian-leaning Decadent androgyne. This means that he indulged his Apollonian side by practicing aggressive aestheticism and hierarchism, and he repressed his Dionysian side. I'll talk about those two components separately, starting with the Apollonian side.

 

The Apollonian component: Aestheticism and hierarchism

To recap: Apollonian-leaning androgynes live in a bubble of detachment from the world and passive observation. They take this position in order to still the anxiety of modern life. They indulge their Apollonian side by practicing aggressive aestheticism and hierarchism, resulting in a harsh, rigid social structure. This provides structure and helps stabilize their world. They normally repress their Dionysian side.

 

In Chapter 20, Paglia considers Wilde to be one of literature's most famous examples of the Decadent aesthete. She says, "Oscar Wilde, a master of mass media, projected himself internationally as the ultimate aesthete. He synthesizes a half century of French and English Decadent Late Romanticism and joins it to the great tradition of English comedy." (p. 512) At the end of Chapter 20 she says, "Wilde's only novel is a supreme artifact of aestheticism..." (p. 530)

 

Paglia associates Wilde with two main Apollonian ideas--Decadent aestheticism and Decadent hierarchism. I'll start with aestheticism first, and I'll talk about hierarchism as a separate subject a couple paragraphs below.

 

Decadent aestheticism: The Apollonian-leaning androgyne lives in his bubble of detachment from the world and uses the aggressive Apollonian eye to observe, analyze, dissect; he becomes a connoisseur of sophistication and beauty. Apollonian focus and attention bring clarity by distinguishing and separating details out from their surroundings and hardening their boundaries as objects of Decadent interest (or obsession). 

 

The western Apollonian eye rejects Dionysian chaos, change, nature and liquidity; the self-complete and withdrawn Apollonian androgyne is repelled by the anxiety-inducing Dionysian disorder of the commonplace things of life. He instead prizes Apollonian hardness, artificiality, superficial beauty. The aesthete increasingly becomes an elitist and sensualist, obsessed with finding and isolating for his own enjoyment things that are beautiful, extreme, or outrageous. Anything else is simply beneath his notice.

 

Androgynes separate out and cordon off objects of attraction for analysis, effectively putting those objects in a bubble of "closure." Isolated in this manner, attractions are objectified and stripped of any meaning beyond their great beauty, which is measured by their ability to engage the attention or interest or obsession of the androgyne. Paglia notes that this emphasis on beauty alone displaces and shoulders out any other way of regarding things and people, such as meaning or morality or depth: Paglia says, "The aesthete is an immoralist." (p. 410)

 

Paglia associates Wilde with this current of Decadent aestheticism: "Decadent aestheticism is a visionary idealism, asserting the primacy of beauty over all modes of experience. Wilde was one of the last theorists before modernism to insist on the inseparability of art and beauty." (p. 515)

 

"Personality" becomes the metric for establishing aesthetic value, in people. It establishes one's rank in society's hierarchy. Paglia says, "For Wilde, personality is a fact, a given. It is not character, shaped by education or ethics. Personality for him is immanent, belonging to a preordained rank in the great chain of being of authority and glamour. It is a visual construct. [...H]e imagines personality as a radiant icon of Apollonian materiality, the godlike summation of the visible world." (p. 520) Paglia goes on to say that "personality" in the Wildean sense probably relates to the charisma of narcissistic people or the glamor of celebrities. (p. 521) 

 

In turn, "personality" can then be used to establish hierarchy: People and things with the strongest "personality" are ranked highest in terms of social hierarchy.

 

Decadent hierarchism: On the subject of Apollonian hierarchism, Paglia discusses the idea of hierarchy repeatedly throughout Chapter 20. She considers it central to Chapter 20; she says that hierarchy is "the secret subject of Dorian Gray." (p. 516) Everything in the novel becomes about pecking order, rank, class, and so on. A few quotes from her on the subject:

 

--Concerning Oscar Wilde as author of Dorian Gray, Paglia says, "Wilde is an Apollonian conceptualizer [...] In him we see that brilliant fusion of the aggressive western eye with aristocratic hierarchism..." (p. 512)

 

--Concerning Wilde's theory of "personality" as the aesthetic measure of quality in humans, Paglia says, "Beauty, appealing to the pagan eye, is Apollonian hierarchy, Greek divinity. Dorian Gray makes complicated use of the western idea of hierarchies. Beautiful persons are aristoi, 'the best.' They are Dostoyevsky’s 'extraordinary men,' who have the Sadean 'right to commit any crime.' The ugly belong to a lower order of being." (p. 515) Elsewhere she says, "the aesthete, a Paterian discriminator of things, persons, and moments, is a conceptualizing hierarchist." (p. 516)

 

--Speaking of the character of Dorian Gray, Paglia says, "Dorian is a natural hierarch who dominates by his 'fascinating' beauty, drawing both sexes toward him and paralyzing the moral will." (p. 521) Elsewhere she calls him a "hierarch as sorcerer." (p. 522)

 

--Paglia even suggests that hierarchism is a function of Wilde's homosexuality: "I notice that the Wildean-style homosexual still speaks of race and class with the same breezy daring. Oppressed groups tend to oppress other subgroups. But lesbians do not talk this way. On the contrary, lesbians, in my experience, are relentlessly populist—possibly a function of their repressed maternalism. Male homosexuals have an instinct for hierarchy unparalleled in contemporary culture, outside of Roman Catholicism. Hierarchism explains their cult of the Hollywood star, in whom so many are dazzlingly learned." (p. 516)

 

The characters as aesthetes

Lord Henry Wotton and Basil Hallward are Apollonian-leaning Decadent androgynes. Like all androgynes, they deal with Dionysian freedom and the anxiety it engenders by assuming a posture of self-completeness and living in a bubble of passivity. The self-completeness and solipsism of androgyny allows them to live anxiety-free. They maintain their distance from life by engaging in Apollonian-leaning Decadent aestheticism and hierarchism. Lord Henry is an idle aristocrat with no occupation or interests in life other than observing society and commenting cynically on the foibles and ridiculousness of others; Basil is an artist who devotes himself solely to his work and otherwise tries to distance himself from the distractions of people and life.

 

Dorian Gray, the titular hero of the book, is a "beautiful boy" who becomes a Decadent aesthete under the mentoring of Lord Henry and Basil. At the beginning of the novel it appears that Dorian has recently entered high society, is unaware that he exhibits any kind of special distinction, and is simply trying to fit in without too much effort or fuss. The reader learns that Dorian engages in charity: At the end of Chapter 1 Lord Henry recalls that Dorian had volunteered to help his Aunt Agatha on a charitable cause. But Dorian is also self-involved and not to be counted on: At the beginning of Chapter 2 Dorian himself mentions that he was supposed to play a public performance at a club with Aunt Agatha and didn't show up because he simply forgot about it. In other words, Dorian means well and goes through the motions appropriate to a young aristocrat, but he is so self-absorbed and thoughtless that he is frequently undependable and inconsiderate.

 

Basil likewise complains of Dorian's thoughtlessness: "As a rule, he is charming to me, and we sit in the studio and talk of a thousand things. Now and then, however, he is horribly thoughtless, and seems to take a real delight in giving me pain. Then I feel, Harry, that I have given away my whole soul to some one who treats it as if it were a flower to put in his coat, a bit of decoration to charm his vanity, an ornament for a summer’s day.” (Chapter 1)

 

This is the thoughtlessness and self-centeredness of the beautiful boy. Paglia describes the generic beautiful boy as follows, "I said of Greek art that the narcissistic beautiful boy is emotionally undeveloped and self-contained to the point of autism. His senses are solipsistically sealed. It is the apprehender, the aggressive eye, who brings him into existence. Dorian Gray is unconscious of his beauty, even while it is being painted." (p. 514)

 

But under the mentorship of Lord Henry and Basil, Dorian soon becomes a Decadent aesthete like them. Dorian learns from the artist Basil of his own natural attractiveness to others and how it can be used for purposes of social climbing: Basil has been painting a picture of Dorian, and when Dorian sees Basil's finished portrait of him for the first time, "he drew back, and his cheeks flushed for a moment with pleasure. A look of joy came into his eyes, as if he had recognized himself for the first time. [...] The sense of his own beauty came on him like a revelation. He had never felt it before." (Chapter 2)

 

From Lord Henry, in turn, Dorian learns aloofness and cynicism. Life is messy, and the Decadent aesthete tames that messiness by rejecting emotion and cultivating the Olympian detachment of a passive observer. For example when the actress Sylvia Vane commits suicide as a result of a falling-out with Dorian, Dorian is initially distraught. But Lord Henry tells Dorian that indulging strong emotions is merely sentimentalism, and that the correct way to regard the episode is as a poetic adventure. Such tragedies are a distinction to be cultivated by men in good society, not something to be avoided. Lord Henry says, "There is something to me quite beautiful about her death. I am glad I am living in a century when such wonders happen. They make one believe in the reality of the things we all play with, such as romance, passion, and love.” (Chapter 8)

 

Dorian eventually agrees with Lord Henry: "But we will not talk again of what has happened. It has been a marvellous experience. That is all." (Chapter 8) When Basil subsequently tries to console him over Sylvia's death, Dorian says, "Don’t talk about horrid subjects. If one doesn’t talk about a thing, it has never happened. It is simply expression, as Harry says, that gives reality to things." (Chapter 9)

 

Lord Henry also introduces Dorian to Huysmans' novel A Rebours; it's a classic of Decadent aestheticism. Dorian is so captivated by the material that most of Chapter 11 of The Picture of Dorian Gray is devoted to Dorian's attempts to mirror Huysmans' experiments in cultivating a sense of beauty. Dorian is repulsed by the repetitiveness and sameness of waking life; in place of mundane pursuits he seeks novelty, mysticism, and dreams. Delving into aesthetic experimentation with jewels, perfumes, fine tapestries, etc. provides diversion from the mundane and attunes Dorian's senses to the finer things in life.

 

The vampirism of Apollonian aestheticism

All these features of aestheticism and hierarchy are benign enough at first glance. Paglia, however, points out in Chapter 20 that Apollonian-leaning hierarchy embraces a type of "vampirism" that isn't so very different from the Dionysian-leaning worship of the feminine that was described in Chapter 19.

 

To recap: Chapter 19 described Dionysian-leaning Decadent androgynes: The Dionysian-leaning androgynes indulge their Dionysian side by devoting themselves to the Feminine influence in life; when taken to the extreme it turns into a masochistic worship of cruel, punishing mother figures in the form of female vampires.

 

In comparison, Chapter 20 describes the aestheticism and hierarchism of Apollonian-leaning Decadent androgynes. But Paglia says that Apollonian-leaning aesthetes with their indulgence of Apollonian hierarchism can become "vampiric" as well.

 

To spell it out a bit: Hierarchy implies western/Apollonian aggression and competition, establishment of pecking order, and dominance versus submission. As a result, Paglia says that The Picture of Dorian Gray is "energized by the western dynamic of competitive sexual personae." (p. 512)

 

As I said above, "personality" becomes the metric for establishing the men's relations to each other. A demonstration of personality allows the men to sort out their ranking in the hierarchy and, potentially, for the higher-ranked person or object to dominate and abuse the lower-ranked. In other words, the relationships between the men of Chapter 20 can be every bit as "vampiric" as the relationships between male masochist and female vampire in Chapter 19.

 

Vampirism in Basil's relations with Dorian: Concerning Basil's relation to Dorian, Paglia says that Basil sets Dorian on a pedestal from the very start and takes a position subordinate to Dorian. By the rules of Decadent hierarchism, Dorian becomes the vampire and Basil becomes his willing victim. Paglia characterizes the moment as vampiric: "Basil and Dorian’s first meeting also invokes one of the primary Romantic principles, vampirism. [...] At this moment of visual fixation, Dorian, like a vampire, dominates the plane of eye-contact. Basil, mesmerized, actually grows “pale,” like the vampire’s bled victim." (p. 519) Elsewhere she says, "the artist's hierarchic submission to a glamourous personality is characteristically western [...] The relation is a Decadent ritual of sadomasochistic enslavement. The artist Basil Hallward is 'dominated' by Dorian Gray." (pp. 512-513)

 

Paglia cautions that Basil's attraction to Dorian is aesthetic, not sexual; Apollonian hierarchies require that distance be preserved between the higher and lower ranks. Thus, Basil expresses his worship of Dorian by turning him into an "objet d'art." Paglia says, "Basil seeks not to sleep with Dorian but to paint his picture. The painting is not sublimation but conceptual perfection. Painting, an iconic Apollonian mode, preserves Dorian's hierarchic command and the aesthetic distance symbolizing the Late Romantic's contemplative submission to the eroticized object. Subordination to the person as objet d'art explains the androgyny of all aesthetes." (p. 518)

 

Elsewhere she notes that The Picture of Dorian Gray is "the fullest study of the Decadent erotic principle: the transformation of person into objet d'art." (p. 512)

 

Vampirism in Lord Henry's relations with Dorian: While Basil submits to Dorian, Lord Henry takes the opposite approach: He resolves to set himself up as mentor and advisor to Dorian, thereby adopting a position of seniority over the latter. After talking to Dorian once and then investigating his background, Lord Henry resolves to conquer the young "beautiful boy": "He would seek to dominate him—had already, indeed, half done so. He would make that wonderful spirit his own. There was something fascinating in this son of love and death." (Chapter 3)

 

Paglia says that Lord Henry's approach is vampiric. Paglia describes it as follows: "Dorian is an acquisition of Decadent connoisseurship, suavely inspected like a jewel held up to the light. Lord Henry, like the aristocratic seducer of Les Liaisons dangereuses, takes mentalized sex-pleasure in deflowering Dorian’s rosy innocence. [...] Lord Henry experiments with a male vampirism, transplanting his temperament into Dorian, who is possessed by him in both the sexual and daemonic sense." (p. 518) 

 

However, just as in Basil's relations with Dorian, aesthetic distance is preserved between Lord Henry and Dorian. The sexuality of Lord Henry's approach is subliminal, that is, it is a projection of Lord Henry's "personality" as a metric of hierarchic relations. Paglia says, "In this classic moment of Decadent eroticism, an aesthetic distance, as usual, is preserved between personae, a charged space crossed by the libidinous eye. Henry projects his 'temperament' (Pater’s word) into Dorian as if it were 'a subtle fluid or a strange perfume' (Pater again). Late Romantic consciousness is the seminal agent, a mobile, insinuating, ghostly vapor." (p. 518)

 

Vampirism in Dorian's relations with the painting: Dorian is amused by the attentions of Basil and Lord Henry, but as a narcissistic "beautiful boy" he himself doesn't feel particularly drawn to either of them. When Basil admits how much he is captivated by Dorian, Dorian can't imagine feeling such an attraction to other human beings: "...he could not help feeling infinite pity for the painter who had just made this strange confession to him, and wondered if he himself would ever be so dominated by the personality of a friend. Lord Henry had the charm of being very dangerous. But that was all. He was too clever and too cynical to be really fond of. Would there ever be some one who would fill him with a strange idolatry?" (Chapter 9)

 

But Paglia points out that Dorian comes to have that feeling of idolatry toward Basil's painting of him: "As the oblivious beautiful boy, he can fall in love with no one--except himself. What fills him with 'a strange idolatry' is his own mirror image. Dorian falls into erotic subordination to Basil's painting. [...] The picture of Dorian Gray is the fetish of a Romantic cult of self-love." (p. 525)

 

Initially, however, Dorian is rather conflicted about the painting. When he first views the finished painting the beauty of the figure both attracts him and makes him feel trapped: As a visual record of his youth and beauty, the painting will increasingly become a reminder of how much he is aging and losing that same youth and beauty. Dorian breaks into tears and says, "How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June... [...] I am jealous of the portrait you have painted of me. Why should it keep what I must lose? Every moment that passes takes something from me and gives something to it. Oh, if it were only the other way! If the picture could change, and I could be always what I am now! Why did you paint it? It will mock me some day—mock me horribly!” (Chapter 2)

 

And from this despair arises his Faustian outburst which later appears to have animated the portrait: "If it were only the other way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that—for that—I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!” (Chapter 2)

 

However, once the painting begins aging and showing the wear and tear of Dorian's hedonism even as Dorian himself remains young and fresh, Dorian's fascination with the painting increases to the point that he elevates it to the status of a holy object (an objet d'art) and sets himself below it. Paglia says, "Wilde systematically charts the painting’s ritual sequestration. Basil refuses to exhibit it. Dorian accepts it as a gift but, as it starts to change, conceals it behind a screen, then a drapery, and finally in a locked attic room. The painting becomes holier and holier as it becomes more and more daemonic." (p. 513)

 

Furthermore, as the painting becomes a visual record of Dorian's sins, it traps him as much as it did when it was merely a record of his youth and beauty. Again, this entrapment is aesthetic, hierarchic, and thus "vampiric." Paglia says, "The painting is a sinister vampire-object, invading the consciousness of its human servants. Basil’s premonition that Dorian’s personality will vampirically “absorb” him is redramatized in Dorian’s relation to his portrait. The picture absorbs Dorian’s mental energy to the point of obsession. He cannot stop thinking about it. [...] The portrait literally captivates Dorian, controlling him by a magnetism mimicking his glamourous magnetism over others. Like a jealous parent or lover, it summons him back from the outside world to its airless cell. And Dorian is never tranquil except when there. Between him and his portrait is a ghostly umbilical link, like the incestuous bond between Romantic twins." (p. 526)

 

The height of vampirism occurs when the painting comes alive and murders Dorian in much the same way that Dorian previously murdered Basil. Paglia says, "The painting feeds on Dorian, until in desperation he murders Basil, a propitiatory blood-sacrifice before an objet de culte, from whose bondage he fights to be free. But the painting will be satisfied with no other victim but Dorian. The finale is one of the uncanniest moments in literature. Killing Dorian, the painting achieves its ultimate vampirism, triumphantly regaining 'all the wonder of [its] exquisite youth and beauty.' The painting finds the elixir of eternal youth by shedding Dorian’s blood." (p. 526)

 

The Dionysian component: Violation of boundaries, hedonism, and chaos

To recap: As I said above, people become androgynes in order to still the anxiety of modern life. Apollonian-leaning androgynes indulge their Apollonian side by practicing aggressive aestheticism and hierarchism, and they repress their Dionysian side. But if Apollonian-leaning androgynes become overly obsessed with their aesthetic pursuits, their Dionysian side can cause them trouble.

 

To spell it out: The main challenge for all androgynes is to avoid being drawn out of their bubble of detachment by over-indulging in some attraction or passion. When Apollonian-leaning androgynes observe proper limits and boundaries and manage to avoid obsessing and over-indulging, they can preserve their androgyne detachment while continuing to enjoy their aesthetic pursuits. We saw an example of this in Chapter 13: Lord Byron's epic poem Don Juan features an androgyne hero who avoids entrapment by staying in constant flight: The poem is essentially a travelogue of sensual adventures around Europe that is light, breezy, and picaresque in tone. Paglia says, "Don Juan's skimming is a defense mechanism, a compromise between earth's primitive chthonianism and sky's repressive Apollonianism. Byron keeps moving, reclaiming space from mother nature. [...] Byron fears the femme fatale and female stasis." (p. 359)

 

But the repressed Dionysian side is never quite absent. If Apollonian-leaning androgynes ignore proper boundaries and limits and become overly obsessed with their aesthetic pursuits, their Dionysian side may return in daemonic form as a descent into Dionysian hedonism, chaos, and self-destruction. One such example is Balzac's androgyne Sarrasine in Chapter 15 of Sexual Personae: Sarrasine becomes infatuated with another androgyne, leading to his destruction.

 

In The Picture of Dorian Gray Basil, Dorian, and Lord Henry are three Apollonian-leaning androgynes. Like Balzac's Sarrasine, Basil and Dorian allow themselves to be caught up in excess and obsessiveness, leading to their destruction. Lord Henry, on the other hand, observes limits and avoids obsessions: Like Byron's Don Juan in Chapter 13 of Sexual Personae, Lord Henry preserves his aloof detachment and makes it through the novel unscathed.

 

Taking them one at a time:

 

Basil's obsessiveness: Like Dorian and Lord Henry, the artist Basil is a Decadent androgyne. Modern life is unpredictable, and it causes him anxiety. Modern self-awareness torments him. At one point Basil says, "The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live—undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. They neither bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it from alien hands. Your rank and wealth, Harry; my brains, such as they are—my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray’s good looks—we shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly.” (Chapter 1)

 

As I mentioned above, Basil normally calms his anxiety by devoting himself to his work and generally tries to ignore the distractions of people and life. Against habit, however, Basil allows himself to be drawn out of his androgyne bubble of detachment when he meets Dorian at an evening party. Basil becomes obsessed with Dorian's appearance and "personality" at first glance; Paglia says that Basil's obsession with Dorian takes the form of "a hierarchic submission to a glamourous personality," which she characterizes as "sadomasochistic enslavement." (pp. 512-513) 

 

Initially Basil observes traditional artistic boundaries with Dorian. In Chapter 9 Basil says that his early paintings of Dorian were run-of-the-mill and unremarkable: "It had all been what art should be--unconscious, ideal, and remote." But then one day Basil decides to paint Dorian as he sees him, in other words, from a position of "sadomasochistic enslavement" and adoration. Basil himself knows that he has crossed a line: "One day, a fatal day I sometimes think, I determined to paint a wonderful portrait of you as you actually are [...] But I know that as I worked at it, every flake and film of colour seemed to me to reveal my secret. I grew afraid that others would know of my idolatry. I felt, Dorian, that I had told too much, that I had put too much of myself into it." Basil finds the finished painting so disturbing that he refuses to exhibit it and gives it to Dorian. (Chapter 9)

 

Basil's obsessiveness and lack of boundaries results in his death in Chapter 12 when he gets worked up about Dorian's bad reputation in high society and resolves to confront Dorian about it. Basil lectures and insults Dorian for the entire chapter, in great detail. But Basil's tirade is an enormous violation of their relationship. As I described above, the hierarchism of decadent aesthetes results in a harsh, rigid social structure. The two men had known each other 20 years at that point in the novel (the murder occurs on the eve of Dorian's 38th birthday), and over that span of time Dorian had always held the higher social position. So Basil's tirade represents a tremendous breach of manners and personal boundaries, and Dorian warns him more than once to stop. By the end of his rant, Basil himself fears that he has said too much; Dorian is ultimately driven to distraction by Basil's insolence and kills him. 

 

Looking back on the murder later in the novel, Dorian bounces between regret over the loss of an old friend and righteous rage at Basil's lack of respect. In Chapter 16 Dorian thinks, "Indeed, what right had Basil to have spoken to him as he had done? Who had made him a judge over others? He had said things that were dreadful, horrible, not to be endured." In other words, there is no automatic right to free speech in the harsh hierarchic world of Decadent aesthetes. Even old friends may have to pay with their lives when they speak out of turn.

 

Dorian's obsessiveness: As I said earlier, Basil's portrait awakens Dorian as to the power of his youth and attractiveness, and Lord Henry suggests how that gift might be used for social climbing. Dorian's problem is that social climbing and power represent a slippery slope. He pursues those ends to the point of extremism and hubris, and he awakens his repressed Dionysian side resulting in his downfall.

 

To spell it out a bit more: In his initial appeal to Dorian, Lord Henry suggests that with his youth and charisma Dorian is in a position to ignore the ethical concerns that plague lesser men and instead give free reign to hidden desires. He says that the true aim of life is self-development, that is, "to realize one's nature perfectly." He suggests that other people are too timid to do what they really want--too held back by fear of religion and social disapproval--but that Dorian with his youth and attractiveness is in a position to realize a "New Hedonism" and indulge "passions that have made you afraid, thoughts that have filled you with terror, day-dreams and sleeping dreams whose mere memory might stain your cheek with shame." (Chapter 2)

 

Lord Henry is suggesting that Dorian Gray is in a position to act as he pleases without repercussions or fear of social disapproval; his youth and attractiveness will favorably dispose most of society toward him even in the event of scandal. As Paglia says, Dorian wields the natural charisma of the narcissist or the celebrity. 

 

This idea of unleashing hidden passions is especially attractive to androgynes. As I said above, androgynes detach themselves and live in a self-contained bubble in order to still their anxiety about the modern world. But living in a self-contained bubble can turn into a prison. In other words, the typical androgyne frees himself from anxiety by distancing himself from the world, but that freedom comes at the price of passivity, solipsism, and self-imprisonment.

 

To be able to act freely without fear of negative consequences: This provides relief from the anxiety that circumscribes the lives of androgynes. But Lord Henry also warns Dorian repeatedly that youth and attractiveness only last a few years and that Dorian must move quickly if he wishes to capitalize upon this opportunity.

 

Freed in this manner from the need to preserve his detachment and passivity, Dorian throws himself into an affair with the young actress Sylvia Vane. When Dorian behaves cold-heartedly toward Sylvia and she kills herself in despair, Dorian notices that Basil's painting of him has changed: It displays "lines of cruelty round the mouth." 

 

Dorian realizes the import of such a change: "Yes, he remembered it perfectly. He had uttered a mad wish that he himself might remain young, and the portrait grow old; that his own beauty might be untarnished, and the face on the canvas bear the burden of his passions and his sins [...] Surely his wish had not been fulfilled?" (Chapter 7)

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Fearful of the change, he initially contrives to use the painting as a compass steering him toward positive influences in life: "For every sin that he committed, a stain would fleck and wreck its fairness. But he would not sin. The picture, changed or unchanged, would be to him the visible emblem of conscience. He would resist temptation." (Chapter 7)

 

But it also occurs to him that the painting can serve as a serendipitous aid extending his youth and attractiveness into the distant future, and Dorian decides: "Eternal youth, infinite passion, pleasures subtle and secret, wild joys and wilder sins—he was to have all these things. The portrait was to bear the burden of his shame: that was all." (Chapter 8)

 

It later occurs to him that perhaps he should try to remedy the situation: "For a moment, he thought of praying that the horrible sympathy that existed between him and the picture might cease. It had changed in answer to a prayer; perhaps in answer to a prayer it might remain unchanged." But he concludes that it would be foolish to waste such an opportunity: "And yet, who, that knew anything about life, would surrender the chance of remaining always young, however fantastic that chance might be, or with what fateful consequences it might be fraught? [...] If the picture was to alter, it was to alter. That was all. Why inquire too closely into it?" (Chapter 8)

 

Dorian then seizes upon this new opportunity, not as a cover for transgression but rather to create a new aesthetic: He wishes to join together the sensual and the spiritual and create a new union of the two. Upon coming into his inheritance he contemplates his future and thinks, "in his inmost heart he desired to be something more than a mere arbiter elegantiarum, to be consulted on the wearing of a jewel, or the knotting of a necktie, or the conduct of a cane. He sought to elaborate some new scheme of life that would have its reasoned philosophy and its ordered principles, and find in the spiritualizing of the senses its highest realization." (Chapter 11)

 

Dorian felt that high society was too dismissive of the sensual side of life; Dorian wished to affirm the value of the senses and put them at the same level as the intellect: "[I]t 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 the dominant characteristic. [...] Yes: there was to be, as Lord Henry had prophesied, a new Hedonism that was to recreate life and to save it from that harsh uncomely puritanism that is having, in our own day, its curious revival." (Chapter 11)

 

This resolution gives Wilde, as the author, opportunity to talk about his own theories on Decadent aestheticism; as I said above, most of Chapter 11 of The Picture of Dorian Gray is devoted to Dorian's attempts to mirror Huysmans' experiments in cultivating a sense of beauty by investigating the allure of jewels, perfumes, fine tapestries, music, etc. as chronicled in A Rebours. 

 

Dorian's aesthetic research starts out as a healthy Apollonian interest in western art and culture as prompted by Huysmans' book. But Dorian's quest for esoteric beauty and mysteries of the ages takes him increasingly into the realm of historical evil and monstrosities. As I said above, Decadent aestheticism doesn't recognize ethical bounds; Paglia says, "The aesthete is an immoralist." (p. 410) Wilde concludes Chapter 11 by stating, "Dorian Gray had been poisoned by a book. There were moments when he looked on evil simply as a mode through which he could realize his conception of the beautiful." (Chapter 11)

 

So this becomes the mark of Dorian's obsessiveness: His inability to set limits on his exploration of aestheticism. The same thing happens in his consumption of food, drink, and intoxicants: In experimenting with opium, he becomes dependent upon it and increasingly frequents opium dens on the outskirts of the city. Dorian transitions from studying beautiful things to studying all things, including sin, simply as different manifestations of aestheticism. He is unable to see and respect boundaries or limits to his research.

 

As Dorian sees it, his youth and attractiveness make him immune to social disapproval, thus freeing him from anxiety; and freedom from anxiety allows Dorian to exit his bubble of detachment and engage with the world. Once Dorian realizes the secret of the painting, he expects the painting to serve the same purpose by extending his youth and attractiveness out for decades or more. When Dorian realizes the power of the painting, he thinks, "This portrait would be to him the most magical of mirrors. [...] Like the gods of the Greeks, he would be strong, and fleet, and joyous. What did it matter what happened to the coloured image on the canvas? He would be safe. That was everything." (Chapter 8) As he sees it, the painting was supposed to shield him from anxiety while he indulged all the luxuries and temptations the world had to offer. 

 

But as time goes on, Basil's painting increasingly haunts Dorian. Dorian's growing depravity is recorded on the painting, and instead of calming his anxiety the painting increasingly turns into one more source of anxiety for Dorian. The author says that Dorian comes to regard the painting with a "fear that seemed to him at times to be almost too great to be borne." (Chapter 11) He is terrified that the painting might be discovered by others, and he is both terrified and fascinated by the record of his depravities that it exhibits.

 

The painting drives him to visit opium dens for relief from his fear, and the opium dens in turn drive him back home to stare at the painting: "Upon the walls of the lonely locked room where he had spent so much of his boyhood, he had hung with his own hands the terrible portrait whose changing features showed him the real degradation of his life, and in front of it had draped the purple-and-gold pall as a curtain. For weeks he would not go there, would forget the hideous painted thing, and get back his light heart, his wonderful joyousness, his passionate absorption in mere existence. Then, suddenly, some night he would creep out of the house, go down to dreadful places near Blue Gate Fields, and stay there, day after day, until he was driven away. On his return he would sit in front of the picture, sometimes loathing it and himself, but filled, at other times, with that pride of individualism that is half the fascination of sin, and smiling with secret pleasure at the misshapen shadow that had to bear the burden that should have been his own." (Chapter 11)

 

The anxiety prompted by the painting becomes a festering wound that is insupportable for a Decadent androgyne. Ultimately Dorian only sees two ways to break the spell of the painting: Prayer and confession, or living a life of such goodness and purity that the painting erases the record of degradation and evil and reverts back to its original portrayal of Dorian's youth and beauty. 

 

The first option, prayer and confession is out of the question. At a minimum, it means losing the benefits conferred by the painting; and confession would mean being held accountable for 20 years of accumulated sins. In fact, Dorian kills Basil over this very point: Basil insists that Dorian must pray, which drives Dorian into a murderous rage. 

 

To spell it out in more detail: On the night that Basil comes to Dorian's home and holds him accountable for his poor reputation around town, Dorian becomes so angered at Basil's insolent tirade that he resolves to show Basil the painting. This confrontation between Basil and Dorian is a breakdown of Decadent hierarchism on both sides: For 20 years Basil has worshiped Dorian, and for 20 years Dorian has respected Basil's integrity and hidden his sordid excesses from Basil. But when Basil violates hierarchy, Dorian is driven to do the same: He probably intends to use Basil's devotion to him to make Basil an accomplice in his misdeeds, much as he subsequently does in the case of Alan Campbell when he compells the latter to dispose of Basil's body. 

 

But when Basil sees the painting and draws the appropriate conclusions about the state of Dorian's soul, Basil repeatedly insists that Dorian pray. Prayer is the one thing Dorian cannot do; Dorian turns Basil down twice and finally murders him in a fit of rage. Basil's insistence that Dorian pray is yet one more act of hierarchic insolence. Both men have lost their androgyne detachment and are in the grip of their daemonic Dionysian. The Decadent hierarchy that had preserved their relationship for decades has been shattered and discarded, and all that is left is between them is Dionysian excess, chaos, and destruction. 

 

Eventually Dorian tries the second of the two paths that I mentioned above: He resolves to do good deeds to others on the hope that this will cause the painting to revert back to its previous state. But the painting doesn't change to reflect a good deed that he does, and he realizes that under the circumstances his good deeds could be interpreted as self-serving: "Had it been merely vanity that had made him do his one good deed? Or the desire for a new sensation, as Lord Henry had hinted, with his mocking laugh? Or that passion to act a part that sometimes makes us do things finer than we are ourselves?" (Chapter 20)

 

That leaves him only the route of prayer and confession. But now a confession would result in execution for the murder of Basil, and Dorian refuses to even consider the possibility seriously: "Confess? Did it mean that he was to confess? To give himself up and be put to death? He laughed. He felt that the idea was monstrous." (Chapter 20)

 

But that leaves Dorian trapped in a state of continued torment by the painting. As I said at the beginning of this essay, the feature that the androgynes have in common is a desire to calm their anxiety. The painting was originally supposed to relieve Dorian of anxiety by preserving and prolonging his youth and attractiveness as a shield against society's disapproval. But the painting has become a source of anxiety itself. With confession out of the question, Dorian resolves to simply destroy the painting: "But this murder—was it to dog him all his life? Was he always to be burdened by his past? Was he really to confess? Never. There was only one bit of evidence left against him. The picture itself—that was evidence. He would destroy it." (Chapter 20)

 

This action, however, represents another breakdown of Decadent hierarchy. As I described above, Dorian's fascination with the painting has elevated it to the status of a holy object; the painting is hierarchically dominant and has a "vampiric" hold on Dorian. Just as Basil's insolence was a cause for Dorian's outrage, Dorian's attack on the painting represents a violation of the hierarchic rules that govern the painting's existence, leading to Dorian's own destruction.

 

Lord Henry refrains from obsessiveness: Like Dorian and Basil, Lord Henry is a Decadent androgyne. Like them, he is driven by a need to distance himself from the Dionysian freedom of modern life and the anxiety it engenders. As Paglia says, "Lord Henry longs for 'a mask of glass' to shield him from the chthonian 'sulphurous fumes' of life." (p. 535)

 

But Lord Henry differs from Basil and Dorian in that he is able to preserve his androgyne detachment throughout the novel. He is like Byron's Don Juan: He remains aloof and avoids becoming snared and trapped in drama. Lord Henry instigates others to engage in misadventures, but then he steps back and takes no part in those misadventures himself. He admires and studies Dorian, but he keeps his distance throughout. Nothing pulls him out of his comfortable bubble of androgyne detachment and passivity.

 

For example after Dorian tells Basil and Lord Henry of his sudden passion for the actress Sylvia Vane, Basil frets about the advisability of Dorian's affair. When they are alone Basil asks Lord Henry, “But do you approve of it, Harry? [...] You can’t approve of it, possibly. It is some silly infatuation.” Lord Henry responds, “I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now. It is an absurd attitude to take towards life. We are not sent into the world to air our moral prejudices. I never take any notice of what common people say, and I never interfere with what charming people do. If a personality fascinates me, whatever mode of expression that personality selects is absolutely delightful to me. [...] Besides, every experience is of value, and whatever one may say against marriage, it is certainly an experience. I hope that Dorian Gray will make this girl his wife, passionately adore her for six months, and then suddenly become fascinated by some one else. He would be a wonderful study.” (Chapter 6)

 

Lord Henry doesn't even react when Dorian sullies the reputation of Lord Henry's own sister Gwendolen. Basil brings up the incident when reproaching Dorian about his misdeeds: "I know you and Harry are inseparable. Surely for that reason, if for none other, you should not have made his sister’s name a by-word. [...] When you met Lady Gwendolen, not a breath of scandal had ever touched her. Is there a single decent woman in London now who would drive with her in the park? Why, even her children are not allowed to live with her." (Chapter 12)

 

One might think that Lord Henry might bear some resentment toward Dorian on such a point. But when Lord Henry and Dorian interact at the end of the novel, there isn't the slightest hint of awkwardness between them. They still address each other with exactly the same mix of warmth and formality as 20 years previously. Hierarchical proprieties and distance have been maintained throughout. Spending a final evening together in Chapter 19, Lord Henry invites Dorian to play the piano and says, "Play me something. Play me a nocturne, Dorian, and as you play, tell me, in a low voice, how you have kept your youth. You must have some secret. I am only ten years older than you are, and I am wrinkled, and worn, and yellow. You are really wonderful, Dorian. You have never looked more charming than you do to-night. You remind me of the day I saw you first." (Chapter 19)

 

A bit later that same evening Dorian is fretting about the painting and about the sins he has committed, and he appears on the verge of confessing everything to Lord Henry. At one point Dorian reproaches Lord Henry with instigating his downfall by giving him Huysmans' book A Rebours: Dorian has come to realize that Decadent aestheticism is a slippery slope. Dorian says, "[Y]ou poisoned me with a book once. I should not forgive that. Harry, promise me that you will never lend that book to any one. It does harm.” But Lord Henry deftly sidesteps the accusation: "My dear boy, you are really beginning to moralize. [...] You and I are what we are, and will be what we will be. 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..." Lord Henry changes the subject.  Eventually Dorian departs: "As he reached the door, he hesitated for a moment, as if he had something more to say. Then he sighed and went out." From there Dorian goes home alone and has his final confrontation with the painting. (Chapter 19)

 

As always, Lord Henry refuses to get pulled into either confrontation or intimacy. He turns away drama with a quip or a witticism. Like Byron's Don Juan, Lord Henry tap-dances his way through life without engaging or connecting; throughout the novel he remains the ideal untouchable Decadent androgyne. As a result, the disasters that befall Basil and Dorian leave Lord Henry unscathed.

 

Summing up

To sum up: I said above that:

• Paglia sees the Decadent androgyne in terms of two components that coexist and complement each other: A primitive Dionysian side and a sophisticated or modern Apollonian side; and

• Apollonian-leaning androgynes indulge their Apollonian side by practicing aggressive aestheticism and hierarchism, and they repress their Dionysian side.

 

Dorian's conscious Apollonian side is the aestheticism he practices in full view of the public, in other words, his public persona. His repressed Dionysian side is his tendency to run to excess and indulge hedonistic impulses. Dorian keeps his public persona seemingly proper and above reproach by projecting his Dionysian misadventures onto Basil's painting and concealing it from view. The locked attic room with the painting serves as his unconscious: There he discards his worst impulses, absolves himself of responsibility for them, and forgets about them. 

 

Separating the Apollonian from the Dionysian in this manner is Dorian's way of keeping anxiety at bay. Thus Dorian lives a very Apollonian life curating an aesthetic philosophy and lifestyle. But aestheticism is a slippery slope with no bottom in sight, and Dorian is poor at limits and boundaries. He indulges his aestheticism to excess, which awakens the repressed Dionysian in daemonic form, and Dionysian impulses keep irrupting into his life in the form of hedonism, visits to opium dens, murder, etc. 

 

Across the years the two sides--Apollonian public persona and Dionysian private persona--increasingly collide and taint one another. Dorian's Apollonian public persona is increasingly damaged by rumors of crime and excess; and the Dionysian painting increasingly becomes a source of fascination and anxiety for Dorian himself. Dorian is pulled from his bubble of androgyne detachment by hedonistic excess and anxiety about the painting to the point that the vampiric hierarchic relation existing between Dorian and the painting breaks down and one or the other must be destroyed in the conflict.

 

As Paglia puts it, art is normally Apollonian because it separates out some aspect of the environment, freezes it, centers it, and turns it into a hard, glittering object for examination and admiration. Art is Apollonian because it transforms living, breathing things into frozen objets d'art. But when Dorian is able to alter the painting by projecting his hedonistic impulses upon it, the painting becomes Dionysian by virtue of metamorphosis.

 

Paglia says, "Wilde’s assumptions are normally Apollonian. [...] What is odd about the picture of Dorian Gray is that it is in Dionysian metamorphosis. The changing painting insults beauty and form: Dorian calls it 'the misshapen shadow,' 'the hideous painted thing,' 'this monstrous soul-life.' Nature and art war for supremacy in it. Painting is invaded by a daemonic form-altering power [...] Apollonian painting is dissolving and putrefying in Dionysian fluidity." (pp. 528-529)

 

Again, it's a collision of Apollonian and Dionysian. Repressed Dionysian material increasingly taints the conscious Apollonian material. As Paglia puts it, "The novel proceeds by a daemonization of the Apollonian, my principle of Decadent art." (p. 513)

 

As for Basil, his story arc mirrors Dorian's. Basil projects his own Dionysian into Dorian in the form of subordination to a vampiric superior. But just as the painting increasingly becomes a source of fascination and anxiety for Dorian, Dorian becomes a source of anxiety and fascination for Basil. Basil becomes increasingly concerned with Dorian's reputation and feels that their bond gives him the right to interfere and berate Dorian: Basil is increasingly pulled from his bubble of androgyne detachment by anxiety about Dorian to the point that the existing hierarchic relation between them breaks down. Short-term Dionysian emotion and obsession clash with 20 years of Apollonian propriety and structure, and one or the other must be destroyed in the conflict.

 

Lord Henry, on the other hand, represents the solution to the problems faced by Dorian and Basil. Decadent androgynes crave detachment from society and the anxiety it engenders, but detachment requires consistency and strong boundaries. Freedom is a slippery slope into chaos, so detachment and peace require giving up some freedom of action. Lord Henry is able to maintain that trade-off.

 

Paglia suggests that Lord Henry represented an ideal which Wilde himself wished to emulate. At the start of the next chapter Paglia says that the character of Lord Henry represents the link between the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray and the play The Importance of Being Earnest; she says that Lord Henry "is first of all the Decadent aesthete—Wilde’s own pose in real life. He symbolizes the aristocracy toward which the middle-class Wilde, like Balzac, aspired." (p. 531) 

 

Unfortunately, Wilde was unable to follow Lord Henry's example. As Paglia describes (starting on p. 524), a few years after the publication of The Picture of Dorian Gray Dorian met and fell in love with his own "beautiful boy," Lord Alfred Douglas, and became so embroiled in Douglas' affairs that Wilde eventually outraged high society and ended up in jail for two years. Deprivation, hard labor, and ill health in jail likely contributed to Wilde's early death at age 46, a year after his release from jail.

 

In other words, Lord Henry was Wilde's artistic model for aesthetic boundaries and distancing--a variation on Byron's Don Juan, the carefree androgyne seducer. But in real life Wilde ultimately ended up acting like Basil falling under the spell of Dorian--or Dorian falling under the spell of the painting--to the point of obsession and destruction. Instead of Byron's Don Juan, Wilde ended up acting the part of Balzac's tragic androgyne Sarrasine, drawn out of his bubble of detachment by an infatuation that leads to self-destruction.

 

In the next chapter of Sexual Personae, which covers Wilde's play The Importance of Being Earnest, Paglia will argue that Wilde was excessively Apollonian in his life and aesthetics: The result was that he was in denial about the "chthonian power" of the Dionysian, which eventually emerged in daemonic form to trip him up.

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Link: Return to Notes on Sexual Personae

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~Posted November 9, 2025