Unexualism In Oscar Wilde's The Picture Of Dorian Gray

“Because you have the most marvellous youth, and youth is the one thing worth having” (Wilde 29). This sentence became the root that sets in the mind of Dorian Gray which in turn instils the fear of aging.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde first published in July 1890 on the magazine of Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine and immediately caused an uproar due to its perceived allusion to homosexuality as it was an assault on the repressive Victorian Era during that time.

Many of the literature works that we assume as successful in fact deal with more than only one subtext. Freud believed that personality has three structure; the id, the ego and the superego (McLeod). And this Freudian theory is reflected on Wilde’s successful novel of The Portrait of Dorian Gray. The major characters of this book mya represent which explain Freudian concept of the ego, the superego and the id basically. Lord Henry a character who is constantly trying to encourage Dorian to engage in acts of

Wilde was claimed to be a follower of the Aesthetic Movement which begs the question, what was he trying to imply in creating his novel? Wilde was not the leader of the Aesthetic movement but rather “a spokesman for the late 19th-century Aesthetic movement in England, which advocated art for art’s sake” (Luebering 133). Dorian’s story shows how aesthetic beliefs can ruin the life if to pursue them blindly. In this way, Oscar Wilde not only demonstrates the Aesthetic movement in all its glory but also tells about its poisonous effect to moral that can occur. Basil worshipped Dorian’s and art’s beauty too much. When Sybil performed badly, Dorian thought her beauty was diminished and he ended things with her. The Picture showed that not only Wilde did not just challenge the society’s beliefs; but he seemed to promote his own