When Soren
Kierkegaard was describing the aesthetical life he had defined three stages:
the “couch potato” (not his words though), which is the least valuable and
interesting kind according to him, indeed the couch potato is only preoccupied by
eating and copulating and he does not rank his pleasures (Homer Simpson could
perhaps be an example of this kind of aesthete). The second stage is the business
man, like the “couch potato” he is willing to satisfy the pleasure principle
that rules animal life (seeks pleasure, and try to avoid harm and pain) however
he is in competition with other people, he wants better things than them, which
makes his life being more valuable and interesting according to Kierkegaard. The
third stage of aesthetism which is much more interesting and valuable according
to Kierkegaard is the stage of the “aristocratic hedonist”.
The aristocratic
hedonist, who is the most refined aesthete does still live by the pleasure
principle but he tries to rank his pleasures so as to satisfy the purest ones
and he rotates those pleasures so as to avoid boredom which is according to Kierkegaard
eventually going to catch up the aesthete. The example of the aristocratic
hedonist given by Kierkegaard is Oscar Wilde.
In this
blog post I want to show that if Oscar Wilde is perhaps an example of the
aristocratic hedonist, actually his characters Lord Henry Wotton and Dorian
Gray in the brilliant novel The picture
of Dorian Gray totally embodies the notion of aristocratic hedonism and
refined aesthetism.
1) They are living by the pleasure
principle
Lord Henry
and his close friend Dorian Gray are both living by the pleasure principle.
Indeed they try are seeking for external pleasure. They try to relate to
another BODY and never to another people (perhaps Dorian is trying in the beginning
before being totally corrupted by the Lord Henry), for instance when he is
asked whether he is happy or not, Dorian replies: “I have never searched for
happiness. Who wants happiness? I have searched for pleasure.”
Lord Henry
(who is inspired of Oscar Wilde himself, and has like Oscar Wilde a brilliant
conversation and both are very fond of clever epigrams) explains that: “Believe
me, no civilized man ever regrets a pleasure, and no uncivilized man ever knows
what a pleasure is”
Moreover
not only does Lord Henry seeks pleasure but he explains that it is the only
thing that matters: “pleasure is the only things that deserve a theory”.
2) They rank their pleasures and
diversify them
Both are
engaged in an endless quest for pleasure but they rank their pleasures and
rotate them to avoid boredom. For instance, Lord Henry who smokes a countless
number of cigarettes says “A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure.
It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?”
This being
said he ranks pleasures to find the purest kinds of pleasure (as mentioned earlier,
according to him cigarette is one of them) but also because he has a very high
opinion of himself that’s also why he’s seeking to pure pleasure and beauty, as
an aristocratic hedonist he despises vulgarity and poverty: “All crime is
vulgar, just as all vulgarity is crime. It is not in you, Dorian, to commit a
murder. I am sorry if I hurt your vanity by saying so, but I assure you it is
true. Crime belongs exclusively to the lower orders. I don't blame them in the
smallest degree. I should fancy that crime was to them what art is to us,
simply a method of procuring extraordinary sensations.”
Dorian Gray
is living by the moto of Lord Henry which is “nothing can cure the soul but
senses” and then when he feels really down, he seeks for higher sensations of pleasure
which he finds in opium (in fact this idea of rarifying the highest pleasure to
preserve its value is one of the characteristics of the aristocratic hedonist according
to Kierkegaard).
3) Boredom and the feeling that they
were masks and that they cannot be themselves is catching them
Lord Henry
is engaged in an endless quest for pleasure as he tries to avoid boredom, he is
very aware of this fact. Indeed he even tells Dorian: “The only horrible thing
in the world is ennui, Dorian. That is the one sin for which there is no
forgiveness”. This being said it turns out that Lord Henry does a good job in
seeking for new and more refined pleasure (like trying to give new and pretty
names to pretty things like flowers) and at the end of the novel it does not look
like that boredom has caught him)
Otherwise,
the very character of Dorian Gray embodies the haunting feeling of not being
able to be himself. Indeed his soul is in the painting and his appearance is
nothing but a mask that hides his hideous and twisted soul. As the story goes
on, Dorian realize that he is a very bad person and he wants to change. However
when he explains how he has spared an innocent girl that he wanted to seduce,
Lord Henry replies that he only did this to experience a new kind of pleasure :
““I should think the novelty of the emotion must have given you a thrill of
real pleasure, Dorian," Interrupted Lord Henry. “But I can finish your idyll
for you. You gave her good advice, and broke her heart. That was the beginning
of your reformation.”
(SPOILER
ALERT)
After that,
Dorian realizes that he is only wearing masks to hide his real Self: “In
hypocrisy I had worn the mask of goodness”. And he stabs the painting in a desperate
attempt to change and thus he destroys his real self and dies.
I hope you
have enjoyed this blog post, I recommend those who have not to read The Picture of Dorian Gray and I wish
you good luck for the midterm exams!
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