The Aestheticism in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray: A Genetic Structuralism Analysis

Abstract

The Picture of Dorian Gray is a Victorian fiction written by Oscar Wilde, an Irish. This research focuses on the representation of ‘aestheticism’ within the novel itself. The aestheticism belongs to a concept which emphasizes on a liberation of art and literature from any tendencies of Victorian in 1891. The aestheticism promotes its slogan art for art’s sake. The representation of aestheticism is depicted on the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray through several events that focus on art and beauty over everything. A beauty becomes an important aspect and also dominant in every characters. They adore and worship beauty. There are three problems to discuss within this research. The first is about the representation of aestheticism in the The Picture of Dorian‘s novel, the world view constructed in the novel, and the last is politics of aestheticism in The Picture of Dorian Gray. Thus, in completing this research, I use a qualitative research method, and data to analyse and identify this research. The data gathered in this research are some precise informations and facts about aestheticism and some informations of social condition at Victorian age. This research applies Goldmann’s theory of genetics structuralism. This theory is used to construct the world view of aestheticism in the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. The analysis is divided into some parts focus on the representation of aestheticism in the novel which also reveals several facts. The analysis exposes the aestheticism which counts on beauty of art and life, and the aesthetcism which serves the pleasure and hypocrisy through some characters and yellow book within this novel. Furthermore, the semantic poles of binary opposition is constructed to identify the author world view of aestheticism and also the politics of aestheticism as the strategy of Wilde in promoting the new concept of aestheticism through this novel.