When Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray was published in 1890 it was on the receiving end of some very hostile reviews (Mighall ix). It was so ill-received not because it was poorly written, but rather because of the ideas it presented, ideas which were seen as dangerous and polluting. The reason was that it called into question the bourgeois constructions of masculinity which were considered the norm in nineteenth century England. In previous centuries, the country had been under the control of the landed aristocracy, however, over the course of the nineteenth century, changing political and economic conditions provided opportunities for the rise of the middle class in English society. By the end of the century the middle class had become the dominant class in England and bourgeois values and mores had become the cultural norms.
The masculine constructions of the Victorian period were reflective of these value systems but deeply flawed in that they were extremely restrictive and conservative. This led to class tensions between the bourgeois and the aristocracy which were explored within The Picture of Dorian Gray. The novel was in effect, a criticism of the bourgeois masculine norm through an account of a developing male identity within a setting of conflicted masculinities. Class and masculinity intersect as Wilde uses a composite of the figures of the middle class artist and the aristocratic dandy in order to subvert bourgeois masculine values.
Within this critique, each of the three main characters serves an important function. Basil Hallward is representative of middle class masculinity and serves as a constant reminder of the middle class value system. Then there is Lord Henry Wotton, who rejects Basil’s middle class masculinity through his persona as a dandy. Finally, it is through the character of Dorian Gray that a distinct masculine identity is developed based on influences from both Lord Henry’s dandyism and Basil’s artist character. Dorian...