Chapter 4

“As long as a women can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied.”

“She was the loveliest thing I had ever seen in my life”

Firstly, Oscar Wilde exhibits an extreme emphasis on aestheticism through the use of antithesis, hyperbole and aspects of dehumanization. When Lord Henry was explaining the social values of the victorian era, he said that “As long as a women can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied”. From an obvious perspective, the writer compares the ages of appearance and the actual age of a “woman” and “her daughter”. As the “women” gave birth to “her daughter”, however, it is said here that the “women” who is much older than her daughter desires to look younger than her, illustrating an extreme focus of the external look, which indirectly showcases an aspect of aestheticism. In addition to this, the desire of being younger is hyperbolically exaggerated to being younger than her own daughter, which is impossible, relating to the theme of irrational desires which is constantly emphasized throughout the novel. Furthermore, this hyperbolic expression extends even further to dehumanization. For example, when Dorian is describing his love, Sybil Vane, he says “She was the loveliest thing I had ever seen in my life”, emphasizing the fact that he values her beauty more than her intrinsic qualities, illustrating his fixation and unhealthy obsession with ethereal things only being shown on the outside. Moreover, this also links to how aestheticism was a highly popular movement in the Victorian era, and Wilde excellently shows the paradoxical nature of society through Dorian’s character. 

“He was always late on principle, his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time.”

“Never marry at all, Dorian. Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious: both are disappointed”

Thirdly, Oscar Wilde also subtly challenges social norms during the Victorian period through the use of metaphors, antithesis and hyperbolic expressions. When the author is explaining why Lord Henry was late to the meeting with Dorian, it says “He was always late on principle, his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time”. To begin, the author compares the nature of “punctuality” with a “thief”, a positive and valued moral and personality with a role in the society who everyone despises from the bottom of their heart. This indicates that in Lord Henry’s philosophy, punctuality is not only not valued, but even being seen as a demon that steals his property of time from him, showing his disgust towards this celebrated social value during the Victorian and even modern era, challenging publicly recognized social norms and bringing a new view of such moral value to the readers. In addition, Wilde also utilizes comparisons and hyperbolic expressions to emphasize the unique moral values of characters to intensify the challenge to social norms. For example, Lord Henry said in a discussion with Dorian that “Never marry at all, Dorian. Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious: both are disappointed”. Within the sentence, it is first directly conveyed that Dorian should “never marry”. This directly opposes the Victorian value that everyone should get married and the ones that are not should be ashamed of themselves. The comparison between the two genders “men” and “women” and their cause of getting married: “tired” and “curious” are being compared with the final result: “both are disappointed”, illustrating a sense of hopelessness of all will end pessimistically and tragically, challenging the social norms of marriage to an extreme extend. Furthermore, this also links with the comfortless social norms and the latent rules during the Victorian era, which Wilde dramatically expresses through the subtle characterization of characters.

Contemporary connection:

Even during the current era, shadows of aestheticism still frequently appears in the world around us. For example, on social medias such as Tik Tok and Bilibili, the 

posts and videos from influencers seems engaging and attractive to viewers, some might even feel that they are not residing in the same world. It appears to the viewers that they don’t seem to have to work for living and can focus on their interests while viewers usually doesn’t have the luxury time or the opportunity to devote themselves to what they enjoy. This creates a huge juxtaposition and attracts the viewer’s interest and attention, and helps the influencer to earn economical benefits. However, many might not realize that the influencers also has to work like them, and they spend hours filming and editing the videos after they finish their daily work for their job. The influencers avoides mentioning their repetitive and tedious side, only revealing their captivating angle to the viewers so that the they consistently find wanted contents and will not unfollow the influencer. This exhibites a trend of the appreciation of only attractive and intriguing things, a clear sign of modern aestheticism. 

For instance, there is a famous influencer on Bilibili called “student He” who focuses on sharing technical products and making mechanic structures. He created a video regarding him making a machine that helps him fold paper pigeons, which attracted over 13 million views. However, he explained in an easter egg post that it actually took him almost an entire year to finish the final structure and accomplish the required functions, and he experienced 2 major failures that required him to scrap it and start over again along with countless minor iterations which each took him days to complete. This juxtaposition created between the video and the easter egg clearly exhibited the continual impact of aestheticism in modern society and reality. In brief, even though aestheticism could be seen as a sign of perfectionism, but the effort made during the process should be valued by social norms instead of being ignored and overlooked.