Introduction

This website explores performances of identity in Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth, Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray and “The Importance of Being Earnest,” and David Bowie’s “Ziggy Stardust” persona. In my first blog post, I analyze a scene in which Lily Bart looks at herself in a mirror, contemplating the decay of her beauty from which she locates power and identity. Lily’s self-examination is reflective of commentary from Wharton throughout the novel on the objectification and commodification of women. This scene provides a crucial moment during which Lily commodifies herself, a tragic mistake that ultimately contributes to her downfall. In my second blog post, I examine the Gothic themes within The Picture of Dorian Gray as they illuminate Victorian tropes of duality present in Dorian’s painting as a doppelgänger version of himself. The painting as a kind of mirror reflects Dorian’s soul. Within the novel, Wilde grapples with morality and the purpose of art, as Dorian and his portrait represent the Victorian Age as one of duality in performance and repression of true identity. In my third blog post, I discuss Jack and Algernon’s ironic performance of earnestness, which Wilde employs to criticize his insincere Victorian audience. I compare Wilde’s commentary to that of David Bowie’s in his persona Ziggy Stardust. The adoption of the persona and the message of the album communicates Bowie’s endeavor to hold a mirror up to his audience in a way similar to Wilde, while entertaining ideas on fame and performance. 

Each of these blog posts contain an image of a mirror, as in Lily gazing at herself in a literal mirror, Dorian Gray’s portrait standing in for a figurative mirror, and Wilde and Bowie metaphorically holding a mirror up to their respective audiences. The image of the mirror is crucial in my exploration as I find it to reveal larger themes of each work as well as each creator’s commentary towards their real worlds. I highlight Wharton’s criticism of Gilded Age, high society New York and Wilde’s satire of Victorian England through Lily and Dorian as they reflect these ideas on artificiality and the need to perform, even if means losing yourself. Similarly, I point to the way Ziggy/Bowie’s and Wilde’s audiences fail to comprehend the underlying basis of the art and the performance. Lily, Dorian, and Ziggy reveal the tragic circumstances in which society has conditioned them to perform. Their inability to escape their fate and ultimate deaths enforce the reality that society must change before individuals can break free from the restraints society places upon them, an idea that is relevant for each of these creators in their own personal lives as well. 

Finally, I lay out my final project proposal, which will seek to literally put these three creators in conversation with each other on the topics I explore within their works in this website and what it means to perform identity.