ACTING OUT GENDER: PERFORMATIVITY AND BECOMING LORD HENRY WOTTON IN OSCAR WILDE'S THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY

Abstract

According to her, gender and sexuality are an ongoing mode of becoming. According to him, while Oscar Wilde praises specific feelings and thoughts, Lord Henry "endorses every feeling, thought, dream, and impulse, rather than any particular" (Nunokawa 1997:158). [...]he finds his escape in his writings. [...]his fantasy is crushed by reality.

Headnote

Abstract: The paper examines performativity in the Nineteenth Century Victorian Novel, especially the resistance to dictated male performativity and its results, illustrated in novels by male authors such as Oscar Wilde, in his "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and its character Lord Henry Wotton. Trapped by the male roles dictated by society, Lord Henry finds relief in talking to other people about his desires. In a platonic teacher-student relationship, he leads Dorian into his desires and finds escape from his stereotypical gender through him.

Key words: masculinity, Oscar Wilde, performativity, Queer Theory, Victorian literature

1. Introduction

The topics of sexuality and gender in The Picture of Dorian Gray have been discussed for decades. However, little has been said on issues like what happens when gender norms are opposed by the characters in the novel and how the consequences of those actions were shaped by Oscar Wilde. When it comes to Queer Theory, most academics preferred dealing with sexuality in Dorian Gray rather than performativity and the Heterosexual Matrix of Victorian high society. Performativity is a term best explained by Judith Butler (1993, 2004) in her books on queer theory. According to her, gender and sexuality are an ongoing mode of becoming. The world is like a stage and we are the actors on this stage, where we perform our duties and roles. We are teachers, students, engineers, men, women, bisexuals, heterosexuals, gays, lesbians and so on. We play our roles as expected from us by society, and we usually perform unconsciously. Any problem in this world can be viewed within this theory of performativity; therefore, it is important to discuss Wilde's novel from this point of view. The paper will examine performativity in the Nineteenth Century Victorian Novel, especially the resistance to dictated male performativity and its results as reflected in Wilde's only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray; special attention will be paid to the character named Lord Henry Wotton, who arguably shows characteristics of Wilde himself.

In The History of Sexuality, Foucault (1978:3) explains how gender was perceived in the 19'" century: "A single locus of sexuality was acknowledged in social space as well as at the heart of every household, but it was a utilitarian and fertile one: the parents' bedroom". This means that any other form of sexuality was considered illegitimate. For people with illegitimate sexualities, Victorian Society created punishments and ways of othering them. Again Foucault says:

The brothel and the mental hospital would be those places of tolerance: the prostitute, the client, and the pimp, together with the psychiatrist and his hysteric - those 'Other Victorians', as Steven Marcus would say - seem to have surreptitiously transferred the pleasures that are unspoken into the order of things that are counted. (Foucault 1978:4)

There were other ways of punishing those who deviated from normative sexuality. The Criminal Law Amendment Act, for instance, punished a person who committed a buggery act to penal servitude for life and for a term not less than ten years. Oscar Wilde, who suffered because of the Amendment Act, writes: "I must say to myself that I ruined myself' (Wilde 1997:1071), which makes it clear that he felt guilty for his sexual experiences. In addition, he states that: "I allowed pleasure to dominate me. I ended in horrible disgrace." (Wilde 1997:1071). His moral dilemma could be seen in his works and this peaked when he was put into prison.

Some writers, such as Jeff Nunokawa, defend the point of view which states that Oscar Wilde is similar to Lord Henry Wotton for their defiance of "the Love that dare not speak its name" (1997:157) and for "praising specific ones" (1997:158). According to him, while Oscar Wilde praises specific feelings and thoughts, Lord Henry "endorses every feeling, thought, dream, and impulse, rather than any particular" (Nunokawa 1997:158). However, what they had in common was their talking about desire, which should have been avoided in the Victorian Period. Nunokawa defines Lord Henry as an advocate for "sexual passion" (Nunokawa 1997:160). Another similarity between the author and his character is, as Duggan (63) puts it, that "Dorian lives according to what Lord Henry professes", which is very much like a pederastian view of Wilde: "the older man teaching the young boy the ways of life and warfare, how to become a man" and "...sex was a big part of this interaction between men and boys" (Duggan 64). But reading such relation was opposed by Sinfield when he said uThe Picture of Dorian Gray invokes the queer image, to some readers at least, despite at no point representing it" (qtd. in Richler 1); Sinfield clearly opposes Nunokawa and Kosofsky Sedgwick by emphasizing that the latter's search for a "gay scenario" does not really work, since "Wilde was neither gay nor homosexual" (qtd. in Luckhurst 1995: 337). Barbara Charlesworth also discusses the similarities and differences between Lord Henry and Oscar Wilde; she points out that three male characters (Lord Henry, Dorian Gray and Basil Howard) have some of Oscar Wilde's characteristics. Wilde himself in a letter to a friend says that Dorian Gray "contains much of me in it. Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry, what the world thinks me: Dorian what I would like to be." (qtd. in Caroll 2005:290).

In The Histoiy of Sexuality, when talking about the confinement of sex in the Victorian Period, Foucault (1978:3) says that "on the subject of sex silence became the rule." Articulating the word loudly was out of the question. That is why The Picture of Dorian Gray was shocking to the Victorian reader: Lord Henry Wotton talks about the strictly forbidden. He says "The only way to get rid of temptation ... is to yield to it" (Wilde 1997:16). Stuck in the male role of husband, dictated to him by society, Lord Henry finds relief talking to other people about his desires, the things he wants to do and the things he could not do. In a platonic teacher-student relationship, he leads Dorian within his desires and, in this way, he finds an escape from his never-ending cycle of stereotypical gender. This teacherstudent relationship is very clear in the novel, with the dominance of Lord Henry over Dorian Gray. Luljeta Muriqi (9) explains: "In regard to his pedagogic role, Lord Henry realizes this, quite early in the novel, at his very first meeting with Dorian". A fictional character, Lord Henry plays many roles in his life, which he performs mostly unconsciously. Butler says:

If gender is a kind of a doing, an incessant activity performed, in part, without one's knowing and without one's willing, it is not for that reason automatic or mechanical. On the contrary, it is a practice of improvisation within a scene of constraint. (Butler 2004:1)

In this "scene of constraint", Lord Henry finds relief in his new found pederastía teacher role. He embraces it and uses it as an escape from his other performative roles. His roles can be described as a teacher to Dorian, a frustrated husband and a high socialite.

I do not think that we can be entirely sure which role is more dominant in his life, since all of them are equally important to him. But we will analyze each of them, trying to establish their consequences and the connections between them.

Throughout the novel, most of Lord Henry's roles are heterosexual normative roles. Butler (1993:126) says that "heterosexual privilege operates in many ways, and two ways in which it operates include naturalizing itself and rendering itself as the original and the norm". His "natural" roles do not put him in danger. However, one of the roles he performs takes him to a place from where he cannot come back. As he is a teacher of desire, he turns Dorian into a personification of his own desires and the result of his escape from the normative gender. His teacher role, however, causes the collapse of his married life in the end. This is not just a punishment for Lord Henry Wotton, but also a warning to Oscar Wilde himself, who is gender resistant and ends in prison, carrying a sense of regret in his heart all the time. Lord Alfred Douglas, a young aristocrat, and Wilde's intimate friend, sees Wilde's days in prison from a different perspective however: he thinks that Oscar Wilde did not regret what he had done; "Bosie", as Wilde called him, comments on Wilde's De Profanáis:

I am convinced it was written in passionate sincerity at the time, and yet it represents a mere mood [...] which does not even last through the 250 pages of the book. (Hyde 1963:208)

After a careful analysis of each performance with his interaction with other characters in the novel, we can see the results. Although he wants to resist the norms of the society, since he is still a part of it, he will not be able to escape the destiny written for him by society through Wilde's pen.

2. Lord Henry's role as Dorian's teacher

To understand Lord Henry as a teacher, we need to know the student-teacher relationship in Ancient Greece, since Oscar Wilde studied Ancient Greek in Dublin and Oxford and was very much interested in Greek culture and literature. Neil McKenna suggests that the novel's and character's first name is a reference to the Greek Dorians. He states:

Oscar had taken John Gray's surname, changing his Christian name to the suggestive Dorian - a name replete with implicit paiderastia. The Dorians were a tribe of ancient Greece, inhabiting the major cities of Sparta, Argot, and Corith. The Dorians were generally held responsible for the spread of paiderastia throughout ancient Greece. (McKenna 2014:24)

As soon as he meets Dorian, he starts making suggestions that lead us into believing that he is gradually becoming a teacher for Dorian and that Dorian abides by it, and would do everything Lord Henry says. He is ready to have a teacher, and Lord Henry is there, ready to take up the role. At the beginning of the second chapter of the novel, Dorian says: "I want to learn them. They are perfectly charming" (Wilde 1997:14). In the same chapter, right after the two meet, Lord Henry tells Dorian not to go in for philanthropy. Dorian instantly, like a student, asks: "I want you to tell me why I should not go in for philanthropy" (Wilde 1997:15). This is the beginning of their pederastian relationship. Of course this relationship will never be an active one; but one in which they will just talk - one teaching the other the ways of life as he would like to live it, not as he actually does.

3. A frustrated husband

As expected from a member of Victorian High Society, Lord Henry was a married man. Hence, he becomes the direct personification of the Victorian Man. We barely see Lady Wotton in the novel. This is very similar to Wilde's life, since we rarely see Oscar Wilde side by side with Constance Lloyd, his wife. It does not mean that he is completely free from the norms of the society he lives in; he only does not fit in, in many ways. Therefore he finds his escape in his writings. He states what he thinks through his characters. Lord Henry says that "one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties" (Wilde 1997:7). What does he tell us here? It is the perfect definition of marriage for Oscar Wilde. You carry out your role as a husband as the society wishes but, it is only a deception. Marriage is a kind of game one lives in one's life, in which one does not have to talk with one's partner or even live with him/her. It is a "theshow-must-go-on" type of relationship, in which one attends parties and is present at social events in order to be seen together. Lord Henry declares: "I never know where my wife is, and my wife never knows what I am doing" (Wilde 1997:7). However, he does not do something different with his life. He does not want to live a normative life, but he does not change the way he lives either. He only talks about it. His conception of love is also out of the ordinary. He does not think that a relationship should be monogamous, though he is in one. He suggests that "those who are faithful only know the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who know love's tragedies" (Wilde 1997:12). These contradictions make him an interesting character for us: on the one hand, he does not agree with what society forces him to do, on the other, he does exactly what he is expected to do. His behavior and sometimes even his talk reveal this. When he is asked what he would like to change in England, instead of saying what he actually thinks, he states that his only wish for anything to change in England is its weather. But throughout the novel, he talks a lot about pleasure, desire, and their absence in a marriage.

Lord Henry is a man who is tired of life. He expresses his frustration especially with his life as a married man when he says "Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious: both are disappointed" (Wilde 1997:35). Belonging to a gender which you don't want is tiring. He may have thought that he would be relieved when he gets married, since he fulfills the wishes of the society. What happened was that his new role put more performative weight on his shoulders. As a single man, he had the role of brother, maybe, that of a young man who needs to get married; as a married man, he acquired more responsibilities. Family life is the focus of society. It is where our morality comes from. Any other form of gender performativity was seen as immoral in the 19th century, and it is still seen in the same way today by some people (e.g., by those who are against gay mamage; for them, family is sacred and a source of morality).

With this weight on his shoulders, Lord Henry gets disappointed, as he does not get what he wants from his life as a married man. So we often hear him complain about this marriage; however, he never intends to end it. Maybe this is because he thinks women as "decorative sex" (Wilde 1997:35). Lord Henry Wotton is so frustrated in his marriage, in which is associated with this "decorative sex", that he cannot fulfill his role entirely. Throughout the novel, there are no hints at his having a child, for example. Arguably, Lord and Lady Wotton do not have a child. This leads to the question whether they are the symbol of the Victorian couple which Foucault would describe as a reproductive one. The Wottons are the image of the hypocrisy of Victorian family life itself. He lives his role in front of the audience as a person of the high class. But his fantasies are different from what he experiences in his life.

Butler (2004:1) says: "One does not 'do' one's gender alone". One does gender for the others. We may say that Lord Henry puts in a two-gender performance: one when he is with Dorian, and the other in his life in general. While the former is characterized by talk rather than action, the latter is more about action without many words. His performance or action in the latter can be exemplified by his marriage. He talks about marriage in general as something terrible that should not be approached by anyone in his right mind. Even people around him see his frustration and hear constant grouching about marriage. In the middle of the novel, Dorian says to Lord Henry: "I know what you are going to say. Something dreadful about marriage. Don't say it." (Wilde 1997:69). It is not difficult therefore to realize that Henry's marriage is nothing but an act required by society. His role as a married man exhausts him and his escape from reality is represented by Dorian, who becomes his walking desire, his one and only young friend. Dorian is his escape route, a harbor that he can go to. Dorian makes a similar confession in the book when he says "...It never would have happened if I had not met you. You filled me with wild desire to know everything about life." (Wilde 1997:36). Filled with desires by Lord Henry, Dorian becomes more than what Lord Henry expects. At first, Dorian is a mere student, a personification of Lord Henry's fantasy. But after a while, Lord Henry's fantasy shatters, as Dorian does the unexpected for Lord Henry: he kills a man. Killing a man, though acceptable for the lower classes, is not for someone of the high class society: "Crime belongs exclusively to lower orders" Lord Henry tells Dorian (Wilde 1997:147).

4. Conclusion

Lord Henry is punished by Oscar Wilde in the end. When his wife runs away with another man, he seems to care, which proves that his social role is important to him. A break-up represents failure, especially if the reason behind it is passion and sexual desires. In short, his fantasy is crushed by reality. In the end, he says:

Poor Victoria, I was very fond of her. The house is rather lonely without her. Of course, married life is only a habit. But then one regrets the loss even of one's worst habits. Perhaps one regrets them the most. They are such an essential part of one's personality. (Wilde 1997:147)

Gender transformation is not easy when society opposes it. Today society is still an obstacle for gender fluidity; though not as insurmountable as it was for Wilde or Lord Henry. We can live our lives more freely, at least without the threat of being put into prison for our sexuality. Oscar Wilde's novel tackled a new topic for his time and created a wind of change, contributing to the gradual progress in the history of Gender and Sexuality.

References

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