Comparing Sin In Picture Of Dorian Gray And Hay Rebours

Des Esseintes and Dorian

A man with a copious amount of sin will collapse under the weight of his guilt just as a tortoise with a shell gilded in precious jewels and gold will collapse under the weight of it’s wealth. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and À Rebours (Against Nature) by Joris-Karl Huysmans explore similar ideas. Not only did À Rebours inspire Dorian Gray to leap into his life of sin in The Picture of Dorian Gray in the form of the ‘yellow book,’ but it was also said to have inspired Wilde’s only novel. In both works, the authors explore complementary ideas related to physical sensations, beauty, and art. À Rebours is called ‘a novel without a plot’ for good reason, it focuses entirely on sensation rather than plot with Huysmans’s particular urge to overwrite details. Countless pages are spent simply describing a color or the tastes of an alcoholic drink. What Des Esseintes hears, smells, sees, tastes, and feels are all huge parts of À Rebours, “It was then that the drama really began. Clutching the arms of his chair, Des Esseintes had felt a cold sensation in his cheek, stars and swum before his eyes and, in the grip of unbelievable agony, he had started stamping his feet and bellowing like an animal being slaughtered. A cracking sound was heard: the molar broke in two as it came out; he felt then as if his head was being wrenched off, as if his skull was being shattered” (Huysmans 42),
temperature, pain, sound, and then smell and sight: “He believed that sense of smell could experience pleasures equal to those of hearing and sight, since every sense was capable through natural aptitude and expert cultivation, of apprehending new impressions, multiplying them many times over, co-ordinating them, and with them composing that whole which constitutes a work of art; and, in a word, it was no more abnormal that an art of selecting aromantic fluids should exist, than other forms which separate out sounds, or strike the retina of the eye with variously colored rays of light” (Huysmans 93), Huysmans made careful consideration to get as many feelings out of Des Esseintes as possible. Wilde does the same thing, but on a smaller scale in The Picture of Dorian Gray, Lord Henry himself believes: “One could never pay too high a price for any sensation” (Wilde 65). Smell: “She flitted out of the room, leaving a faint odour of frangipanni,” (Wilde 54), sound: “She answered, lingering over his name with long-drawn music in her voice, as though it were sweeter than honey to the red petals of her mouth” (Wilde 95), etc. Both authors knew integrating human senses into their writing was how to make a reader understand a point of view, and how to convey their story. Starting from the the first page of the preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wilde includes thoughts on beauty, as it is a central theme to his book, “Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming.
This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated” (Wilde 5), to acknowledge beauty in life is to prove oneself as cultured, and as civil. Dorian Gray is considered beautiful, even after his downfall and after he is described as anything but kind. With this in mind, it can be seen
how expressions illustrating one’s opinion for the beauty of a person or object might be contrived. À Rebours takes a similar stance on beauty while personifying Nature, “Moreover, there is not one single invention of hers, however subtle or impressive it may be thought to be, that human spirit cannot create… and the moment has come to replace her, as far as that can be achieved, with artifice” (Huysmans 20). If flowers can be replicated with taffetas and painted papers, and gushing waterfalls can be produced by clever pumps, is there anything unique about a unique beauty? Huysmans would likely say no and his feelings fall onto Des Esseintes. Both authors dismiss beauty as something superficial. Art is an entirely separate issue from beauty in these two novels. In order for great art to function, it must tell a story or reveal information, it should do so much more than evoke emotion. The fact that is does so is expressed in cryptic and blunt ways in both books, from the actual aging of the portrait of Dorian to Basil’s explanation of why he doesn’t want to share his painting: “Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not the sitter… I have shown in it the secret to my soul” (Wilde 13), and in À Rebours a painting of Salome made by Gustave Moreau comes alive against the will of the reader, “The diamonds adhering to her moist skin glitter; her bracelets, her belts, her rings, flash and sparkle; on her triumphal gown-- pearl-seamed, silver-flowered, gold-spangled-- the breastplate of jewellery, each of its links a precious stone, bursts into flame, sending out sinuous, intersecting jets of fire, moving over the lustreless flesh, the tea-rose skin, like a swarm of splendid insects whose dazzling wing-sheaths are marbled with carmine, spotted with saffron yellow, dappled with steely blue, striped with peacock green” (Huysmans 45), Huysmans is able to create a world of color and movement with just half a paragraph, showcasing art for what is should be. To tell a tale with an image is a feat most authors don’t undertake, but the portrait of Salome is visible to the reader, like a story within a story, while Basil’s painting encompases his very soul.
Des Esseintes and Dorian, as respective main characters are not alike in the same way their creators were, but juxtaposing them brings to light the similarities between the two books. The Picture of Dorian Gray speaks more of beauty than À Rebours, but it conveys a similar effect, just as À Rebours provides infinitely more detail that The Picture of Dorian Gray. Both authors use some of their main motifs in the same ways. To truly look at the two and see the resemblance between them is stunning.