Semiotics and Representation in Oscar Wilde's: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Semiotics and Representation in Oscar Wilde's: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Thesis statement: Using the theories of semiotics and representation, I will demonstrate Oscar Wilde’s use of signs and representations (in his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray) to create and give meaning to certain fictional objects and characters; especially the portrait of Dorian Gray and the actress Sibyl Vane. Beneath the surface level of the story, these objects and characters act as powerful signs and representations through which Wilde intendeds to communicate much deeper meaning than might at first appear. By interpreting these signs and representations through the theoretical lens of semiotics and representation we will be able to understand some of these deeper meanings.

By using the theories of semiotics and representation we will be able to delve into the realms of signs and representations that are found within this novel by asking questions of the text such as “What are some of the signs and sign makers that appear in the novel?” “What do these signs represent?” “What purposes do these signs and representations have?” “What were the sign maker’s intentions?” The theories of semiotics and representation, which are theories of signs wherein one thing (the sign) stands for (represents) something else (the signified), are useful tools of analysis for the literary critic because literature is created with language and language itself is a system of signs. As philosopher “Claude Levy-Strauss noted . . . ‘language is the semiotic system par excellence; it cannot but signify, and exists through signification’” (Chandler, p. 9). Authors create signs and representations by using language. For example, an author will create fictional objects and characters that signify, on the surface, the fictional objects and characters themselves but the author can also use these same fictional objects and characters to represent something more. Although a lesser author will use signs simply to create fictional objects and characters, a good author makes use of signs, such as fictional characters and objects, in order to communicate complex deeper meanings by creating signs that signify far more than the fictional characters and objects themselves.

As a theory, “semiotics is concerned with everything that can be taken as a sign” and “involves the study . . . of anything which stands for something else” (Eco) and a “crucial consideration that enters into any analysis of representation is the relationship between the representational material and that which it represents” (Mitchell, p. 14). Oscar Wilde's novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, is the story of a complex sign—a picture (or portrait) of Dorian Gray—that is embedded within a complex system of signs (i.e., language) which is the text of the novel itself. The novel’s characters and objects, such as Sibyl Vane and the portrait of Dorian Grey, signify and represent to us far more than what might at first appear to the casual, uncritical reader. One question for the critical reader being: “What more do these fictional characters and objects signify and represent than what they at first appear to signify and represent?” In The Picture of Dorian Gray, the portrait of Dorian is not simply a portrait, nor is Sibyl Vane simply a woman Dorian falls in love with. Oscar Wilde is using these signs and representations to signify much more than this. “One crucial consideration that enters into any analysis of representation is the relationship between the representational material and that which it represents” (Mitchell, 14). The portrait of Dorian can be understood as the representational material that represents Dorian. The portrait of Dorian is an iconic image, a sign that resembles Dorian and points to Dorian who, although absent, might, through his image, be made present to all who see his image in the portrait. The painted representational image of Dorian in the portrait stands for and represents Dorian to others via his likeness; the actual image of Dorian having been reimaged on its canvass

Foucault and the Folly of the Narcissistic Self

We’re now studying the French philosopher Michel Foucault in our Literary and Cultural theory class and I’m finding it difficult, if not impossible, to read his book: Introduction the History of Sexuality. In fact, I’m not reading it; because it’s crap.
When it comes to philosophy and being a philosopher, Foucault is a tawdry imitation of the real thing. He has nothing to tell me. The word philosophy means: the love of wisdom (Greek: philos, meaning: love; and sophia, meaning: wisdom) and there is no wisdom to be found in Foucault’s writings. His writings are certainly pretentious, verbose, and academic, so that he might appear to have been a philosopher, but I can assure you that he wasn’t.
Although I am not a professional philosopher, I can honestly say that there is more wisdom in my one book than in all of Foucault’s books put together. And for one, simple reason: I believe that love and compassion for others is the only real purpose in life, whereas Foucault believes that the only real purpose in life is the domination and exploitation of others for one’s own purposes and pleasures.
There’s no love of wisdom to be found in his writings; quite the opposite. Philosophy is an art, and the philosopher is an artist who seeks goodness, beauty, and truth. Like someone who urinates on stage or affixes a urinal to a museum wall and calls it art, Foucault’s impure “philosophy” can be likened to excrement. And one does not consider excrement art. If anything, his is an anti-philosophy, or a love of foolishness.
As the late Professor of Literature at Boston University Roger Shattuck has pointed out, in his book Forbidden Knowledge: From Prometheus to Pornography, Foucault embraced the moral nihilism of the Marquis de Sade; from whom we get the terms: sadistic and sadism.
What, then, is Foucault’s great and lasting philosophical accomplishment? To tell us that abusing others physically and sexually—and then killing them—is to live the authentic philosophical life.
Shattuck tells us that “Michel Foucault presents as fundamental for the emergence of the modern era out of seventeenth century classicism the fact that Sade revealed to us the truth about man’s relation to nature. Foucault plants his declarations at crucial junctures in his two major works of 1961 and 1966. These four passages reveal the usually obscured center of his ethos:
‘Sadism . . . is a massive cultural fact that appeared precisely at the end of the eighteenth century and that constitutes one of the greatest conversions of the occidental imagination . . . madness of desire, the insane delight of love and death in the limitless presumptions of appetite.’ (Madness and Civilization, 210)
‘Through Sade and Goya, the Western world received the possibility of transcending its reason in violence . . .’ (Madness and Civilization, 285)
‘After Sade, violence, life and death, desire, and sexuality will extend, below the level of representation, an immense expanse of darkness, which we are now attempting to recover . . . in our discourse, in our freedom, in our thought.’ (The Order of Things, 211)
‘Among the mutations that have affected the knowledge of things . . . only one, which began a century and a half ago . . . has allowed the figure of man to appear.’ (The Order of Things, 386)
The last quotation from the final page of The Order of Things does not allude to Sade by name. But, in association with the other passages and in context, there can be little doubt that the great cultural ‘mutation’ welcomed by Foucault refers directly to Sade’s moral philosophy and to its practice in actual life.” (Forbidden Knowledge, 246-247)

A Bakhtinian Understanding of Robert Louis Stevenson’s: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

I turned in a paper for class yesterday, which concerns Russian literary theorist Michael Bakhtin and Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and I figured: "What the heck? I may as well post it here for anyone who might be interested in it. . ."

Literary and Cultural Interpretation

Prof. Larry Shillock

Assignment 1

Student: Alex MacDonald

A Bakhtinian Understanding of Robert Louis Stevenson's: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Thesis statement: Russian literary theorist Michael Bakhtin theorizes that all speech acts, which he calls "utterances", anticipate a response on the part of an active listener.

Three main points to follow: 1) Stevenson's novella, as a whole, is a Bakhtinian utterance of the complex, secondary speech genre; 2) Stevenson's novella, as a whole, elicits a powerful Bakhtinian response from an active Bakhtinian listener; 3) Stevenson's use of Dr. Lanyon's letter, which is of the simple, primary speech genre, ends the narrator's Bakhtinian utterance and becomes caught-up into "actual reality" by being incorporated into the utterance that is the novella—the epitome, according to Bakhtin, of the living, complex, sociologically oriented, secondary speech genre that is: the novel (or, in Stevenson's case: the novella).

Contrary to other linguists, who think of language as a system of signs, Bakhtin emphasizes the sociological nature of language. Theorizing that the spoken word is primary, Bakhtin denies neutrality to language and exposes all "speech acts" as being heavy-laden with sociological presuppositions, because all speakers are also active listeners who have been influenced by—and who are responding to—innumerable, prior, sociological utterances.

Bakhtin theorizes that these sociologically influenced, non-neutral speech acts always anticipate a response from an active listener. As for Bakhtin's concept of the utterance, Bakhtin tells us "The utterance is not a conventional unit [i.e., an abstract, sign-system, unit of speech], but a real unit, clearly delimited by the change of speaking subjects . . ." Bakhtin also tells us that, "Each separate utterance is individual . . . but each sphere [i.e., genre] in which language is used develops its own relatively stable types of these utterances. These we may call speech genres."

According to Bakhtin, there are two types of speech genres: the primary (i.e., the simple) and the secondary (i.e., the complex). For example, the primary speech genre consists of the simple utterances (e.g., words, phrases, and expressions) of everyday life; whereas the secondary speech genre consists of primary utterances which are shaped, according to the spheres in which they are to be used, into the more complex utterances (e.g., scientific treaties, commentaries, novels), which are necessary for complex, socially-oriented communications.

Bakhtin thinks of the novel as a unique genre, because of its living, dynamic, and sociologically oriented nature: "Studying other genres is analogous to studying dead languages, studying the novel, on the other hand, is like studying languages that are not only alive, but still young."

Christ’s Resurrection From the Dead

The resurrection of Christ from the dead is the most important aspect of the gospel. If Christ is not raised, then we remain in our sins (see: 1 Cor. 15). Why then do Christians so often seem to totally forget about the resurrection? Occasionally, I will hear (on the radio) "the gospel" presented without any mention of the resurrection whatsoever. For example, have ever you heard the radio ads for 1-800-NEED HIM? The ads always exhort the listener to turn to Christ, because he died for us. Jesus is there, this group asserts, ready to hear the listener's prayers, because he died for them. And that's it: Jesus died for you so that you can have a relationship with him. So, my question, whenever I hear this sort of thing, is: How does one have a dynamic, living relationship with a dead guy?

If you study the book of Acts, you will find that every presentation of the gospel includes, at the end of the presentation, a declaration that God has raised Jesus Christ from the dead. There is no example, in the Bible, of the preaching of the gospel without the preaching also of the resurrection of Christ; and the call to repentance. Why, then, do so many Christians neglect the resurrection altogether?

The resurrection of Christ from the dead is scientifically impossible. It could not have occurred, period. Perhaps, in the backs of our minds, we know this; and we know how absurd we will sound if we preach as true something which is impossible; scientifically speaking. When Paul preached the gospel to the Athenians, who had gathered on Mars Hill to hear his message, the majority of them rejected his message when they heard (from Paul) of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. This teaching, of the resurrection, was, to these people, ridiculous (see: Acts 17:22-34). Paul, when he was brought before Felix, even went so far as to say that it was: "With respect to the resurrection of the dead I am on trial before you this day" (Acts 24:20).

Is There a New World Coming?

One's view of the future usually determines one's daily actions. If we have hope, and the future looks promising, then we probably have hope for the future. If, on the other hand, we despair, and the future looks bleak, then we will probably have a very low opinion of the future.

As a Christian, I have a particular view of the future; and it's not bleak. That's not to say other Christian's views of the future are as promising; many Christian's believe the world is getting worse and that the end is near. Chaos and confusion, war and pestilence are our only "hopes" for the future. These Christians believe that we are living in the Last Days and that Christ is soon to return to rescue them. To these people, every war—especially a war involving Israel—is simply another "sign" that we are truly living during the end times.