Aestheticism of Suicide in The Picture of Dorian Gray, Phoebe Mills

In The Picture of Dorian Gray, one of the more subtle themes is the aestheticism of death, particularly that of the suicide of Sibyl Vane. Sibyl was an actress, taking on the persona of various Shakespearian heroines each night at the theatre.

Leading up to her suicide, Dorian was known to her only as ‘Prince Charming’, and both of them romanticized their relationship with the other. In order to comfort Dorian following Sibyl’s death, Lord Henry glorifies her suicide as the only way he knows how to look at events in life is through rose-tinted glasses. In doing so, Lord Henry reinforces the idea that people only exist to satisfy the aesthetic ideals of others, and undermines the loss of her death. It's certainly a conversion of reality into art - Lord Henry is offering Dorian an aestheticized version of Sibyl's death that avoids the messiness of actual life and feeling, and instead aligns her death with the fulfilment, and catharsis, of tragedy, a shaping of loss and pain in art to find meaning and beauty in it.

Lord Henry says to Dorian, ‘The girl never really lived, and so she has never really died.’ The fact that Sibyl has spent her entire life pretending to be someone else means that she does not develop an identity or sense of self, therefore she cannot have lived as herself and cannot have died as herself. This creates distance between Dorian and her death and encompasses one of the most important concepts of the novel, ‘Art imitates life and life imitates art’. Sibyl Vane played tragic Shakespearian heroines such as Juliet and Ophelia, and then she becomes one herself, following in their footsteps to her death via suicide.

Lord Henry repeatedly compares Sibyl’s suicide to art – it is something beautiful, dramatic, wonderful, and a devotion of her love, ‘Someone has killed herself for love of you. . . They make one believe in the reality of the things we all play with, such as romance, passion, and love.’ The beauty in her death for Dorian makes him seem desirable and like a God to be worshipped – which is exactly how Lord Henry views Dorian. The suicide is then described as having, “all the terrible beauty of a Greek tragedy.” Greek tragedy was a popular and influential form of drama performed in theatres across ancient Greece from the late 6th century BCE and one of the biggest troped characters in Greek theatre was known as the Tragic Hero. Dorian’s flaws and sins are obvious in the novel, but Sibyls suicide is certainly the catalyst for the rest of his story, her death aligns him with his role as the Tragic Hero and sets his story on its trajectory.

Sibyl’s suicide can also be compared to stories of Greek mythology, such as the story of Agamemnon’s daughter, Iphigenia, as both girls were portrayed as the ‘innocent young girl’ who was naïve and waiting for marriage to a great Tragic Hero (Iphigenia to Achilles, and Sibyl to Dorian) – only Sibyl committed suicide and was not sacrificed in the same way as Iphigenia. However, her suicide could be interpreted as a self-sacrifice to Dorian. In Greek theatre, no violence was permitted on the stage and the death of a character had to be heard from offstage and not seen. Similar to Sibyl’s suicide, we do not see it, as it occurs ‘off stage’ of Dorian’s life, further reinforcing his Hero role.

Overall, Wilde utilized Sibyl’s innocence and beauty to create art out of her death in order to propel Dorian into his true role as the tragic Hero. It can therefore be argued that – in some respect – Lord Henry was correct when he implied that her death had no meaning, as Sibyl's suicide was only done to create an arc for Dorian, much like the deaths of the various Shakespearian heroines that she portrayed. Wilde aestheticizing Sibyl’s death criticizes wider aspects of society. By merely presenting suicide in his work at the time, Wilde was breaking boundaries between what is acceptable, and what is taboo; but his overall portrayal made the audience question far more than just the act of suicide – it questioned under what circumstances people accept suicide. Can it only be acceptable if beautiful?