The Phenomenology of Dorian Gray

After an initial attention to the study of religion, Hegel comes to understand the need of philosophy to think about life, and therefore also about contradiction (which religion cannot understand); to get to understand reality he needs philosophy. Thus was born the Phenomenology of the spirit (1807): a coming-of-age novel through a path that leads the natural conscience to become spirit. If Hegel had set his novel in nineteenth-century Victorian London, and had called natural consciousness by the name of Dorian Gray, he could have told of how the young man sees his own overcoming, in a dramatic way, learning about himself and becoming, through the experience of consciousness, one with the world. Then, once he becomes spirit, in the Philosophy of the Spirit (Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Basic Outline 1817) he progressively affirms itself, until he becomes absolute spirit, touching the sphere of art (in relation to the other two disciplines).

Thesis: attention to the object - Dorian Gray is portrayed

Dorian arrives in London as a beautiful and naive young man, a natural conscience who thinks he has to see the world only as it is presented, thinking that objective experiences come from the outside: he does not realise that they are a product of his, because all this that exists, to exist, was thought. When he first meets the painter Basil Hallward he begins to understand that his common way of seeing things is inadequate: the truth is not in the object but in the subject. His sensitive certainty is in fact put in crisis because it is illusory. He then comes to think that the truth is in the perception of things, in substance. Once he gets to know Lord Henry Wotton, a friend of the painter, his perception of him is also challenged, when he understands that the thing is a set of properties. He goes from perception to intellect, or rather to understand that the truth is not in the thing itself, in his case the beauty of youth, but in the relations of this with other things, in the link of cause. In this way, consciousness becomes self-awareness, or awareness of the self. Once the portrait is completed, he curses it, because once he gets older he will no longer have all the advantages obtained thanks to his youthful appearance, which instead will be preserved by the painting.

Antithesis: attention shifts to the subject - the portrait in its relations

Dorian, now aware of the self, is moved by the desire for recognition. He cannot recognise himself alone, in the portrait, because the search for himself would fail: he would remain closed in on himself and bound by desire, which in this case coincides with remaining forever young. To recognise himself he must have practical experiences, measure himself with other things, must go beyond subjectivity and relate to another individual aware of the self. This is because one self-awareness is recognised in the other through the gaze, in which it discovers desire. Just as he had met the painter, Dorian meets Sibyl Vane, being struck by his way of acting in the theatre: through a glance. This human aspect, which goes beyond the natural dimension, opens the awareness of self to the conscience, the desire for recognition that both self-awareness ask for through the exchange of glances. The two self-consciousnesses, both wanting the other to recognise themselves, enter into a fight.

The first form of fight, according to Hegel, is eros. The two young people fall in love almost immediately, as they both want the recognition of the other. But love is a dynamic that fails in its purpose, since it always remains in opposition in seeking the desire of the other, who thus objectifies itself. At this point Sibyl no longer wants to act, but to feel real love and seek independence alongside Dorian. The boy, however, in love with her only for her role of actress, repudiates her, and the girl ends up killing herself. The struggle for recognition is a mortal struggle precisely because it is real, that is, the two self-consciousnesses bring their real being into play: being for oneself and nothing else, becoming independent, which is born from this fight.

In the real fight between two aware of the self, one of the two must yield to the other, submit. In doing this, one self-awareness is willing to risk its own natural being, it is not afraid of losing it, while the other does not risk it. Basil, who has come to comfort Dorian for the death of his fiancée, does not back down in confessing his secret veneration for the boy, while Dorian, in order to confess the secret of his gesture that had led the girl to commit suicide, goes back out of fear. From here there is a transition to a relationship of inequality between the two self-consciousnesses, imagined by Hegel with the figures of lord and servant. After an initial imposition of the conscience of the lord on that of the servant, there is a reversal. The servant, through work, which represents the experience of redemption, is aware of the difference between natural conscience and self-awareness, while the lord remains naive. Dorian quickly overcomes the girl's death, convincing himself that he never loved her for being herself and that therefore she never existed, while Basil remains tied to the idea that he had had of Dorian since his beauty conquered him. The lord is in a state of stillness that does not proceed beyond immediacy, he is dependent on the servant, while the servant, in a state of motion, overcomes the world and becomes independent.

However, independent self-awareness does not find itself in the world, it discovers itself to be something else and becomes alienated. Dorian notices that the portrait begins to change, due to his sins. His soul has been part of the picture since he had sought in it an acknowledgement that he had not found. This final crisis leads him to become unhappy conscience: he becomes double within himself, he finds himself divided into conflict and opposition as he seeks self-recognition, but has no conclusion as he does not come out of himself. He discovers himself as a negation, devoid of world and reality, which he tries to project into a spiritual form, enclosed in the picture - another from himself, but which in this way is always within himself. He arrives at the maximum alienation.

Synthesis: recognises unity between subject and object - Dorian in the portrait learns the spirit of time

The only way to get out of this is to recognise himself in reality, or to grasp himself as the essence of reality. Dorian comes to reason thanks to Lord Henry, and in particular to a book that he gave him, in which he recognises his life. It leads him to overcome the opposition and understand that the subject and object of the portrait are the same. Dorian becomes aware of the spirit of time: the memory, which preserves that of previous ages. This is exactly what the portrait does, showing the story of its subject in a sensitive form. Resuming history, consciousness becomes absolute knowledge, overcomes contrasts. The spirit is understood in the form of a concept: a thing itself in its meaning. Real becoming emerges from knowledge itself and is rational. The book influences him and leads him to have experiences as a subjective spirit, proper to the individual and regardless of relationships with others: for each decision he returns to analyze how the appearance of the painting had changed and compares it with himself.

Philosophy of the spirit

These experiences and the passing of the years, however, bring consequences in relation to his objective spirit: for his right, or rather his freedom to be a person as he possesses the ability to understand and will, he chooses to lead a life of vices and pleasures, which bring him a bad reputation and spread rumours about him. The only reason why hs is still accepted by society is his beauty and his wealth, or rather his ownership. He is the owner of himself as he is of things. When Basil confronts him about his actions, neither the abstract laws that bind him externally nor the morality that should bind him internally, being free reflection on the rationality of his own actions, are unable to stop Dorian from killing the painter. Neither the laws of society nor morality assure Dorian's good behaviour, until at the dawn of the next day, he returns to life in the institutions, where the ideals of good and rationality come true, and he has to come to terms with the ethics. His conscience has to cope with the insertion into society, in relation to the police that he sees almost immediately from the scene of the crime, the questions asked by the butler and his friends, which he feels as if they were an interrogation, up to the meeting with James Vane, who wants to avenge himself for the death of his sister. Indeed, ethics, which safeguards the autonomy of reason without renouncing duties, lead him to embark on a path of expiation.

Convinced that he had behaved in the right way and that he had done good, Dorian returns to his portrait thinking of finding the sinless image he initially had. But instead, for him the work of art is a manifestation of absolute spirit, knowledge of himself as he is in reality: the portrait is even more impious than he had left it, and shows him his hypocrisy. Art captures the absolute in an immediate form, in relation to the sensitive content that does not deceive the viewer, Dorian Gray. The work is a product of the spirit, which represents the development of the concept, as it is linked to a sensitive content. After reaching self-awareness, Dorian's last action is to stab the painting, to hit himself unknowingly instead. It is the death of art, which combined with the historical perspective, went beyond itself, in addition to his function, showing the boy the real image of the sins that stained his soul.

Narce Eval 2020