The role of surrounding factors in positioning identities: liminality of Dorian Gray in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray

Abstract

Masculinity theory, which has been executing its studies as a distinct branch of interest since 1980s, primarily aims to draw attention to the multiplicity of masculinities to undermine the misconception that there is a single, universal, and everlasting concept of masculinity (Sancar, 2009, p. 26), and it also tries to exhibit the fact that masculine identities are always subject to change in relation to surrounding factors such as ideology and historical elements. Similarly, literary masculinity studies aim to foreground the presence of this multiplicity and variety in literary texts, as well as depicting and pointing out the portrayal of non-hegemonic masculine identities who have the potential of constituting alternatives to the hegemonic ones. In accordance with this target, this study aims to investigate Oscar Wilde’s 1890 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, by concentrating on the fluid identity of its male protagonist with the purpose of exhibiting the fact that even the hegemonic masculinities are subject to change in different contexts. Embodying an alternative masculine identity which is in great contrast with the expectations of hegemonic gender ideology concerning masculinity ideals on one hand, Dorian becomes a hegemonic masculinity model in his own context on the other, which demonstrates the fact that there is not a single and universal type of masculinity, but rather “masculinities” even in the same time interval, culture, and society, and that identities are context-bounded, continuously taking new shapes in relation to surrounding factors.