Comparison between the philosophical work “Aut-Aut” by Søren Kierkegaard, published in 1843 with two Victorian novels, as well as to make some personal considerations about them.
The Danish philosopher explores three existential choices: aesthetic, ethical and religious that each of us can choose and adopt in the course of life.
Specifically, focusing on the first two options, the author mentions the figures of “Don Giovanni”, the main character of Mozart’s opera, and “Judge Wilhelm” as examples of these two ways of life.
However, there might be two other characters equally suited for these two roles: Dorian Gray and Dr Jekyll, that is, the protagonists respectively of “The picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde and “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” by Robert L. Stevenson.
Dorian Gray is the aesthete: a hedonist who lives on appearances, a man, who wants to live his life as a work of art, who will reach the tragic epilogue in the desperate attempt to make art coincide with life. Thus, his portrait, painted by the artist Basil Hallward, provides a visual representation of his condition, a metaphor of the relationships between art and life, contradictory and irreconcilable. He chooses no code of values except a strong belief in the power of Art, a term which also means Beauty and Truth. Additionally, he lives his life as intensively as possible, knowing that any moment could be his last one. He only pursues absolute pleasure, but it is something unattainable in life, maybe something we could find in the afterlife, if there is anything there.
Thus the “ab-solute” becomes “dis-solute”.
Dorian Gray can enjoy intense emotions and experiences but their effect is fleeting, and we, as readers, are the spectators of “a series of these intensely felt moments” which can only convey him momentary pleasure. This situation produces boredom, the lethal ingredient to destroy a man’s rectitude. Moreover, he starts leading a morbid, dissolute life, falling into crime and vice. He totally rejects any moral responsibility in order to get what he wants, always encouraged by his tempter and “friend” Lord Henry Wotton.
Henry Jekyll, instead, represents the perfect Victorian gentleman: he is a benevolent, highly-reputed doctor, leading a quiet and sober life, obsessed with the system of Victorian values which implies respectability, order and decorum, seriousness in the public sphere. He lives in a social reality where he cannot deviate from his measured behaviour and where, reputation, outward appearance are priorities, in other words, what other people think of you is more important than what you think of yourself, thus public opinion dominates individual conscience and truth.
In this sense, this strict, ethical life becomes a sort of prison for Dr Jekyll; he feels oppressed, torn because he is forced to repress his true self, his personality which also requires freedom, satisfaction of senses, dissoluteness and brutality. He realizes that he is a composite being, a mixture of good and evil, thus he feels an urgent need to free himself from the “bonds of obligation”
Now we can see how these two possibilities, aesthetic and ethical life, share boredom, oppression the former by avoiding any choice, the latter by annulling his individual’s personality.
Søren Kierkegaard shows us that boredom raises anguish in the individual which, after reaching its climax, evolves into despair. Similarly, this negative evolution is strongly visible in the novels mentioned before.
Dorian Gray, wishing to stay forever young, makes a sort of deal with the Devil, not properly conscious: as the years pass his youth and beauty remain intact while his portrait will get older and older, absorbing the marks of his vice, criminal acts and moral degradation.
Wilde’s character continues his dissolute life until, disgusted by the ugliness of his portrait, he stabs it but, by doing so, he kills himself. The portrait regains its original beauty, while the signs of ages and physical corruption appear on Dorian’s dead body.
Dr Jekyll, instead, discovers a potion which enables him to project himself into a repulsive and violent being, Mr Hyde, who practices all the vices inspired by his evil nature.
However, if on the one hand, the drug seems to be the perfect solution, since a dose of it, allows the scientist to release his inner impulses, on the other, he realizes that the back-to Jekyll potion is increasingly failing and that he is losing any control over Hyde. At this point he chooses to kill himself, annihilating his counterpart too.
Concluding, these works make us reflect on the importance of making choices in our life.
Who and how would we like to be? This is a question we have asked ourselves at least once. Certainly, we are not referring to our social status or job career, but to the kind of human being we want to become. The Aesthete is concentrated only on himself, forgetting that our personal freedom ends where that of the other’s one begins; the ethical man, on the contrary, lives a life according to the rules imposed by society, denying his inner will.
It is impossible to be totally good because evil is inherent in our nature and existence, but what we can do is finding an inner balance, a guideline, our light at the end of the tunnel, and put ourselves in the best possible place in this “gray zone”, we call life.
Tommaso Magi, 3A
Liceo Classico a.s. 2022/2023
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