Behind beauty, deception

Aurora Bernardi 5^LL

A.S. 2019/2020
Introduction

External beauty is something that fascinates the human being, it is pleased and attracted by
it. People tend to create beauty to delight other, also through their own image. There is an
idealised concept of beauty, which is in constant change and to which everyone aims.

The literary works I am going to analyse in this essay are related to the corrupt beauty, which
attracts man, but in its flurry of attraction a secret deception is hidden.
In particular, I will concentrate on the image of the artist deceived by his muse. I will highlight
this aspect in Spanish and English literature, by examining Oscar Wilde’s The picture of
Dorian Gray and Bècquer’s legends and poetry works.

Dorian Gray, the portrait of corrupted beauty

The picture of Dorian Gray is a novel of decadentism written by Oscar Wilde in 1890.

The story is set in London at the end of 19th century. The protagonist is a young and naif
man, Dorian Gray, he is extremely beautiful to the point that he captures the attention of
Basil Hallward, a painter. One day while Basil is doing a portrait of him, he meets Lord Henry
Wotton, who introduces him to his view of life, which only relies on pleasure. Dorian is
strongly influenced by Henry; he is fascinated by Hedonism. His vision on the world changes
completely. At first, he didn’t give importance to his external beauty, but after seeing his
portrait completed, he is haunted by the desire to pursue eternal beauty. His wish is fulfilled:
the sign of age and sin will appear only on the drawing, while his appearance won’t change.
The influence of Lord Henry grows bigger and bigger on him as the years pass by. He
becomes corrupted, everyone who gets in contact with him ends up killing himself or being
dishonoured, losing every trace of pureness. One day Basil comes to visit him and asks him
why there are such bad rumours about him. Dorian Gray shows him the portrait, the real
image of his soul. Basil is horrified and Dorian, upset by his behaviour, decides to kill him.
After some time, Dorian tries to change, but he is unable to. Taken by a range of anger he
decides to stab the portrait, which in his opinion is the origin of all the bad things that had
happened to him. As he stabs it, he mysteriously kills himself. The portrait gains its original
form, instead Dorian becomes old and disfigured.
There are a plenty of themes discussed in this work, the main are: evil, art and the seek of
pleasure.
The Victorian age plays a central role on how people responded to the beauty, indeed it was
common to think that immorality showed in the physical appearance, as Basil explains to
Dorian, while confronting him:

Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man's face. It cannot be concealed. People talk
sometimes of secret vices. There are no such things. If a wretched man has a vice, it shows
itself in the lines of his mouth, the droop of his eyelids, the moulding of his hands even.

That is why Dorian tricks everyone that meets him. No one believes that such a pure and
preserved face could hide a dreadful soul.
Basil is the one who gets misled the most by Dorian beauty. At first, he is swept away by
the beautifulness and pureness of Dorian, to the point that his creative expression and his
nature is completely absorbed by him. Basil tries to preserve him from the influence of Henry,
but he is not able to. They end up knowing each other, Wotton uses him as a model for an
intellectual experiment, which aims to build the “new Hedonism”. Throughout the whole time
Dorian blames Basil and his portrait for his wicked life, without understanding, that Hallward
had tried to preserve his pureness with his art. Meanwhile Henry tried to make his life a
piece of art as a social experiment, without thinking about the consequences that Dorian
could face. Basil tries to help him when he sees the disfigured portrait, asking him to pray to
free himself from sin, even though he realises that Dorian as a model, an ideal, a flame for
his creative thinking was an illusion all along. Hallward feels guilty, because in that portrait
there is a conjunction of his worship towards the young man and of Dorian’s towards beauty.
Worship and extremes are the actual reason for Gray’s disgrace. He understands only in
Chapter 19, that he should have the control of his life without trusting blindly everything that
Henry says. Dorian himself is deceived by the idea of a hedonistic life, marvellously spotted
by the seven deadly sin, making it perfect by the worship of beauty, by the carelessness of
happiness, by the high indifference of joy. This kind of life is only an ideal, in the end the
leprosies of sin was slowly eating it away without remedy. The exasperation of beauty, the
persecution of perfection, of a model, a muse end tragically the life of Basil and Dorian.
La mujer en Bécquer, una hermosa figura engañadora

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer es un escritor español de Sevilla, que representa a el

romanticismo. Escribe prosa y verso con igual interés. Los temas centrales de su
producción poética son: la mujer, la muerte, la poesía, el dolor existencia y el contraste
entre las ilusiones y las decepciones.
Sus composiciones en versos son recogidas en una colección llamada Rimas. Este nombre
indica una composición aparentemente sencilla, pero, en realidad, son cargadas de lirismos
y recursos poéticos. En su poesía el protagonista es la mujer, probablemente su actitud
hacia ella es influenciada por sus experiencias de vida privada. Empieza a escribir sus rimas
en 1859, un año después de haber conocido a su primera musa y amor: Julia Espín. En
1861 contrae matrimonio infeliz con Casta Esteba Navarro, la que será infiel. Sus rimas
toman la misma dirección, la primera serie se relaza a la poesía y la inspiración; la segunda
trata el amor como algo positivo; la tercera representa a la mujer como fuente de
sufrimiento; la ultima trata de la muerte, la soledad y la angustia.
En la rima XXXIX se ve, de manera muy clara la relación entre el ser hermoso de la mujer
y su alma estéril y cruel. El hombre es engañado a la visión de algo así magnifico, se
enamora de este ser, aun sabe que sufriría, asfixiado en “el nido de sierpes”, que es el
corazón de la mujer. Alguien intenta frenar al hombre y el responde diciendo: “A que me lo
dices?”, es cociente de lo que le espera.

Bécquer escribe muchas obras en prosa, su producción mas importante es Leyendas, en

que son recogidas 28 narraciones escritas entre 1858 y 1864. La obra, que voy a analizar
es: Los ojos verdes.
Los temas de Los ojos verdes son: el amor, la mujer y lo fantástico. La historia cuenta de
Fernando, un cazador, que un día siguió un ciervo herido hasta la fuente de los Álamos,
una zona del bosque donde nadie iba, porque se decía que allí vivía a un espíritu
demoniaco. Desde aquel momento empezó irse a la fuente cada día, en aquellas aguas vio
a los ojos de una mujer verdes, “luminosos y trasparentes”. Aquella mirada encendió en el
un deseo absurdo. Su amigo, Iñigo lo advierte, que aquellos son los ojos del demonio que
habita en la fuente y Ferdinando responde diciendo:

¿Sabes lo que más amo en este mundo? ¿Sabes tu por qué daría yo el amor […]? Por una
mirada, por una sola mirada de esos ojos… ¡Cómo podré yo dejar de buscarlos!
Una noche el hombre y la mujer de la fuente empiezan hablar y se declaran amor. La mujer
demonio arrastra Ferdinando hacia la locura, él no es capaz de entender lo que ocurre y
besa a la mujer cayéndose en las aguas profundas y muriendo.
La mujer en este cuento, también como en la rima, encanta al hombre, que no es capaz
de escaparse da ella. Se aleja de todos los que ama para intentar una nueva aventura, da
la que es fascinado al punto de arriesgar su propria vida. La mujer es un ser malvado, que
utiliza a su belleza, para controlar al hombre y hacerlo sufrir.
El desengaño, pero, quizás no es determinado por la mujer, sino que por el hombre que
se pone un ideal romántico inalcanzable. La desilusión nunca es la manifestación de una
ilusión, que pide demasiado amor y que no pude satisfacerse.

Conclusion

Bécquer and Wilde are two completely different artists, who had completely different lives,
but still they both speak about the hidden deception of beauty, which has the power to get
in control of the human mind. In The portrait of Dorian Gray the strong adoration for
gorgeousness brings man to death, such as it happens in Los ojos verdes.
To worship an ideal of love, or art, or beauty is wrong because you will never get to it, it is
something unreal, a dystopia. The illusion that we have reached the utopia is not genuine,
it is only a temporary hallucination.

Nowadays with the advent of social media, the standards of beauty are growing higher and
higher. The now so-called influencers act as muses to their followers, many people copy
them: how they dress, act and eat. This obsession of a healthy lifestyle brought up by
influencers with no medical acknowledge is becoming dangerous for those who follow their
extreme diets and exercises routine, especially young teens. This apparently perfect and
healthy life turns into an unhealthy obsession. This problem is called orthorexia and it is
classified as an eating disorder, which in extreme cases can become anorexia or bulimia.

Perfection becomes deception when it is worshiped to the brink.

Bibliography

• L. Garzillo, R. Ciccotti, ConteTextos literarios, 2019, Zanichelli

• M. Spiazzi, M. Tavella, M. Layton Culture & Literature 2, 2012, Zanichelli
• O. Wilde, The picture of Dorian Gray, 2008, Gutenberg EBook
• C. Haupt, Oscar Wilde and the Culture of Decadence, 2015, GRIN
• G. A. Bécquer, Rimas y Leyendas, 2010, Amazon Media EU
• F. B. Velazquez, Gustavo Adolfo Becquer: precursor del simbolismo en España,
2006, Espiral Hispano Americana