Therefore, Basil has created an image of Dorian so that he can express his sexuality secretly the picture consequently acts as Basil’s double, physically manifesting his desire for Dorian. Here, Basil alleges that the painting itself says more about the artist than the sitter this indicates that the picture is more of a reflection of Basil than Dorian. The reason I will not exhibit this picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of my own soul.’ It is not he who is revealed by the painter it is rather painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. Again, by failing to exhibit the picture Basil reinforces the fear of public judgement as he worries that exhibiting the picture will allow people to discover his secret. Clearly, Basil has created his own double in Dorian Gray as he informs Harry that he has put ‘too much’ of himself into the picture and therefore cannot be exhibited for this reason. In Dorian Gray, Basil’s painting of Dorian comes to act as Basil’s double it is in Dorian’s portrait that his secret desire for Dorian is implicitly hidden from the public sphere. In this way, the doubled figure comes to physically manifest the excess of the protagonist’s sexuality. Public knowledge of homoeroticism was feared as it was punishable by law. This distinctly echoes the anxieties of the period. It is this fear of public condemnation that provides the purpose for Dorian’s doubling it is only through his doubled ‘Other’ that Dorian’s repressed sexuality can successfully be expressed. 2 This fear of public perception not only results in the repression of sexuality, but clearly informs Victorian Gothic’s preoccupation with the ‘doubled’ self. In Dorian Gray, when informed of Sybil Vane’s suicide, Harry tells Dorian that ‘one should never make one’s debut with a scandal’. In The Picture of Dorian Gray, public opinion is of great significance to the characters, framing and ultimately shaping their respective identities. 1 In Victorian English society, therefore, homosexuality became synonymous with secrecy fear of societal ruin arrest led to a repression of unbridled sexuality. The Labouchere Amendment (1865) meant that ‘any man committing acts of sodomy would be sentenced to life imprisonment’. Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, p.8. ‘The reason I will not exhibit this picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of my own soul.’
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