The Natural and the Artificial Theme Analysis

Like nearly all aspects of Oscar Wilde’s work, this theme is rooted in aestheticism, a controversial late-19th-century student movement of which Wilde was a part. Aesthetes, or “dandies”, argued that works of art should be measured by aesthetic rather than moral criteria; they also believed that life should approximate a work of art. In explicit reference to this philosophy, Wilde introduces almost every character in the play by comparing him or her to the work of a painter or sculptor. If life is a work of art, then one’s behavior can only be bad art or good art, never nature. The lives of animals and plants are dictated almost entirely by biology, but the lives of human beings are deliberate. Therefore, naturalism is either sloppy art or a cunning facade (“a very difficult pose to keep up”).

Lord Goring, Mabel Chiltern, and Mrs. Cheveley – the dandies of the play – believe that is impossible to act naturally. In different ways, they all disparage naturalism, which seems to them a bizarre and alarming narrow-mindedness. To assert that one particular manner or way of life is “natural” is to believe that there is precisely one correct way to be human – a delusion responsible for most varieties of hate and prejudice. To assert such a thing also appears naïve and laughable. In this play, especially, naturalism is tragicomic.

Wilde’s contempt is not for nature, though, but for the misconception that it is possible to act naturally. The play as a whole does not deny the existence of the natural, nor does it conflate the natural and the artificial. Its characters do refer to one kind of nature in good faith: “nature” as a synonym for “character” or “personality.” Such usage implies that there exists in every person something apart from mannerisms, rouge, and wit. One’s nature, a locus of beliefs and values, can never be fully or accurately conveyed through behavior; this is the true reason that “natural” behavior is impossible. By behaving in a way that is explicitly artificial, dandies like Lord Goring honor and protect the natural.