Given the increasing seriousness of Dorian’s plight and
the ever-darkening state of his mind, the bulk of Chapter Seventeen
serves as comic relief, as the dialogue between the duchess and
Lord Henry is light and full of witticisms. Their exchange points
to the relatively shallow nature of their society, in which love
and morality amount to an appreciation of surfaces: as another lady
of society reminds Dorian in Chapter Fifteen, “you are made to be
good—you look so good.” Here, morality is a function not of action
or belief but of mere appearances.
Lord Henry’s dismissive conception of England as a land founded
on beer, the Bible, and repressive, unimaginative virtues serves
as biting commentary of traditional, middle-class English morality.
According to Lord Henry, a population whose tastes run to malt liquor
and whose morality is determined by Christian dogma is doomed to
produce little of artistic value. His sentiments align with the
aesthetics’ desire to free themselves (and art) from the bonds of
conventional morality and sensibilities. Sympathetic as Wilde himself
was to Lord Henry’s opinions, he provides here a vital counterpoint
to these opinions: the duchess’s criticism that Lord Henry values
beauty too highly begs us to ask the same question of Dorian and
the aesthetic philosophy that dominates his life.
