The Picture of Dorian Gray and Antisemitism

How should someone reckon with antisemitism in their favorite book?

Dear Reader,

The Picture of Dorian Gray is my favorite classic. When I was in high school, I used to read a chapter every night. When I’d reach the end, I would simply start it over from the beginning again. The binding on my original copy is coming apart at the seams. It’s the only book of which I have multiple copies. If I could invite one author to a figurative dinner party, it would be Oscar Wilde (for the drama alone).

And yet! Every time I reach the description of the theatre manager, I physically cringe. Everything that makes Oscar Wilde a great writer (his sharp pen, his ability to characterize evil), he uses to write a description that is dripping with antisemitism: “a hideous Jew, in the most amazing waistcoat I ever beheld in my life,” “smoking a vile cigar,” “greasy ringlets,” “an enormous diamond blazed in the center of a soiled shirt,” “he was such a monster,” “horrid old Jew,” “a most offensive brute,” “fat Jew manager,” “oily, tremulous smile,” “pompous humility,” “fat jewelled hands,” “talking at the top of his voice,” “[Dorian] felt as if he had come to look for Miranda and had been met by Caliban.” I’d like to be clear that I don’t think that words like “fat,” “old,” or “ringlets” are inherently bad descriptors; I take issue with the intentional use of them as antisemitic pejoratives.

While some of these are descriptors from Dorian’s perspective, I don’t think it can be waved off as “Oh, Dorian Gray isn’t a Perfect Character™ and Oscar Wilde was making a point about Dorian’s worldview,” because 1) it’s not like antisemitism is ever implied to be Wrong (the theatre manager is exclusively depicted in an antisemitic way), 2) I’m loath to say that any antisemitism is acceptable in a book published by a goy in the same year all Jews were expelled from Moscow, 3) half of these are descriptors from Wilde’s third-person narration, and 4) Wilde wrote plenty of antisemitic things elsewhere in his work and in his life. For example, this is a quote from a letter about a man he mistakenly thought had Jewish ancestry: “So Tartuffe goes out of my life— Of course the fact of his being a Jew, on his father’s side, explains everything. I hope on the day of St. Hugh of Lincoln there will be a general massacre— but I don’t know when the day occurs. Do you?”

I think that when people discover that their favorite book contains antisemitism, often their first instinct is to make excuses or look away from it or downplay it. I see this all the time when someone brings up antisemitism in Tolkien’s work. People produce his letter to a publishing house in Nazi Germany as though 1) someone has to be a card-carrying member of The Antisemite Club to do antisemitic things, and 2) you get disqualified from The Antisemite Club after you write one letter saying “no thank you” to the Nazis (congrats to Tolkien for taking this brave stance of opposition). I do find it a bit funny that even in the letter he uses race science to describe Jews as a monolithic “gifted people”; the Nazis agreed with him that Jews were a gifted people (too gifted! mustache-twirling puppet masters!), but that’s neither here nor there. Maybe I just find it difficult to read this coyly snide letter when I know it was sent only three months before Kristallnacht, when my family’s shul was burned to the ground and my great-grandfather was beaten in the streets and arrested.

My issue with this approach is that when you pretend the antisemitism doesn’t exist or is somehow excusable, you fail to recognize and confront these persistent antisemitic ideas that continue to exist today. Wilde wasn’t the first to paint Jews as ugly, evil money-grubbers, and he won’t be the last. Modern antisemitism usually doesn’t come dressed in obvious phrases like “horrid old Jew”; often antisemites use words like “globalists,” “Pharisees,” “media/banking/coastal/[insert modifier] elites,” etc. It’s gotten harder to point out antisemitism in recent decades, not because it doesn’t exist anymore but because people aren’t willing to dissect the root tropes that continue to reverberate at a high pitch today. Often when antisemitism is acknowledged by non-Jews, it’s used for political/social purposes to paint The Other Side as morally indefensible. The truth is that it exists in all corners of politics, from all groups of people.

It’s interesting to me that this antisemitic character in The Picture of Dorian Gray is a theatre manager. At the time, this kind of business wasn’t considered highbrow. Wilde describes it as “an absurd little theatre, with great flaring gas-jets and gaudy play-bills,” a “wretched hole of a place,” located “in a labyrinth of grimy streets and black, grassless squares.” Dorian says he “wandered eastward” in London to find the theatre, which I think means the theatre is supposed to be located in the East End. The theatre manager says that “his five bankruptcies are entirely due to ‘the Bard’” (me when I buy the complete works of Shakespeare). Wilde didn’t intend to invoke the “Jews run show business” antisemitic canard (which developed several decades later) in choosing to make this character work in theatre; rather, I think this description partially reflects the historical fact that Jews worked in theatre when it was considered Too Lowbrow. The theatre manager isn’t the only Jew working there; Wilde writes, “There was a dreadful orchestra, presided over by a young Hebrew who sat at a cracked piano, that nearly drove me away.” Hollywood developed from vaudeville and the garment trade (both trades in which Jews were able to work), which is part of the association between Jews and show business (though of course we do not run show business; the dearth of Chanukah movies is proof). Jews have been blamed for many things, but the worst is Cats (2019).

Last week, Dave Chappelle said that the idea of Jews running show business is “not a crazy thing to think, but it’s a crazy thing to say out loud.” He also said, “It’s a big deal, he had broken the show business rules. You know, the rules of perception. If they’re Black, then it’s a gang. If they’re Italian, it’s a mob. If they’re Jewish, it’s a coincidence and you should never speak about it.” He didn’t say it was untrue, just that it was unwise to say. I don’t want to focus on Chappelle specifically; my biggest concern is that a reputable news organization approved a longstanding antisemitic canard and broadcasted it to millions of people.

There is a common thread here. Wilde paints the theatre manager as weirdly rich despite the lower-class nature of the theatre, and the manager is in control of the entire operation to the point that he has Sibyl Vane (who is notably not Jewish) bound in some kind of unconscionably exploitative contract. This idea of Jews being improbably wealthy and powerful still exists today; it is at the very root of the idea that Jews control Hollywood. It doesn’t matter if the theatre business is considered lower-class or upper-class, or if Jews are assimilated or in ghettos, Jews will always be considered rich and powerful. It’s frightening to me that no matter what the state of the world is, antisemitism is always able to twist itself into a new shape.

I don’t think anyone should stop reading The Picture of Dorian Gray (it’s still one of my top two favorite books!), people just need to be able to examine and confront the antisemitism rather than cringe away from it. However, I do think I would feel differently if Wilde were still alive. I don’t think we should support public figures who have actively promoted bigotry, haven’t made any kind of genuine amends, and are still alive to make a profit from it today. I’m sure you can think of at least one author like this. It’s heartbreaking to have to stop consuming the work of an artist you love, but if they’re just going to continue to promote bigotry, what is there left to support?

Love, Lily