【Summary】

This paperexamines Oscar Wilde's self-sufficient life in The Picture of Dorian Gray. Wilde’s
self-fulfillment life. Wilde's concept of the self-sufficient life emphasises individual perfection overthe general social order, a concept similar to Nietzsche’s “Übermensch”. Nietzsche’s “Will toPower” (Wille zur Macht in German) for Nietzsche can be replaced by “art” and “individualism” inWilde's context. In this paper, Wilde's attitude towards self-sufficiency in the form of art andindividualism will be referred to as “Wildean morality” and its opposite (which does not necessarilycoincide with the general morality of society) as “anti-Wildean morality”, to distinguish it from thegeneral morality of society.
At the end of the 19th century, Britain was a glorious society, where order was valued. Still, At
the same time, however, it was a society with two sides: the widening gap between rich and poor andthe resulting deterioration in security. In such a society, Oscar Wilde attached great importance to aself-sufficient life, which he expressed in the form of “art” and “individualism”.
The Picture of Dorian Gray is the only novel that Wilde wrote. Wilde states that he divides hispersonality into three parts and projects himself onto the main characters of the story, Dorian, Basiland Lord Henry. These three characters Dorian is Wilde's ideal (i.e. art), Basil is his self-identified selfand Sir Henry is his other-identified self. This writer considered the protagonist Dorian to be apractitioner of “anti-Wildean morality”, based on his selfish behaviour in the work and inferred thatthe punitive result of this may be the depiction of the ugly corpse in Chapter 20 of the work.
The relationship between the picture of Dorian and himself is symbolic of the relationshipbetween his soul (picture of himself) and his body. The way in which Dorian's body retains its beauty
while the portrait becomes disfigured is a symbol of the separation of soul and body, which goesagainst one of the norms, 'Wildean morality', of creating a beautiful harmony. Dorian may appear
artistic in that he has preserved his good looks, but he has failed in Wilde's art in that he has failed topreserve harmony.
From descriptions of some of Wilde's works, such as The Decay of Lying, it is clear that hisdefinition of 'art' is not just fine art alone, but the escape of human power from nature, which lacks

design. In this light, Dorian's act of protecting only protects his own body (beauty), is an instinctive
and unartistic act, whereas the devotion of the Prince and the swallow in The Happy Prince is asuperhuman and artistic act in which the soul that leads to the act is superhuman, even though it loses
beauty in appearance.
Dorian's selfish behaviour falls outside Wilde's definition of individualism, which does not
require the intervention of others. Wilde cites Christ as the example of a supreme individualist, whose
example is an activity whose goal is not to be judged by those around him, but to reach God's paradise.
If we replace the attainment of God's paradise with 'Wildean morality', we can say that it lies in theattainment of the paradise of art, which does not require evaluation by others.
Wilde wrote The Picture of Dorian Gray as a negative bildungsroman of “Wildean morality”
by portraying the protagonist Dorian as a practitioner of “anti-Wildean morality”. “Wildean morality”
strengthens a person's individuality, which can be seen as a source of art. It could be said that thepraise of man-made art is a Wildean paean to humanity.