THE RISING FALL OF THE WORKING CLASS: A CASE OF SLOW ALIENATION IN THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY

Received: 13.09.2021; Revised: 22.10.2021, Accepted: 18.11.2021, Published Online: 04.12.2021

Syed Arslan Ahmad

Associate Lecturer, Department of English Literature, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur. Pakistan. iarslanahmad7@gmail.com

Dr. Sohail Ahmad Saeed

Assistant Professor, Department of English Literature, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur. Pakistan. sohail.ahmad@iub.edu.pk

Ahmad Naeem

Lecturer, Department of English Language and Literature, Gomal University, Dera Ismail Khan. Pakistan. anaeemk@hotmail.com

Abstract

The present study is an investigation of class instability, and its impact on the individual behavior in the modern bourgeois society through The Picture of Dorian Gray. It argues that the class-based structure is presented as a failed system which propagates inequality and facilitates the disempowerment of the working class individuals. In the novel, Basil Hallward and Sibyl Vane are the representative victims of class instability and the overarching economic system. Despite continuous effort and hard work, their labor goes unrewarded, and their sentiments are met with hostile indifference from the other side of the class barrier. Additionally, the class system affects the capacity to have relationships across classes as both characters fail to establish compatible relationships with the bourgeois protagonist, the reason being the incompatible economic backgrounds of the characters. The long-term repercussions of such a system includes various forms of alienation for the working class, the alienation particularly results from exposure to the process of labor. The study argues that the novel places particular importance on the effects of the demanding process of the labor. The process facilitates the ruin of the working class, and causes psychological distress. The act of production is a grueling process that separates a person from his or her essence, particularly because the activity itself initiates a gradual surrendering of control. Fundamentally, it results in disillusionment of the working-class individuals, and it is the illusion-shattering reality of the economic system that leads to suicides and murders in the novel.

Keywords: Marxism, classism, labor, commodification, alienation