Wilde edited more than five hundred words out of the original manuscript of this novel, and everyone still considered it obscene. (We here at Shmoop would love to know what those five hundred words were…) So, the conservative press called for him to be put on trial for obscenity.
This novel was what forced people to confront Wilde and his wild ways. Wilde, in response, spent the next four years making his closet as strong as he could. He hoped that his performance of normality would keep him out of jail.
There's a kind of poetic justice to the notion that Oscar Wilde himself was only an actor in his own personal play. Because, you know, he was a giant of British Victorian Theatre. As Oscar's own literary puppet, Lord Henry, says, "He becomes an echo of someone else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him."
Oscar Wilde was acting a part in the public theatre that kept his sexuality hidden. How does the metaphor of an echo relate to the concept of heteronormativity, do you think?
The character Lord Henry also says, "people are afraid of themselves nowadays." What does that idea remind you of? Sedgwick's notion of the "speech act of a silence," maybe? What kinds of secrets, other than sexuality, would people feel the need to build a closet around?
Now, go read The Picture of Dorian Gray. We'll wait. Are you back yet? Now, here's a real doozy of a question: Are you afraid of yourself in any of the ways the characters in this book are afraid of themselves? Think about it.