In a satirical context, a caricature is widely considered to hold a negative connotation. Caricatures, after all, are imitations in which certain traits are amplified for comedic and ironic purposes—sometimes with malicious intent. In Oscar Wilde’s short story The Model Millionaire, the character of Hughie Erskine is held up to be a caricature of an middle-upper-class gentleman in love. In The Model Millionaire, Wilde describes him as “wonderfully good-looking…as popular with men as he was with women…and [having] every accomplishment except that of making money”. He goes on to call him “a delightful, ineffectual young man with a perfect profile and no profession”. Wilde intends Hughie to be a sympathetic creature, with a good heart but not a brilliant head, whose love is hampered by his lack of funds. This prototyping can lead to readers classifying Hughie with more flat, non-developmental characters—but Wilde shows where Hughie’s virtues lead to satisfactory closure.
“[The old beggar-man] looked so forlorn and wretched that Hughie could not help pitying him, and felt in his pockets to see what money he had…he walked across the studio and slipped the sovereign into the beggar's hand.” Dropping by artist and friend Alan Trevor, Hughie notices a man in beggar’s clothes modeling for his friend. Admiring the scene at first, Hughie turns scandalized by Alan’s revealing that his model receives a measly sum for posing. In a moment of self-perceived weakness, he takes his last money of value and gives it discreetly to the model, despite his own financial deficiency. His sweetheart ridicules him for his action, because her father will not allow their engagement without at least ten thousand pounds. When Alan discovers Hughie’s spontaneous alms-distribution, he “burst into a roar of laughter”, for “[t]he old man…in the studio was Baron Hausberg”, a millionaire who commissioned Alan to paint him as a beggar. The following morning, Hughie receives a ten thousand pound check financing his wedding from the Baron Hausberg. The cause-effect sequence is simple: firstly, a poor man gives his last valuable possession to a person he perceives to have a greater need. The first reaction from his surrounding society is ridicule. Then his situation turns on its head with a “thank-you card” from the poorer man, which solves the problem he entered the situation with. This literary formula used by Wilde is showcasing the positive and negative effects of charity, or as it was termed, virtue. Virtue—much like gratification—has two sides to it: the short- and long-term impact. Wilde communicates the short-term impact heavily by his companions, making the audience momentarily doubt the value of virtue at all. Hughie has a goal: to marry. Giving away his last sovereign is detrimental to that goal, as well as exposing him to contempt in the circles in which he had some standing (Wilde describes him as popular, with a “perfect profile”). The Baron Hausberg turns this around by bestowing a path to Hughie’s goal: giving the financial aid necessary to marry. What had seemed to hold Hughie back was inadvertently boosting him to his dream. Wilde’s position on virtue is summarized in financial terms. By giving all he had, Hughie receives all he desires.
This turn-of-events that Wilde shows the reader has a larger impact. Published in 1887, The Model Millionaire is in the thick of the Edwardian Age of literature. Wilde’s intended audience, those valuing high- and low-brow literature for its simplicity and exposition of virtues, would have recognized those same virtues prominent in Hughie’s character, as well as the Horatian satire presented in this situation. As a modern audience, however, readers must immerse themselves in Wilde’s intention or message that he, as the author, wants conveyed. Hughie’s role is simultaneously that of the everyman and of the hero, intended to be both who readers sympathize with and who the readers aspire to be. Wilde shows the audience the everyman in his social situation and the hero through Alan, who rebutting Hughie’s declaration of humiliation, pshaws, “Nonsense! It reflects the highest credit on your philanthropic spirit…” Hughie’s spur-of-the-moment, socially degrading display of virtue is what Wilde is telling his readers to imitate—with the right amount of tongue-in-cheek, ironic, French prods to uplift the narrative into a light read. Wilde addresses the circumstances with intelligence catering to the rarity of “the only people painters should know” with levity enough to please the “men who are dandies and women who are darlings”. In The Model Millionaire, it is Hughie’s sympathetic caricature of “his generous reckless nature” that endear him to Baron Hausberg and Wilde’s audience. Wilde closes his short story with a pun on millionaires and their modeling capabilities. With a new perspective on his a-prototypical caricature, Wilde encourages his readers to model themselves on his own model, rich not in money but in virtue.
Comments
Post a Comment