The Decay of Lying

Wilde often employs juxtaposition—or the placement of different things near or next to each other in a text—to emphasize the contrasts between what he is describing. This serves to further underline his points and render the differences between what he conceives of as good and bad art more apparent by amplifying the negative and exalting the positive. Some of these juxtapositions are set up through the conversational dialogue structure of the essay. For example, Cyril challenges Vivian by saying, “surely you would acknowledge that Art expresses the temper of its age, the spirit of its time,” which opens the ground for Vivian’s immediate disagreement and rebuttal: “Certainly not! Art never expresses anything but itself” (13). In this way, the essay follows a rhythm in which examples of poor art or poor ideas are consistently counterbalanced with positive examples that demonstrate Wilde’s argument.

Paradox is a rhetorical device used to advance an argument by making an unlikely connection that may seem incompatible and absurd at first glance. Paradoxes often rely on extreme language or opposites. In Wilde’s essay, paradox is used to make claims that are attention-grabbing and provocative. These engage the reader and prompt reflection on the argument being made. Wilde’s paradoxical notion that life imitates art is one of the key principles of his argument. This idea is unusual in that it reverses the commonly held belief that art is a reaction to and reflection of life. Wilde points out that critics who cite “that hackneyed passage about Art holding the mirror up to Nature” (9) from Shakespeare’s Hamlet have in fact misunderstood the quotation; this both undercuts the credibility of critics of Wilde’s argument and prompts readers to reconsider the seeming absurdity of his paradoxical idea.