Commodification of Human Values in Oscar Wilde’s Selected Stories

Abstract

In selected stories of Oscar Wilde: "The Devoted Friend," “The Model Millionaire,” "The Teacher of Wisdom" and “The Young King”, the researcher aims to show commodification of human values in the modern world utilizing the Marxist concept of commodification. Human value has been degrading gradually in the modern capitalist society due to influene of materialism. In all these selected stories human value has exchange meaning. Human sympathy, human emotions, and compassion are exchanged with material value. In the story "The Devoted Friend” Miller exploits and utilizes his friend Hana for material benefit. In “The Model Millionaire” money prevents marriage between Hugh Eriskine and Laura Merton. Laura's father asks 1000 pounds for marriage. In "The Teacher of Wisdom", teacher asks money with Millers but hesitates to teach well to his students. “The Young King”deals with the utility of power for the exchange value. The selected stories reflect the utilitarian mentality of people in modern capitalist society in which human value is exchanged with material benefits. Keywords: objectification, human value, exploitation, domination, equality