When Lord Henry meets Dorian Gray, he is instantly charmed by the lad’s purity and innocence. Dorian gray is entranced by Lord Henry’s egoistic and materialistic notions. When Basil Hallward paints a flawless portrait of Dorian, Dorian Gray expresses his discontent that he will age and his skin will wrinkle and blemish but this picture will always look perfect.
When Dorian breaks off his engagement to Sybil Vane who he claimed to be madly in love with, she ends her life. He assumes that the cruelty of the act will blotch his youthfulness and scar his beauty. However, he remains ever handsome. To his astonishment, he sees that his picture has altered. His atrocity is depicted as the lines around his mouth. He looks brutal in the picture.
Soon he discovers that the exploits he performs mar not his face but his picture. In a way, that picture depicts his soul. Under the influence of vices of Lord Henry, Dorian Gray begins to live a fast life defected by debauchery and misdeeds. His actions cause harm to many others but he remains unmarked. The portrait eventually turns more and more hideous.
Lord henry gifts Dorian a yellow book which further deteriorates Dorians overindulgent life. When Basil Hallward, worried about the social reputation of Dorian, confronts him about his crooked methods, Dorian ends up murdering him. Later James Vane who wants to kill Dorian to avenge his sister Sybil, dies in a hunting accident.
Dorian reflets on his depraved life. In agony, he decides to get rid of the portrait and stabs the sickening picture. When an excruciating cry is heard, the servants rush to find a perfectly good painting of Dorian Gray and a hideous crumpled man with a dagger in his heart.
Oscar Wilde depicts his concept of art for art’s sake in his only novel. If art was treated merely for purpose of aesthetic instead of being worshipped then the portrait or the book wouldn’t have flawed Dorian’s life. The painting has a profound effect on Dorian, swaying him towards a vicious behaviour over the course of his life, since both age and sins do not contribute to his physical appearance. Then there is the negative impact of Lord Henry in Dorian’s life.
Lord Henry says, “there is something terribly enthralling in the exercise of influence.” And he exercises his influence on a young Dorian’s saintly mind. It must be noted that Basil Hallward is as much influenced by Dorian as Dorian is by Lord Henry. Basil’s idolization of Dorian leads to his murder, and Dorian’s passion to Lord Henry’s hedonistic views leads him to his downfall.
The superficial nature of the modern society is emphasized too. The society glamorizes beauty above all else. What matters most to people is not whether a man is good at heart but rather whether he’s handsome and possesses riches. As Dorian emerges an aristocrat, he experiences the freedom to abandon his ethics without censure. Later society’s elite question his reputation, but Dorian is never denounced or shunned in any way.
Conflictingly, he becomes the heartthrob of his social company because of his “innocence” and “purity of his face.” In my humble opinion, the portrait is a symbolism for the after life. Dorian’s physical appearance is a portrayal of this life. Even if our doings don’t affect this life, they certainly alter the course of the next one. We may run from the consequences of our actions here but eternal escape from them isn’t possible. In the book, it is stated that the picture represents the soul of Gray.
Age and sin are both precarious things, which leave their marks on the face as well as on the nature. Both stain the beauty of not only the soul but also the physical appearance. The actions and morals not only rust the soul but they also distort the appearance and one goes from looking innocent and righteous to vile and obnoxious. Dorian Gray escapes from this cycle by capturing his soul within the painting. He exchanges his soul for eternal youth.
It can also be assumed that the portrait portrays the conscience of Gray, his inner morals. The more atrocities he executes, the uglier his conscience turns. And finally, when he kills Basil Hallward, it seems that his sense of morality is beyond repair now. His morally grey ethics balanced delicately on a barely distinguishable line of right and wrong have now tumbled into putrid darkness from where no return is possible. And when he tries to separate himself from the portrait, when he tries to split his physical being from his virtuous self, he inevitably ends up dead because that act is not humanly possible. Entangling your soul within a portrait also isn’t humanly possible but Oscar Wilde has done it.
Also, the book unquestionably illustrates that influence can never be eradicated. Just like Lord Henry spoils the young mind and the flame is further ignited by that evil book. However, it is also clearly shown that no one else is as influenced by him as Dorian. It shows that Dorian was already somewhat morally corrupt before Lord Henry came along. He wholly ties himself to Henry and forgoes any other company which clearly suggests his inclination towards the heinous nature, which he later adopts himself.
It would not be wrong to say that Oscar Wilde’s own life was full of questionable even in some case immoral acts. His own life might be a real-life portrayal of the painting he describes in his only novel. His way of writing was also a real-life portrayal of his motto, “art for arts sake”. Oscar Wilde wrote in the classic Victorian fashion; the sentences each last pages and the most used punctuation is undeniably a comma, with a rare full stop occurring occasionally. Although the book may seem boring at times, the themes behind the story are largely based on our modern lives and portray the reality of life. It is indeed, a must read.
0 Comments