"The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde _ Literary Analysis

“The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde is fundamentally about the duality of beauty and sin. Does beauty equate to the lack of sin, while faults in our beauty represent each sin we have committed? This gothic story centers around a young Dorian Gray, in the peak of his youthful beauty, as he is painted by a devoted friend Basil. The novel begins by introducing us to Basil, and his friend Lord Henry, as they talk about Dorian and the slightly homoerotic infatuation Basil seems to have with the boy. Young Dorian is then Lord Henry who begins to influence and corrupt the boy.  

Dorian Gray, ignorant to his beauty and the fidelity of it, is made aware with the help of Lord Henry’s musings and the finished painting done by Basil. Overcome with emotion and jealousy that this painting must be eternally youthful while ever minute more he himself begins to age and lose that beauty himself, Dorian makes a wish. The young man wishes that he will stay beautiful while the painting takes on his age and sin. A seemingly harmless, while vain, wish. 

It is not until Dorian breaks a young girl's heart in a cruel manner; does he realize the consequences of said wish. Originally, he decides to use the painting as a sort of conscious, that he will go back to Syble Vane and renew his promise to her even if his heart isn’t entirely in it so that his painting will return to its prior perfection. Later, when he learns that the young girl has killed herself, and that it is almost entirely his fault, he figures that the painting is going to be ruined anyways if not with his sins, just age. With this newfound information, he decides to lock up the painting so no eyes but his may fall on it, to see the corruption of his soul, and act a selfish life of which evidence only the painting may bear.  

There is a sense of obsession with finite beauty that Dorian seems to wear. He hoards precious stones, tapestries, and other expensive material objects. These, along with the stories tied to these objects from faraway lands does he collect. Objects, that are prized for their beauty but are also still able to be destroyed. Their stories as well are finite, as once they are no longer told, they’re gone. 

This obsession with the finite promise of beauty, seems to keep him drunk on the belief that he is above all other priceless objects. He lives his life in a selfish manner, influencing all close to him to do as he, though he does not reap the repercussions as they do. Dorian acts as if there are no consequences for his actions. He obsesses over the appearance of the painting. Eventually, so high on this drug of believing himself, he commits murder. One of the most loathed sins of all. Killing the artist Basil, after letting him in on the secret of the painting. He then blackmails an old colleague into cleaning up the mess for him.  

It is not until his past finds him, in the form of Syble Vane's brother, does Dorian contemplate his mortality and sins. Syble's brother, devoted to killing Dorian for his influence in her death, gets killed by a friend of Dorians while they are all out shooting. Realizing the consequences of his actions only because he himself was so close to death, he plans to find a way of washing away his sins. He decides to do this by slashing at the painting, in hopes that destroying the symbol of his sins he will be clear of him, with the very knife he killed Basil with. In true gothic fashion, this in fact does not wash away his sins but kills himself instead.  

The ending shows that even if we do not wear our sins on our flesh, they make up who we are. Dorian Gray was not sinless just because he did not have a cruel smile. Appearance does not determine what sort of sinful or sinless life someone may have led. Someone may look haggard and scary and be a saint. While another may look like the ideal beauty and have committed murder. This is a very interesting topic for a book from this time as many during the Victorian era practiced physiognomy, which was the reading of one's facial features and denoting personality and sins/lack of based on those features. It is known as a pseudo-science now, especially as we recognize the easily racist nature of it. Oscar Wilde telling a store in which it turns that pseudo-science on its nose a bit, is very interesting to me. 

A Copy of "The Picture of Dorian Gray" next to oil paints and flowers