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The Picture of Dorian Gray
"Ah! In what a monstrous moment of pride and passion he had prayed that the portrait should bear the burden of his days, and he keep the unsullied splendour of eternal youth! All his failure had been due to that" (18). This thought is concluded by Dorian Gray near the end of the novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde. It is only near the end of his constant downfall that Dorian realizes only too late that his wish to stay young and handsome, that his desire for which he said he would sell his soul, was a horrible mistake. He blames all of the wrong doings of his life, such as his callousness and murder, on his superficial bargain. Through the journey that Dorian takes in the novel, Oscar Wilde shows that vanity will only progress into feeling godliness and then result in one's corrupted immorality.
The first step leading to an immoral and corrupt lifestyle is in discovering one's own beauty, because than one will begin to value beauty above other aspects if life. Right from the start of the novel, other characters push Dorian towards conceit. His friends, Basil, the artist who often uses him as a subject, and Lord Henry Wotton, are such people. The oblivious Dorian, who at the beginning did not realize how good his looks were, then becomes vain. As the critic, Peter Raby of Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism Volume 41, puts it, "The artist Basil Hallward, obsessed and inspired by the youthful beauty of Dorian Gray, is about to complete his masterpiece, a full-length portrait. As Dorian poses, Lord Henry Wotton, the detached amoral observer, tempts him with words that stir him like music 'Ah! Realize your youth while you have it… Live the wonderful life that is in you!"'(). Here Lord Wotton stirs a new idea into Dorian's mind, and begins a new thought process of Dorian, that which values youth and beauty. Also known as Harry, Lord Henry also tells Dorian, "You are a wonderful creature" (1), and
You have a wonderfully beautiful face, Mr. Gray… And Beauty is a form of Geniusis higher, indeed, than Genius, as it needs no explanation...It has the divine right of sovereignty. It makes princes of those who have it. You smile? Ah! When you have lost it you won't smile ().
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Harry here flatters Dorian, and gives Dorian the impression that beauty alone will get him anything. He goes on to fill Dorian's head with the thought that there are no triumphs left for a man once his beauty is gone, and that he needs to live his life as much as he can and hold on to his youth as long as possible. Youth and beauty to Harry are the only valuable characteristics to have.
Soon after the conversation between Dorian and Harry took place, Dorian sees his portrait. It was "the finest portrait of modern times'and when Dorian sees it, a look of joy comes to his eyes, 'as if he had recognized himself for the first time.' The sense of his own beauty comes on him like a revelation"(). Dorian says that he is "jealous of everything whose beauty does not die" (6). Raby adds on to this by saying that, "The picture has become endued with terrible significance…to Dorian, it reveals the transitory nature of his beauty so acutely that he is jealous of it"().Dorian than gets into an argument with Basil. Dorian tells Basil that he fears that once he gets his first wrinkle, he will no longer mean anything to Basil. He tells Basil that, "Lord Henry Wotton is perfectly right. Youth is the only thing worth having. When I find that I am growing old, I shall kill myself" (6). Basil, for fear that the painting would come between them, then attempts to destroy it with a knife, but is prevented by Dorian. Dorian will not let him destroy such a beautiful portrait if himself, comparing it to the preciousness of a human life by saying it would be murder.
Even in this short amount of time, over the course of a couple of hours, Dorian places this large amount value on his image. Already, this vanity causes him to believe that life is not worth living if he cannot have is good looks. Once Dorian establishes that he wants to stay young, he makes his fatal wish that his portrait will bare his signs of aging and sin, and that for that he would sell his soul. He would give up his soul, all that is good in him, to remain beautiful.
Once one gets too vain, one will start to develop a sense that he or she is more important than anyone else, and then, in turn, he or she also ceases to care about anyone else. After often making trips to the theatre, Dorian falls in love with a young actress, Sibyl Vane. Sibyl wonderfully acts the parts of all the heroines in the classic plays. He thinks that since she is gorgeous and that everyone loves her acting, she is worthy of him. After his professes his love for her and they get engaged, however, her performances on stage start to suffer. Sibyl sees this as a good sign, showing that she has found a love that is real and above the ones she has always acted on stage, which now means nothing to her. Dorian, however, sees this poor acting negatively. "If she failed there, there was nothing in her" (7-74). He tells Sibyl, that, "I loved you because you were marvelous…You have thrown it all away. You are shallow and stupid…I will never see you again. I will never think of you" (77). At this point, Dorian feels that he is too good for her, if she cannot perform up to his superficial expectations. This woman that he said was "everything to me"(87), was now not worthy of or of any matter to him.
When Dorian gets home, he sees that his portrait has changed, for the first time. "One would have said that there was a touch of cruelty in the mouth. Dorian's first selfish, heartless action shows that Dorian thinks of himself above all others. He does not care about what happens to any one else. As another critic in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism Volume 41, Epifanio San Juan, Jr., puts it, Dorian "yields nonetheless to an inner fatality, a passionate indifference which makes him incapable of feeling compassion for others"(58). This lack of compassion is the first sign of the corruption of Dorian's soul because of his vanity.
Soon after he broke her heart, Dorian finds out that Sibyl Vane had killed herself that same night. At this point Dorian "repentsbut only for a while"(San Juan, Jr., 58). Dorian says to Harry, "It has all the terrible beauty if a Greek tragedy, a tragedy in which I took a great part, but by which I have not been wounded" (88). Clearly, Dorian is not able to truly care for someone other than his self.All he is worried about when he denies Sibyl is his pride, his image, and having a seemingly perfect bride. Harry is not surprised when Dorian says that he feels little impact of the tragedy. He tells Dorian to not mourn over a girl he only loved for the characters she played anyway. Dorian agrees, and then says, "I cannot repeat an emotion. No one can, except sentimentalists" (6). Someone who was actually in love would mourn for years, not shrug off the death of the woman he loved; the death caused by him. In saying that only a sentimentalist repeats an emotion, he expresses that he thinks that emotions and feelings are unnecessary. He simply moves on with his own life in which he is so absorbed, and remains unaffected by anything that happens to anyone else's life.
As time goes on, Dorian continues to feel that he is above all else in the world, that nothing can affect him. He begins to mock the picture that leaves him untouched from any sin he commits. "He himself would…stand, with a mirror, in front of the portrait…looking now at the evil and aging face on the canvas, and now at the fair young face that laughed back at him from the polished glass"(11). He laughs at the portrait. Anything he ever does, will only ever affect the portrait. He can get away with anything, and he would never lose his beauty. He is unique in this way. Others will age, but he will not. The sign of sin will never show on his face.In this way he is larger than life itself. He can hide from the challenges of time.
Finally, as vanity continues to progress into more sever levels, one's immorality will progress as well. Dorian is not ashamed or afraid of the corruption of his soul. "He [grows] more and more enamoured of his own beauty, more and more interested in the corruption of his own soul"(11). Basil, Dorian's former best friend, comes to Dorian to confront him about the change in him that becomes noticeable to many people. People talk about Dorian, saying that he has a bad influence over anyone he has a relationship with. All of Dorian's friends have developed tarnished reputations and lost all that they once had. Basil says to Dorian that all his close friends "seem to lose all sense of honour, of goodness, of purity. You have filled them with a madness for pleasure. They have gone down into the depths. You led them there…and yet you smile"(11-1). Basil's speech shows two things. The first being that Dorian obviously has become corrupt and sinful, leading himself and others to give into temptations, having a madness for pleasure, and not discerning the consequences. Dorian's friends do end up suffering, but Dorian cares little about that, because nothing apparent happens to his self. The second thing made clear in Basils' lecture is that Dorian takes pleasure in doing such things. He smiles when Basil blames him for this corruption and calls him evil. He smiles at his immorality, and takes pleasure in the fact that he will never have to pay for it with what is most important to him, his beauty.
After Basil tries to convince Dorian that he needs to start changing his ways and turn to God because only God can see one's soul, Dorian decides to show Basil his painting. He shows him his soul. Basil sees this horrifying image, and says that it has the eyes of the devil and tells Dorian that, "I worshipped you too much…You worshipped yourself too much. We are both punished"(17). Similarly put by San Juan, Jr., "when the soul reveals itself as overwhelmingly evil, … the artist, can only shrink away in horror and yield to the decadent, who can accept this vision and wring satisfaction from it"(68). A normal person sees the horror in the thing that Dorian derives pleasure and enjoyment from. With Basil's horror, he starts to pray and tells Dorian that he must repent. From this criticism and his craving for sin, Dorian suddenly gets a rush of offence and madness, and violently murders Basil with a knife. San Juan, Jr., concludes that, "The murder is an attempt on part to stifle the voice of goodness forever"(68). He is at the peak of his evilness brought about by his uncontrollable need to stay young.
As if the murder itself was not immoral enough, Dorian feels that "the secret of the whole thing was not to realize the situation. The friend who had painted the fatal portrait to which all his misery had been due, had gone out of his life. That was enough"(18). "How quickly it had all been done! He felt strangely calm"(18). Not only does Dorian slay one of his closest friends, he is practically unaffected by it. He pretends that it did not even happen. He does not posses any feelings or morals, nothing is out of line for him.
Once Basil was killed, Dorian avoids the thoughts of it for a day, and then blackmails an old friend into destroying the body. Alan, his old friend, a scientist, uses chemicals to completely destroy every part of the body. After it is done, Dorian goes up into the attack were the picture is and were the murder took place. "There was a horrible smell of nitric acid in the room. But the thing that had been sitting at the table was gone"(151). Dorian first blackmails and old friend, has the body destroyed without any respect, and even disregards the body as that "thing." Alan also later kills himself. Dorian forces him to do something against his own morals, and he cannot then live with himself. Dorian ceases to take blame for any of these crimes. He simply tries to convince himself that, "The murder had been simply the madness of a moment. As for Alan Campbell, his suicide had been his own act. He had chosen to do it. It was nothing to him"(10). Dorian's acts were immoral, and his conscience is not strong enough to make him realize his wrong doing.Led to believe that any sin that he commits will not affect him personally, Dorian ends up losing all restraints or morals that he once held for himself.
In time, however, as put by San Juan, Jr., as "the portrait records this evil act, … Dorian begins to lose his nerve. The sight of so much evil becomes intolerable even to him, and he finds himself unable to derive pleasure from his new sin"(68). He does not feel guilt so much as he feels like he has gone to far in corrupting his soul, and now it is a no longer enjoyable. This is when Dorian subconsciously realizes that this sin, "was a thing to be driven out of the mind, to be drugged with poppies, to be strangled lest it might strangle one itself"(140).Dorian never repents, but continues to pretend that it is not a sin. He turns to drugs to escape from the reality of what he has done. His nerves are shattered, and he tries to then reverse the corruption of his soul by living a more decent life. When he thinks he has achieved an honorable deed, Harry convinces him that maybe the deed was still a selfish act so Dorian could experience a new sensation. The picture becomes still more corroded. The only way to mask the ugliness of the portrait and the conscience which torments him, is to destroy it. Up until this point, "Dorian is so deluded that he does not even known, until the end of his life, that he has been living out a tragedy"(50). This is an observation from the critic Ted R. Spirey, of British Writers Volume V. Dorian then slays the portrait with the knife that killed Basil, and as he tries to destroy it, it is returned to its original beauty, and Dorian instantly becomes old and ugly, and dies with the knife in his own heart. Dorian Gray, having led a life of more sensation and pleasure, tries to kill conscience, and in doing that, he kills himself. Spirey compares Dorian's tragedy to those of Macbeth and Othello, all "gradually poisoned until their destructiveness forces them to face the fact that they have been deluded"(50). It is not until it is too late that Dorian realizes the error of his ways and that he put to much value in the wrong things.
A record of the steps that Dorian takes leading to his downfall is observed by the critic Peter Raby, and can be traced throughout the novel.In the beginning of the story when Basil and Dorian have their disagreement, and Basil almost destroys the painting. Dorian, already in love with the beauty of himself in the painting, will not let him, saying that this would be murder. This is when Dorian's vanity begins. He thinks that the painting is to beautiful to be destroyed, comparing it to that of a human life by saying it would be murder. The next step is when Dorian no longer cares about anyone or anything good and is at his most corrupted level. He uses a knife and kills the painter in front of the portrait. After this, Dorian no longer feels joy from his sin, and wants to destroy the ugly face of his soul. He stabs the picture with the same knife that killed its painter. The knife is then found stabbed in the heart of the dead, withered Dorian. The knife symbolizes the steps Dorian goes through, and is present at each major change in Dorian.
If not detected and overcome, vanity will develop into excessive self-absorption and immorality. Starting with discovering his great appearance, Dorian changes his view on life and his lifestyle. He places to much value on beauty and not enough on the soul. His carelessness for others leads to criminal and immoral acts, which destroy his soul and lead to his downfall. One needs to recognize their faults, or they will develop into more serious ones. If one thinks to highly of one's self, then he or she will never see the world of others. Without this, one cannot care for others or feel remorse for destroying another's life. If remorse is not felt, then the soul will never be saved and will continue to grow more corrupt until it is completely destroyed.
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