The Picture Of Dorian Gray By Oscar Wilde

Source

I finished The Picture of Dorian Gray! Here’s what I thought of it I’d be curious to hear anyone else’s perspectives/commentary. The entire book was so beautifully written, with incredible prose that captivated me from start to finish. The plot is very interesting and covers a lot of interesting topics but I found it moved at a very slow pace. Dorian to me at the beginning seems more naive than pure. It’s not like he’s a child and Basil is treating him as if he’s his kid and he’s too impressionable to have his own opinions.

I reread the preface and Oscar Wilde said that any form of art (which includes books and paintings) is just art and not moral or immoral. He talks about how when one sees ugliness in beauty they are “corrupt without being charming. This is a fault”. Dorian immediately found ugliness in the painting and didn’t like it even though it was a beautiful piece of art. He was destined to be corrupted from the start. Lord Henry and Basil may have given him pieces of media such as a book and a painting that negatively influenced him, but since art holds no morality, it was always Dorian who was fated for an immoral and sinful life. Lord Henry and Basil did not actually have any influence on him.

I would have liked to see Dorian gradually enjoy his new path in life and see the portrait morph more over time and see at what point he started obsessing over it. Also at the end when he’s confronted really for the first time about his sins from James he suddenly switched back to wanting to be good? It felt so sudden to me. There’s definitely something to be said about morality relying on accountability.

I found it fascinating that Lord Henry always has the controversial opinions and seems to be kept around at parties and such for mere entertainment and for what he has to say. Yet with all these views he still is married and doesn’t seem to really commit sins the way Dorian does. His wife even leaves him not the other way around.
With Basil, it’s interesting to see Dorian be so angry at him and blaming Basil for his own wish for eternal youth as well as his ego. With Dorian refusing to take accountability for anything he’s done and finally feeling safe from James, it feels very just and satisfying that he is the one to bring justice to all he’s corrupted and wronged by ending his own life, the one thing he truly feared.

Something I’m trying to think on more is the theme of beauty. Is it that the cost of sins weigh on the soul and take it out on the body and face? Because everyone ages (except Dorian obviously) and with age comes deterioration of the body. It’s part of being human.
I think the book is driving at something more subtle than the signs of aging. I read it more as people who indulge their vices end up with telltale signs, which are maybe exaggerated by the book, but there is a truth to it. Smokers, as a very simple example, get stains on their fingers. People do get lines on their face from repeated action — are they laugh lines or anxiety lines? But everyone has vices, and so everyone has signs. It’s not the aging that is at fault. It’s that eventually, aging makes evident what was there all along inside. It’s like a type of karma, or the more Biblical idea that one’s sins will someday be public.