The Picture Of Dorian Gray

The Picture Of Dorian Gray

Oscar Wilde

• Named Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde
• Born October 16, 1854 in Dublin, Ireland & died November 30, 1900 in Paris, France
• "The Picture Of Dorian Gray" was his only novel
• Wrote & produced nine plays, considered the biggest playwright of the Victorian Era
• Known for his homosexuality and considered an icon of the Gay Movement
• Went to prison for two years for "gross indecency" and held to hard labor
• Toured America in 1882 for lectures

Characters

Dorian Gray: Wealthy, youthful and gorgeous sitter for painer Basil Hallward. Gives his soul to stay youthful for his life after Lord Henry Wotton implies the importance of eternal beauty. Becomes obsessed with being young and beautiful, no matter what the cost.

Lord Henry Wotton: Close friend of Basil Hallward who becomes Dorian's "mentor." Excessively promotes his idea of "new hedonism" and believes the morals of the population are wrong, placing emphasis on superficial items.

Basil Hallward: Artist who "discovers" Dorian Gray and uses him as inspiration for his paintings. Disapproves of Dorian's trade and is later killed by Dorian.

Sibil Vane: Actress who captures Dorian's love. Agrees to be married and loses intrest in acting, because she finds a new life in Dorian. Later kills herself when Dorian decides he no longer loves her.

James Vane: Sibil's older brother who vows to kill Dorian should he ever hurt Sibil.

Plot Overview

Basil Hallward is a pianter who meets Dorian Gray through his Aunt Agatha. Dorian begins to sit for paintings, and Basil draws inspiration from Dorian. One day, Basil is visited by Lord Henry Wotton, a close friend who speaks to Dorain about the value of youth and beauty. When Basil finishes the portrait that he had been working on that day, Henry decides that it is Basil's best work yet and insists to buy it, but it is instead told by Basil that it is property of Dorian. Dorian realizes that he will never be eternally youthful as the picture is, and vows to give his soul in return for being beautiful and ageless his whole life.

Lord Henry and Dorian become increasingly close to each other, and Henry teaches Dorian about his philosphy of "new hedonism." He believes the morals and hipocrisy of England is not correct. Dorain then meets and falls in love with Sibil Vane, an actress at a community theatre.They vow to be married and Sibil is met with disapproval and warnings from her brother. She refuses to heed to the warnings, and then finds that she no longer enjoys acting the realities of other characters, and that she is instead more satisfied with her own. Dorian realizes that he only fell in love with her for her acting, and leaves her.

That night, he looks at his portrait and notices a sneer. Dorian is scared by this and resolves to make ammends with Sibil in the morning and covers the portrait up.The next day, Lord Henry shares with Dorian that Sibil has killed herself, but then convinces Dorian that her death is artistic and that he should be okay with it.

Henry gives Dorian a book about an evil frenchman, which Dorian begins to follow religiously. He begins to devote himself to new experiences and does not heed to the consequesnces of his low morals and weakning reputation. As years pass, Dorian remand youthful and beautiful. Basil meets Dorian one night and talks with him about his reputation. They fight, and Dorian eventually shows Basil the portrait, who is shocked by how ugly and hideous it has gotten. He begs for Dorian to repent, but he refuses. In rage, Dorian kills Basil.

After attempts to get rid of Basil's body, Dorian goes to an opium den where he meets James Vane, who is still trying the avenge his sister's death. Dorian runs away to his country home. While hosting a part one night, he notices James looking in the window, and becomes scared. His stress is later alleviated when a hunting group accidentally shoots James.

Although Dorian decides to ammend his life, he cannot confess his guilt and sin, and in rage, tries to "kill" the portrait. Loud noises bring his servants to come upstairs, where they find the portrait on the floor, as beautiful as when it was first painted, and Dorian, who is now old and hideous, with a knife in his chest.

Themes

Quotes

"Women are a decrotive sex."

"But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face."

"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful."

"How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June... If it were only the other way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that-for that-I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!"

"You have killed my love. You used to stir my imagination. Now you don't even stir my curiosity. You simply produce no effect. I loved you because you were marvellous, because you had genius and intellect, because you realised the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the shadows of art. You have thrown it all away. You are shallow and stupid."

"I know what conscience is, to begin with. It is not what you told me it was. It is the divinest thing in us. Don't sneer at it, Harry, any more-at least not before me. I want to be good. I can't bear the idea of my soul being hideous."

Moral Decay: Shows how beauty and imporance of material items can corrupt the soul and become immoral. Victorians put a high importance on moral value, but at the same time values beauty and wanted people to be prim and proper. Most of time, one could uphold one value and not the other. This created things such as protitution, and also was the reason many victorians were thrown into mental institutions.

Homosexuality: The relationship between Basil and Dorian showed a more caring and dependent nature, drawing off of one another for inspiration, while the relationship between Hanry and Dorian showed a more wreckless and secuctive relationship. This was to perhaps justify Wilde's own lifestyle or to critisize the strictness of victorian society.

Influence: Basil's idolarty of Dorian causes his murder, just as Dorian's idolatry of Henry causes his own. At the same time Sibil also promises herself to Dorian, ending in vain. The book shows that allowing too much influence into your life is harmful. This could be Wilde's way of rebelling against society's values.

Feminism: The lack of any strong female characters shows the lack of importance women held in victorian England. The women in the novel were viewed as accessories. Dorian even realizes he never loved Sibil truly, he only loved her for who she was on stage.