This
post contains spoilers.
The Picture of Dorian Gray is Oscar Wilde's fantastical tale of a man who stops aging. This famous novel is a
philosophical and character-driven narrative.
Dorian is a young man who is described over
and over again as beautiful and youthful looking. He is also charismatic. Basil Hallward is his artist friend who
becomes obsessed with him. The artist creates a magnificent portrait of Dorian.
Over the course of the book, as Dorian descends into immorality and malevolence,
the portrait begins to slowly change as it manifests ugliness in Dorian’s
image. Likewise, Dorian stops aging as the portrait takes on the toll of his passing
years.
Lord Henry Wotton,
another friend of Dorian and Basil, is a key to this story. Much of the book is
filled with Henry’s observations on life and his philosophizing. Henry is a cynic.
He rejects conventional morality. He values experience for experience’s sake
and advocates for the seeking of sensation and pleasure, regardless of ethics
or any consideration of others.
Early in the story, Dorian
is portrayed as innocent and naïve. As the narrative proceeds, Henry begins to
corrupt him. When the two first meet, they are in an idyllic garden. I do not
think that I am stretching it to suggest that there may be an analogy a between
this meeting and the Serpent’s encounter with Eve in The Garden of Eden.
At one point, Henry muses,
“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. It has been said that the great events of the world
take place in the brain. It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great
sins of the world take place also.”
Henry’s belief
system is a key component to this story. His philosophy seems to be a sort of twisted
form of Romanticism. He believes that one can only live through experience and
feeling. He rejects the intellect at several points. He champions the seeking of
experiences without regard to morals, however. At times he revels in experiences
that involve great cruelty to others. When Sibyl Vane, a young woman engaged to
Dorian, commits suicide as a result of Dorian’s cruelties, Henry only sees the
great drama in her death.
He observes,
“There is something to me quite beautiful about her
death. I am glad I am living in a century when such wonders happen. They make
one believe in the reality of the things we all play with, such as romance,
passion, and love."
Henry’s musings,
ghastly as they are, take all sorts of turns as he relates them to art,
literature, philosophy, etc. Both his pontificating and the words and actions
of other characters allow Wilde to explore many facets of art, aesthetics and morality,
as well as other topics. In contrast, Basil, who becomes highly critical of
Dorian’s descent into wickedness, provides a morally based counterpoint to all
this.
Wilde was accused of
a lack of morals upon the publication of this book. In his preface that was
included in later editions of the book, Wilde even famously wrote
"there is no such thing as a moral or immoral book"
However, it seems
clear that this book is a scathing indictment of the moral vacuity that Henry
preaches and that Dorian practices. In the above quotation, I think that Wilde
was defending the need for an author to portray pernicious behavior and to ask
questions about the nature of morality. This fits in with the revolting way
that Henry and Dorian are portrayed. Dorian’s depravity, violence, drug use,
corruption of others, etc. is described in a series of ugly passages. Furthermore,
Dorian is punished in the end.
There are a lot of aspects
to this book that I have not touched on above. There are all sorts of themes at
play. The character of Dorian is fascinating, and I could write a lot about
him. The story is interesting. The writing and descriptions are often dark but
brilliant.
Thus, this book is a
philosophical feast for readers so inclined. It also has much else to recommend
it. I highly recommend it for those who like philosophical tales, fantastic
tales and nineteenth century English literature.
