The Picture of Dorian Gray' by Oscar Wilde

All art is quite useless.

- From the Preface of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The author of this was openly criticised after this novel was published in 1891, mainly because
of the concluding sentence of the preface, quoted above. However, its critical reflections on
the social attitudes of the end of the 19th Century caused it to become a novel that was widely
celebrated across the globe.

The Author
Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin on 15 October, 1854. While studying at Magdalen College,
Oxford, he attracted great attention to himself with his critical appraisals of society and
aestheticism (the pursuit of beauty).

Wilde was the writer of many plays, namely Lady Windermere's Fan (1893), Salome (1893), The
Sphinx(1894), A Woman of No Importance (1894), An Ideal Husband (1895), and The
Importance of Being Earnest(1895).

His only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), spurred intense outrage from many
contemporary reviewers on its publication. Wilde replied that 'Each man sees his own sin in
Dorian Gray.' Finally, the novel reached the praise that it should have had.

Oscar Wilde died in Paris on 30 November, 1900, at the age of 46.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

This is a story about debauchery and corruption of innocence. It is set in the late 19th Century.
Violent twists and a sneaky plot make this novel a distinct reflection of human pride and
corrupt nature.

The story begins with Basil Hallward, an artist painting a magnificent picture of his subject - a
handsome young man named Dorian Gray. Dorian Gray starts as the essence of young
innocence, with his path in life to find peace in his heart.

This innocence becomes corrupt when he realises that youth and beauty are an illusion, and
that the finished picture will become a mockery of him when old age reaches his youthful
complexion and wrinkles mark his unblemished face. He wishes that he would stay looking
young, beautiful and innocent as he gets older, and that the picture would get older in his
place.

He gets what he wishes for. Dorian has the appearence of an angel, yet his soul becomes as
corrupt as the Devil - which is what the picture now represents. The purity of his soul becomes
corrupted, which is reflected as the ageing and disfigurement of the picture. Dorian now has a
visible reflection of his true self which tortures him to no end.

Dorian Gray, still on his path to find peace, tries anything to stay as he was when the picture
was painted, ensuring that nothing can get in his way until this happens.

A book on moral corruption, it has become one of the most informing texts on human nature.

Oscar Wilde no doubt took inspiration for this book from many aspects of his own life, and
Major Characters
Basil Hallward: The artist who wants Dorian to stay youthful and beautiful
and act as his muse. His painting sets the story into motion, because it is such
a true interpretation, not only of Dorian's appearance but of his soul: flawless
and youthful at the beginning, it becomes increasingly ugly and ancient. Basil
truly cares for Dorian and considers him a great friend, but while Dorian grows
more corrupt and commits evil deeds, they lose touch with each other. When
Basil and Dorian run into each other again many years later, Dorian reveals
Basil's painting to him; Basil, shocked by the ugliness of the portrait, tries to
make Dorian repent, to no avail, and he is killed by his muse.
Lord Henry Wotton:The high-society intellectual who corrupts Dorian. Though
he promises Basil he will not influence Dorian, he is fascinated with Dorian's
innocence and wants to have a hand in molding it; he has long talks with him
during which he exposes him to his own ideas and opinions, all the while
convincing Dorian that these new feelings were inside him the whole time. He
gives Dorian a book which becomes a sort of manual for how he is to live his
life, leading him down a path of corruption, sin, and evil, and finds it
remarkable that Dorian does not appear to age at all.
Dorian Gray: The handsome youth whom the world worships, even as it
gossips about him. He cares for Basil but is more drawn toward Henry, and
therein lies his downfall. Upon seeing the newly painted portrait, Dorian curses
it and claims that it will mock him, once he grows old and ugly and the painting
still appears youthful and beautiful, and makes a fateful wish that it could be
the other way around. After falling in love with a young actress, then leaving
her when she decides to abandon her talent, causing her to commit suicide,
Dorian starts to see that his wish has come true. Though upset at first, Dorian
becomes fascinated by his ability to commit evil deeds without having any of it
show on him, for the painting is absorbing all of his sin. For years, he vainly
pursues physical pleasure and sin, helped along the way by Lord Henry, until
he has finally had enough and tries to destroy the portrait, killing himself
instead.
Sybil Vane: The beautiful and talented actress with whom Dorian falls in love.
The world of the theatre is all she has known, and when she falls in real love,
she realizes the falsity of the stage, acting very poorly on the night that Dorian
brings Basil and Henry to watch her. Dorian is crestfallen, and leaves her,
telling her that he loved her for her beautiful talent. She kills herself the night
he leaves, knowing that she can no longer live a false life when she has had
real love.
Minor Characters
Lady Brandon: A woman of high society who hosted the party where Basil met
Dorian. According to Lord Henry, she likes to introduce people with either every
detail about their personal life or every detail except the one that you want to
know.
Aunt Agatha: Lord Henry's high society aunt, who knows and lavishes praise
on Dorian Gray.
Lord Fermor: Lord Henry's uncle, a rich old gentleman who knows everyone in
society and is considered generous because he likes to entertain guests.
Lord Kelso: Dorian's maternal grandfather, who paid a man to kill Dorian's
penniless father in a duel.
Lady Margaret Devereux: Dorian's mother, a beautiful woman who married a
poor man and died shortly after he was killed.
Dartmoor: The man about whom society gossips because he is engaged to a
girl from America.
Duchess of Harley: Guest of Aunt Agatha; pleasant, well-liked, and of ample
proportions.
Sir Thomas Burdon: Guest of Aunt Agatha; a Radical member of Parliament.
Mr. Erskine of Treadley: An old man who doesn't speak very much since he
believes he said everything worthwhile before he turned thirty.
Mrs. Vandeleur: A very moral, but very dowdy, old friend of Aunt Agatha.
Lord Faudel: A middle-aged friend of Aunt Agatha.
Victoria (Lady Henry): Lord Henry's wife; a blonde, romantic woman.
Mrs. Vane: Sibyl's mother, a woman who is in heavy debt to Mr. Isaacs and
must, along with her daughter, act in his company to repay him.
Mr. Isaacs: The owner of the theatre where Sibyl Vane acts.
James: Sibyl's sixteen year old brother. Cares very much for his sister, and
before leaving for Australia, vows to kill her mystery gentleman if he does her
any wrong.
Victor: Dorian's valet, who, Dorian believes, is snooping around to find out his
secret.
Mrs. Leaf: Dorian's fussy housekeeper.
Mr. Hubbard: The frame-shop owner, who likes Dorian so much that he is
willing to do any favor for him.
Francis: Dorian's new valet, after Victor leaves.
Alan Campbell: A scientist and old friend of Dorian's who has vowed never to
associate with him again.
Lady Narborough: A widowed lady who has an affection for Dorian.
Adrian Singleton: A man whom Dorian is said to have ruined and led into a
life of despair.
The Duchess of Monmouth (Gladys) : A guest of Dorian's at the Selby
Royal; a beautiful woman married to a sixty year old man.
Geoffrey Clouston: Gladys' brother who shoots not only a hare, but a man as
well.
Hetty: The girl that Dorian spares when he decides to be good.
Oscar Wilde was born in 1854 to William Ralph Willis, a surgeon, and Jane
Francesca Elgee Wilde, who supported the movement for Irish independence.
Educated at the Portora Royal School, Trinity College in Dublin, and Oxford
University, he married Contance Lloyd in 1884 and had two children, Cyril and
Vyvyan. A prolific writer whose work included short stories, poetry, fairy tales,
plays, essays, and criticism, in addition to his one novel, The Picture of Dorian
Gray. Several of his well known plays are The Importance of
Being Earnest, Lady Windermere's Fan, Salome, An Ideal Husband, and A
Woman of No Importance. Most of his works had to do with the Aesthetic
movement, of which he was one of the most public supporters; he believed
that art is useless, and it should be done simply for its own sake. Writes Karl
Beckson inDictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 10: Modern British
Dramatists, 1900-1945, "Wilde absorbed the idea that art was superior to life
and that the one obligation was to transform life into art-to be as 'artificial' as
possible." He had a habit of using clever epigrams in his writing, so much so
that he re-used some of these epigrams in later works.
The Picture of Dorian Gray was commissioned by Lippincott's Monthly
Magazine and appeared in the July, 1890 issue. Reviews showed that the public
was shocked and disgusted by the book and its implicit homosexuality; Wilde
added six more chapters and a subplot that would be more to the public's taste
before publishing the book. The published book was given a good review and
said to promote the idea that excess was evil and would make a person ugly;
Wilde denied that this was his intention, however he did say that the book
shows that certain excesses have their own punishments.
Moving away from his family, Wilde began an affair with a young Lord Alfred
Douglas, which eventually resulted in his arrest and imprisonment for
homosexuality in 1896. His punishment was hard labor at Wandsworth Prison
and Reading Gaol, about which he wrote the poem "The Ballad of Reading
Gaol." He was released in 1897, and died three years later, in November 1900.
Bibliography
Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. New York: The Modern Library, 1998.

Plot Summary
A painter, Basil Hallward, paints a most exquisite portrait of his muse, the
handsome young man named Dorian Gray. During the last session of painting,
Dorian, who has until this point been completely innocent both of his beauty
and of the world, meets Basil's friend Lord Henry Wotton, who opens his eyes
to the ephemeral nature of his own beauty and tells him that he should
experience life to the fullest. Upon the completion of the portrait, Dorian wishes
out loud that the painting would grow old, and not he. Due to Lord Henry's
influence, Dorian goes out looking for passion and falls in love with a young
actress of considerable talent, Sibyl Vane. When she falls in love with him,
however, she realizes the falseness of her stage life and performs very poorly
in front of Basil and Lord Henry when they come to meet her; Dorian is
thoroughly disappointed, loses all respect and love for her, and breaks the
engagement. He goes home to find that the paintinghas become slightly more
cruel-looking, and the next morning, just after resolving to go back and marry
her regardless, finds out that Sibyl has killed herself. The painting fills him with
fear and he has it locked up in an old schoolroom in his house.
Dorian finds a certain joy, over the next years, in committing sinful or
pleasurable deeds and watching the painting change; he loses none of his
beauty or youth, but the painting grows old and ugly.
He is constantly in touch with Lord Henry, who feeds his beliefs about a new
Hedonism-the search for pleasure, not morality-which should take over the
world. When Dorian is thirty-eight, he runs into Basil, having not seen him for a
long time, and finally shows him what has happened to his portrait. Basil is
horrified and tries to make Dorian repent, but Dorian kills him, and has an old
friend of his burn the body and get rid of the evidence.
Dorian becomes increasingly anxious and fearful that someone might discover
his secret, and goes to an opium den to try to erase his bad feelings. Sibyl's
brother, James, who has been searching for him for eighteen years, knowing
only that his sister called him Prince Charming, finds Dorian and threatens his
life. He lets him go when Dorian tells him to look closely at his face; he could
not have been more than twenty years old. While at a hunting party a few days
later, a man is accidentally shot and killed, and Dorian finds out that this man
was James. He decides that from this time on, he will be good; and to do this,
he must get rid of the constant anxiety and fear he has been feeling-he must
destroy the portrait. He stabs it, with the same knife he used to kill Basil, and
when the servants enter they see the portrait as it was when it was new, and a
horrible, old, ugly man lying dead on the floor.
Gagnier, Regenia. Idylls of the Marketplace: Oscar Wilde and the Victorian Public. Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 1986.
Kingston, Angela. Oscar Wilde as a Character in Victorian Fiction. New York: Palgrave, 2007.
University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law. “Testimony of Oscar Wilde.”
Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Writings. New York: Bantam Books, 1982.

Read more at Suite101: Oscar Wilde's Trial – The Crime of Homosexuality: The Picture of Dorian Gray as Trial
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Character Performance in Picture of Dorian Gray

Sibyl Vane, Basil Hallward, and Dorian Gray
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Jan 23, 2010 Rebekah Richards
Sibyl Vane, Basil Hallward, and Dorian Gray each explore the relationship between life and performance throughout
Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray.

The connection between life and art represents an important theme in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Sibyl Vane
In The Picture of Dorian Gray, the character of Sibyl Vane most explicitly explores the relationship between life and
art Sibyl is a talented actress, but after falling in love with Dorian her portrayal of Juliet becomes “artificial,”
“false,” “wrong,” and “unreal” (73).

After her failed performance, however, she is lively and lovely in a way that her characters were not: she had “a look
of triumph on her face. Her eyes were lit with an exquisite fire. There was a radiance about her” (75).

Sibyl tells Dorian that “before I knew you, acting was the one reality of my life”; after they met she realized that “the
words I had to speak were unreal, were not my words, were not what I wanted to say” (76).

Dorian realizes he was in love with her acting, not Sibyl herself; he loved her performance, her ephemeral and ever-
changing “personal fronts”. Their relationship has a horrible, melodramatic ending – Sibyl kills herself, and Lord
Henry consoles Dorian by attempting to convince him that Sibyl “was always a dream,” as if she had never had an
identity apart from the roles she had played (91).

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However, the concept of falling in love with a person’s pretended or artificial front is not unusual, whether that front is
a carefully cultivated appearance, financial success, expensive clothes, or a luxury car.

Basil Hallward

Basil Hallward, the artist who paints the portrait of Dorian Gray, provides a direct contrast to the preface’s statement
that “To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim.”

Rather, Basil initially believes that art reveals the artist, even more than it illustrates the subject. He refuses to exhibit
his portrait of Dorian Gray, believing it will reveal his “artistic idolatry”:

“Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident,
the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the colored canvas, reveals
himself. The reason I will not exhibit this picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of my own soul”
(8).

This perspective clashes with Barthes’ notion of removing the author from the text. Rather, Basil’s conception of art
closely ties the ideas, experiences, and character of the artist to the art he or she produces.

However, by the middle of the novel, Basil changes his mind: “Art is always more abstract than we fancy. Form and
color tell us of form and color – that is all. It often seems to me that art conceals the artist far more completely than it
ever reveals him” (101).

Dorian Gray
Dorian’s innocent beauty serves as his personal front. The transfer of his aging and ugliness to his portrait allows
him to always present himself as young and beautiful. His secret requires him to pretend constantly, to live a
performance.

The impression management the magical portrait allows enables him to act with impunity, because he appears too
attractive and innocent to be guilty:

“Even those who had heard the most evil things against him, and from time to time strange rumors about his mode
of life crept through London and became the chatter of the clubs, could not believe anything to his dishonor when
they saw him. He had always had the look of one who had kept himself unspotted by the world” (111).

Dorian literally gets away with murder because he is attractive; his supernatural front is that of innocence and purity.
When Dorian asks Lord Henry what he would say if he claimed to have murdered Basil, Lord Henry responds that “I
would say, my dear fellow, that you were posing for a character that doesn’t suit you. All crime is vulgar, just as all
vulgarity is crime. It is not in you, Dorian, to commit a murder” (183).

In a rare moment of honesty, Dorian nearly confesses to Lord Henry, but Lord Henry accuses him of pretending; the
societal role of a person who looks like Dorian is not one of crime. As Lady Narborough tells Dorian, “You are made
to be good—you look so good” (155). Lady Narborough’s comment echoes the concept of the “beauty mystique.”

Read more at Suite101: Character Performance in Picture of Dorian Gray: Sibyl Vane, Basil Hallward, and
Dorian Gray http://victorian-
fiction.suite101.com/article.cfm/character_performance_in_picture_of_dorian_gray#ixzz0jxC8kR4e

Reveal the Artist - Conceal the Artist

Oscar Wilde's only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) is a classic instance of the aestheticism of
the late 19th century's English literature. The maxim of aestheticism "art for art's sake" is reflected in
the opening of the novel, which specifies art's aim to "reveal the art and conceal the artist."
For greater emphasis, Wilde defines the artist as free of ethical sympathies and morbidity. Even books
are seen as only "well written" or "badly written" and not as moral or amoral. Following this prelude on
art and beauty, Wilde weaves a plot that explores the issue to its core.

The plot of The Picture of Dorian Gray, if seen apart from the wit and epigrams of Lord Henry is
serious and, at times, even somber. Dorian Gray is a young and handsome man whose well-off friend
Lord Henry takes him to an art-loving painter, Basil Hallward. The painter makes a picture of Dorian
Gray, a fascinating piece that makes Dorian wish to stop aging. His wish is fulfilled and the picture
starts aging instead of young Dorian. The consequence is disaster. Oscar Wilde has created an
amusing tale that does not end very happily but ends beautifully with our easy-going Lord Henry still
chirping.

Style & Setting: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Anyone who has read dramatic fiction (Oscar Wilde in particular) will not find it hard to see the style of
the story's narrative as closer to drama than a novel. Wilde is not obsessed with describing settings in
detail as a novelist with a constructive bent would be. But the brevity of description is masterfully
covered in the warm and witty conversations that fill most of the novel. The epigrams of Lord Henry
shoot arrows of gentle satire on different elements of society.
Women, America, faithfulness, stupidity, marriage, romance, humanity, and weather are just some of
the numerous targets of Wilde's criticism, which the readers receive from the sharp but sweet tongue
of Lord Henry. The twittering lord is thus made an indelible character for his ease of expression and
his envied indifference. Yet, the author does not rely solely on spoken words to impart his impression.
He describes some scenes in words that evoke a vivid image in the reader's mind. Perhaps the best of
these is Dorian Gray's brief journey through the dark and filthy streets that stand in obtrusive contrast
to his luxurious entourage but which also bear remarkable resemblance to the kind of life he has
embraced.

Like his stories and plays, Oscar Wilde does not employ many characters to run the story of his novel.
Nearly the entire plot is nucleated around Dorian, Lord Henry, and the artist Basil. Minor characters
like the Duchess of Harley serve the purpose of initiating or furthering topics that would ultimately be
the butt of Lord Henry's repartees. The character description and motivation are again left mainly to
the perceptual capacity of the readers. Wilde is always testing the aesthetics of his readers and the
easier you go with his characters' disposition, the greater insight you gain.
Self-Love & The Vulnerability of Beauty: The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Gray addresses more than one theme. The primary appeal of the subject of
beauty, as it appears to eyes, is the main focus of the novel. Wilde reveals the tenderness of self-love,
or narcissism, which sometimes fails to find an object outside itself. Dorian's beauty, unlike Basil's art
and Lord Henry's social status, is more vulnerable to decay with time.

But it is not this weakness of beauty to age that brings the disaster upon our protagonist. It is the
consciousness of the owner of beauty to his own wealth that triggers the boundless fear of perishing--
fear that causes his doom. Unlike Lord Henry's ease about his rank, Dorian's angst about the
ephemeral nature of his beauty is shown as the true enemy of a person's self.

The philosophical boundaries of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray are too deep to track to their
ends. The novel addresses the issue of self-concept as portrayed in art. Further, it connects a person's
emotional response to his/her own image. While Dorian remains young and beautiful, the mere sight
of an aging picture of him is unbearably painful.
It would be too presumptuous to conclude that The Picture of Dorian Gray is a work of beauty with no
moralistic purpose. Wilde was not a moralist (as many of us already know) and within the book there
is not much to emphasize a moral code or right conduct. But the novel, in its covert meaning, is not
without a moral lesson. We can easily see that beauty is ephemeral and any attempt to deny this fact
is amoral. It brings ruin as shows the case of Dorian Gray.