The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde - a personal analysis

Everyone associates 'The Picture of Dorian Grey', by Oscar Wilde, as a book of art and beauty. The issue however, with the public's view of it, is that it only focuses and isolates the aestheticism and beauty of the writing, and does not look at the development of Dorian's personality, and the actions he takes in name of his beauty. The public are misguided by Dorian's own obsession of living beauty.

Dorian Gray, a young man begins to live in the London, and becomes a muse for the artist Basil Hallward. Dorian is everything to Basil, and he creates multiple pieces of him until he makes his "best work", a piece so amazing it captures the very essence of Dorian, and when the muse states that "When I find that I am growing old, I shall kill myself." due to the grief that he should never be as young as he is now again. This indirectly spoken wish is granted by an unknown force, and Dorian later realised that all the sin, horrors, and age he accumulates will only be shown on this masterpiece.

After coming to this realisation, along with the influence of Lord Henry's privileged personality, he becomes enthralled with the life of pleasure. The almost entirety of Chapter 11 within the book is dedicated to the beauties of life that Dorian now employed. We see him first become enamoured with the changes seen in the portrait, admiring it for hours, of how "the hideous lines that seared the wrinkling forehead, or crawled around the heavy sensual mouth". 

Following this examination of his sins, he obsessed over all that is art, and beautiful philosophy. He studied perfumes, and how certain scents caused certain reactions. How ambergris stirred one's passions, and "in violets that woke the memory of dead romances". He also studied the sound of foreign instruments, the beauty of Tannhäuser, a tragic play, the power of crystals and jewels, religious practices, and so many more enjoyments of life.This is a representation of Dorian Gray's new perspective on life, and how he now mirrors and parrots the ideals of Lord Henry.

The reader however, is then met with a dramatically contrasting chapter. In this we see Basil meet Dorian at his house, even though Dorian tried to avoid him. The artist visits before his leave to Paris to confront Dorian of all the horrors he has heard committed by the beautiful youth, and demands to know if it is true. How men and women leave the room when he is present. How "[his] friendship is so fatal" to all the fashionable, young men he associates with, who at different intervals ended horribly. How that the artist must to "see [his] soul".

After hearing this, Dorian becomes enraged and demands that "You shall see it yourself tonight!". Bringing Basil to the locked, and taken away portrait, Dorian revealed the grotesqueness of the artist's now forever changed masterpiece. The image apalls him, and Basil begs for Dorian to pray with him. This suggestion to pray for the evilness of himself in the portrait sends Dorian in to a rage, and he delicately and smoothly picks up a letter opener, and stabs Basil behind the ear several times.

To skip to the end as I'm too annoyed with Dorian's character to continue, he does the only possible thing for this book about morals...........he kills himself. He only does this due to his agitation at the portrait, and not because he truly felt that he deserved to die due to his depravity, and disgusting nature. 

In conclusion, the Picture of Dorian Grey should not just be remembered for its beauty, but the expressed price of beauty, and vanity. How we are all susceptible to corruption, even when it's in the guise of beauty.