“The Picture of Dorian Gray” is The Gift That Just Keeps Giving

by Gabrielle White 

Oscar Wilde’s classic novel, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” tells the story of the protagonist, Dorian Gray, a beautiful and enticing young man who sits for a portrait painted by his close friend, Basil Hallward. Once Gray views the portrait that Hallward painted for him in all of its beauty, a philosopher, Lord Henry, meets Gray and shares with him that he won’t stay youthful forever. Once Dorian catches news of this, he sells his soul in order to stay young and beautiful forever, while the painting grows old and loses its sense of self instead of Gray. The novel brings you down Gray’s burning path of moral destruction, now that he is eternally young, and bargains the question that has been pondered for centuries: how far would one go to keep their youthfulness? 

Wilde’s novel was released in 1890, and was at first filled with his own homosexual innuendos, causing a bit of a scandal for the time period. Wilde’s homosexuality almost being published for the world to see later had him sent to be imprisoned for “gross indecency” and left the novel being censored for its homosexual content. While the novel is said to be, “censored,” it still carries the underlying tone and message of how Wilde could’ve possibly wanted the characters to be perceived in a homosexual manner.  But as Wilde said, “To define is to limit,” it shows that he could’ve never truly defined the novel as a homosexual book, especially because it would be limiting all the other things about the novel that are so eye-catching. 

In the first few chapters of the novel, Gray meets a woman by the name of Sybil Vane, and it seems as though Wilde creates her character in an attempt to show the difference between Gray’s interactions between his male friends, and his romantic female relationships. Vane is a young actress that plays a different role every night at the same theater that Gray visits to fantasize over her. But once Vane is no longer being romanticized by Gray, and her true self is shown instead of the character she portrays each night, Gray becomes instantly disgusted with her. Vane ends up committing suicide after Gray cuts things off between them when she is no longer the picture-perfect woman he envisioned her to be in his mind, which you would usually assume someone would blame themselves for. Instead, Gray just reacts in a heartless and childish manner. 

The more that Gray indulges into his vanity and horribly immoral acts, the more the portrait begins to change and grow to be a reflection of Gray’s soul, rather than the handsome man he is on the outside. With Gray’s murder of Hallward, as well as his constant discernment for anything requiring thought or feeling, all of his mind becomes consumed into his ego and corrupts into his own downfall. 

The novel brings you down constant plot switches and storylines so drastically every couple of pages, that it’s hard to keep track of what's going on throughout it, unless you are fully present in the book. “The Picture of Dorian Gray” is not a novel that helps you relax and rewind after a long day, but rather a rollercoaster of emotions and confusion for both the reader and the characters. The more of the novel you read, the more you begin to see Gray weld himself down such an inconspicuous rabbit hole, that you yourself feel you can’t just escape by closing the book.  The novel is considered a classic for good reason with it being extraordinarily well written, and having messages and meaning all throughout it that have stood the test of time with its relevance even within today’s society.