The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)

Written by: Oscar Wilde
Published by: Canterbury Classics
ISBN: 978-1-60710-732-3
DIDACTIC FICTION

Lately I’ve noticed people talking about people and they’re all like ‘this guy is totally a Dorian Gray, doing the whatever he’s doing.’  I had no idea what the hell they were talking about.  Who is Dorian Gray?  So I resolved to find out.  Now I get to pass on my newfound old knowledge to you, oh humblest of readers.  Did you know there is a thing called Dorian Gray Syndrome?  Wikipedia has an article about it.  It’s a pretty good read.  You know you’ve made it as a writer when your ideas find their way into international consciousness.  Surely it is an honor.

The Picture of Dorian Gray is a novel about a guy who paints a portrait of another incredibly rich guy who exemplifies beauty and innocence.  Looking over the portrait upon its being finished, the rich guy is influenced by a third guy to make a wish on the portrait that the person in the portrait would age while in the flesh while he would not.  Unbeknownst to him at first, the wish comes true and the transgressions of his lifestyle mar the painting considerably as he becomes influenced by a hedonistic, ruinous lifestyle completely free of consequences.  It lends credence to the wonder of whether or not timeless beauty is really a blessing or a curse.

Themes of beauty and age lie at the heart of this book.  The desire to stay young forever is something a lot of people, especially in today’s age with its cornucopia of cosmetic surgery and make-up and lasers and penis pills and whatever else, aspire toward.  To be young is to be accepted, to be ‘in’ with the masses at large.  To be young is to be beautiful, and when you are beautiful nothing else matters.  The moment that first wrinkle develops on your face is the mark of your own doom, but remember that that moment is inevitable for any living and breathing person that wanders the face of the planet today.  It will always remain this way, in spite of the biggest and bestest efforts of big pharma or whoever else  who toils to unlock the secrets of the real fountain of youth.

Dorian Gray never finds aging to be a problem because he doesn’t age at all once his portrait is finished.  His ultimate tragedy, however, is that rather than using his dashing good looks to be a good man, he instead heeds the advice of the relatively sociopathic Lord Henry to embrace a life of hedonism and decadence that is most foul.  He does drugs, is a heartless womanizer, holds vicious contempt for both upper and lower classmen, he tricks, he steals, he murders… He becomes this remorseless thing that takes his beauty for granted, knowing that it could get him anything that he wants.  But even with a heart as black as coal, he has the propensity to do good.  And yet still he resists the urge to be a good man, principally because of Lord Henry’s fascination with turning him into everything he isn’t.  I’m sure we all have a friend like that, too.  You know, that one who always wants to go to a strip club or drive fast cars or do nothing but loose women 20 years younger than he is?  You don’t?  Oh.  Whatever.

Good literature is all about embracing the impossible and relating it to the larger world that surrounds us.  It fills us with ideas about what is moral, what is immoral, what is true, and what isn’t true.  And the cool thing about all of this is that it allows us to decide if the lifestyle we are reading about is really what would be best for us; a sort of way to test the waters and ascertain the consequences of what could be our stupidest choices.  What kind of people should we be, then, if we know we cannot be forever young?

A

Choice Passages:

Dorian smiled and shook his head. “I am afraid I don’t think so, Lady Henry. I never talk during music–at least, during good music. If one hears bad music, it is one’s duty to drown it in conversation.”

Lord Henry: “My dear boy, no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.”
Dorian Gray: “Harry, how can you?”

He rubbed his eyes, and came close to the picture, and examined it again. There were no signs of any change when he looked into the actual painting, and yet there was no doubt that the whole expression had altered. It was not a mere fancy of his own. The thing was horribly apparent. He threw himself into a chair and began to think.

Dorian Gray smiled to himself. How little the man knew of the true reason! And how strange it was that, instead of having forced to reveal his own secret, he had succeeded, almost by chance, in wresting a secret from his from his friend! How much that strange confession explained to him!