PODG #8 Analysis

            Throughout Oscar Wilde’s fictional novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian is characterized as a character in which Dorian experiences a drastic personality change through Lord Henry’s influence. In the beginning, Dorian is viewed as a shy character and possesses a blank slate. Lord Henry, throughout the novel, attempts to shape Dorian’s behavior and constructs an avatar in which he sees Dorian as a perfection of art. Dorian, however, is faced with confrontations of sins in which they ultimately force Dorian to slowly lose control of his conscious.

            Throughout the novel Dorian has been viewed as a symbol of beauty, and an avatar of perfection. However, Lord Henry’s influence regarding perfection in beauty has caused Dorian to alter his conscious into a state of insanity. Dorian eventually realizes that Basil’s portrait is truly the basis for Dorian’s evil. In the middle of a conversation between Dorian and Lord Henry, Dorian reflects upon his beauty and how he wishes to escape the fear and guilt he has as a result of murdering Basil and states that “I have no terror of Death. It is the coming of Death that terrifies me” (Wilde 209). The fact that the word “Death” is capitalized suggests a deeper connection Dorian feels with it. He encompasses Death as an inevitable part of life, yet he fears of it because he “feel[s] as if something horrible were going to happen” (208) to him. Dorian predominantly fears of being assassinated by Sibyl Vane’s brother, James, since Dorian originally often reflects upon the death of Sibyl as an act of indirect murder. Although James is accidentally shot in the woods, Dorian feels a slight sense of satisfaction since he realizes that he is no longer hunted. Although Dorian is viewed as an avatar of beauty and perfection, he ultimately blames his conscious and his beauty for destroying his conscious. The author suggests that “It was his beauty that had ruined him, his beauty and the youth that he had prayed for” (226). Dorian, in the beginning of the novel, wishes that his beauty remained young and youthful as the portrait aged. However, the aging portrait at Dorian’s surprise caused Dorian to ultimately reflect upon his youthful status and eventually caused Dorian to conclude that the source of all his evil was simply his beauty. Given Lord Henry’s admiration and attraction for Dorian’s beauty, his influence of Dorian has in due course caused Dorian to destroy the portrait, thus being able to destroy a source of his sins along with the fact that Lord Henry manipulates Dorian with Dorian’s upmost beauty. Dorian wishes to start a new life and to throw away his own soul, which in his eyes, leads him to stab the portrait with the same knife used to murder Basil. By presumably destroying his conscious, Dorian is able to liberate himself from the grasp of evil he confronted as a result of Lord Henry’s influence over him. Dorian was basically an experimentation at Lord Henry’s free will.