The Picture of Dorian Gray

Obraz Doriana Graya autorstwa Oscara Wilde'a

The Picture of Dorian Gray, moral fantasy novel by Oscar Wilde, published in an early form in Lippincott’s Magazine in 1890. The novel had six additional chapters when it appeared in book form in 1891. The novel, an archetypal tale of a young man who purchases eternal youth at the expense of his soul, was a romantic exposition of Wilde’s own Aestheticism. Publication of the novel scandalized Victorian England, and The Picture of Dorian Gray was used as evidence against Wilde in his 1895 trial for homosexuality. The novel became a classic of English literature and was adapted into a number of films, most notably a 1945 version that earned multiple Academy Award nominations.

Dorian Gray is a handsome and wealthy young Englishman who gradually sinks into a life of dissipation and crime. Despite his unhealthy behaviour, his physical appearance remains youthful and unmarked by dissolute life. Instead, a hidden portrait of himself catalogues every evil deed by turning his once handsome features into a hideous, grotesque mask. When Gray destroys the painting, his face turns into a human replica of the portrait, and he dies. Gray’s final negation, “Ugliness is the only reality,” neatly summarizes Wilde’s Aestheticism, both his love of the beautiful and his fascination with the profane.

“There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book,” wrote Wilde. “Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.” These aphorisms that make up the “Preface” of Wilde’s only novel was his response to those critics who had questioned the immorality and unhealthiness of this story after its scandalous first appearance in Lippincott’s Magazine. However, for all its transgressive delights, The Picture of Dorian Gray could easily be read as a profoundly moral book, even a cautionary tale against the dangers of vice. Dorian’s descent into moral squalor is neither admirable, as can be seen in his peremptory rejection of his fiancée, the actress Sybil Vain, nor enviable. Indeed the beautiful boy is the least interesting character in the book that bears his name. After the artist Basil Hallward paints Dorian’s picture, his subject’s frivolous wish for immortality comes true. As the picture of him grows old and corrupt, Dorian himself continues to appear fresh and innocent for decades, despite the lusts and depravity of his private life. To be sure, it is the epigrammatic wit of Lord Henry Wotton that encourages Dorian on his quest for sensuality and sensation, but Dorian’s values pervert the deeply serious Wildean ethic that they superficially resemble. Whereas Oscar Wilde’s essays advocated individualism and self-realization as a route to a richer life and a more just society, Dorian follows a path of hedonism, self-indulgence, and the objectification of others. It is, nonetheless, a story that poignantly reflects Wilde’s own double life and anticipates his own fall.