In The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde introduces Dorian Gray as a mysterious and beautiful young man. He has no opinion and is very similar to a ball of clay, in the sense that he has no opinion and is free to be molded by whoever takes interest in him. Basil and Lord Henry both take interest in the young man. While both praise his physical beauty, Lord Henry wants to turn him into a hedonist minion. He convinces Dorian that he is a perfect candidate to live life according to his pleasure and that Basil is a poor influence upon him. Dorian takes this to heart and lives his life this way. He exchanges the purity of his soul for the beauty of his youth in certain painting. This breaks him down. He becomes less and less welcome by those who once admired him. He gets blackballed from clubs, has promiscuous sex and spends seventy-two hour periods in London’s opium dens. His life of seeking pleasure makes him more and more unhappy. When Basil shows up, he wants some one to sympathize with him and tell him that what he has done is not his fault. During the scene of Basil’s murder, Dorian’s want to be seen as good is apparent, but his unwillingness to accept fault and his corrupt ideology drive him to kill Basil, unveiling a new, malicious side to Dorian Gray.Dorian tries to make it seem as though his soul has taken him hostage and led to his downfall, proof that he wants to be remembered as good. He hopes that this attempt to make himself seem like the victim will cause others to sympathize with him and excuse any wrong-doing he has committed or might commit. Now that Basil is in his presence, Dorian is finally able to test his new method and see whether or not it will be successful:“’You told me you had destroyed it.’‘I was w…
…ealize the situation. The friend who had painted the fatal portrait to which all his misery had been due, had gone out of his life. That was enough” (157). Shortly after giving us a taste of evil pleasure, Dorian returns to the rational he had been following prior to Basil’s murder. He wants to be thought of as good. On his way to the door, he doesn’t even look at the body, proof that he is ashamed of the joy he had expressed in observing it a few minutes before. He doesn’t want to acknowledge Basil’s death as a death but would rather as an absence. He expresses the same sense of shame and is very sad about what he has done. He also refers to Basil this time around as a “friend”, proof that he wants to be seen as good and truly misses him. He does not wish to accept the situationWorks Cited
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Wilde, Oscar The Picture of Dorian Gray New York: Pearson Education, 2007.
