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The Sinner In Oscar Wilde's The Picture Of Dorian Gray

714 Words3 Pages

In Oscar Wilde 's The Picture of Dorian Gray, the protagonist, Dorian, becomes a sinner after the intervention of Lord Henry over his life. The character starts living believing in what Lord Henry said to him, “The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.” (28). This premise states how people should follow their impulses in order to live a free life. Dorian commits multiple sins that do not seem to affect him directly, but affect his portrait. It could be said that his decadence changes his portrait without changing him. Nevertheless, this is not true because the plot of the book can led the reader to understand that living as a sinner ends up killing the soul of the sinner, and of the people around him. In order to understand …show more content…

Nonetheless these rumors, Lord Henry and Dorian seem to have no worries about them. Lord Henry states once in the book that “There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” (9). Having this into account it can be said that being talked about is something good for a sinner such as Lord Henry, or Dorian. This event causes the reader to question itself if there are consequences for being a sinner. At a first sight, the answer could be negative stating that both characters do not suffer consequences for their actions. However, if there are no consequences, then why Dorian Gray ends up being dead? In a part of the book Lord Henry asks Dorian a question he heard on the street. “What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” (265). This is an interesting question. The portrait of Dorian represents his corrupted soul, which Dorian will try to fix at the end of the book. The character starts performing “good” actions in order to see if there are changes in the portrait, however the result was negative. That the good act didn 't reverse the process implies that ,once committed, the sin is there forever.So a man would end up losing his soul when living as a

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Wilde writes about it being “perfectly charming”. The chapter then is corrupted by Lord Henry's influence on page 17. This structure of chapter continues through the first 10 chapters and then shifts to fill a more gothic idea. The setting becomes more ominous with the environment having blinding “fog” (Wilde 147) and the “cold rain”(Wilde 184). As corruption is about to take over Dorian's life he becomes blinded by the “lovely night” and environment again.

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