Dorian Gray Manipulation

In Oscar Wilde’s, The Picture of Dorian Gray and director Neil LaBute’s The Shape of Things there was a consistent theme of change. The change developed through manipulation and hypocrisy. In the film The Shape of Things, a young artist unethically changes a museum worker in search of the ideal work of art. Within the novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, a well-known man finds his sins changing his own portrait. In The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Shape of Things people manipulate others and make unethical decisions in order to create or sculpt others to form an ideal relationship between themselves and their victims. The manipulation of one man, for the purpose of art, leads him to make unethical decisions that would affect

Evelyn’s overarching way of creating is this was, “Moralists have no place in an art gallery”. The Shape of Things begins with Adam, a nerdy English major working at the local art museum and meeting Evelyn, a graduate student working on her senior thesis. Throughout the film, Adam and Evelyn get to know each other. While they were “dating” Evelyn made changes to an unknowing, unsuspecting Adam, using him like a sculptor would use a blank slab of clay to create her senior thesis project. She convinced Adam to change things about him, starting with him losing weight, a new haircut and eventually she even convinced him to get a nose job. Besides changing physical appearance, she also manipulated his social life, by isolating him from all his friends. She did these manipulations through the use of sexual interst, as well as “love”. While presenting her senior thesis Evelyn harshly presents all the changes that she made to Adam, through documented displays of change, such as showing his sexual adventurous side, with a sex tape. To Adam’s shock and dismay learns that he was violated, lied to and used. Evelyn and Adam’s relationship was never real. She used him as a human canvas without him knowing. After the presentation, Adam confronts Evelyn about her twisted mind games. This was displayed by adam when he said, ”Just refer to me as it or

Other differences between the two stories include setting, method of change and the median of change. The Picture of Dorian Gray takes place in the 19th century and London. In the film, The Shape of Things it takes place in the Midwest in the 21st century. In The Shape of Things, Evelyn used Adam as her human canvas or sculpture, where as in the The Picture of Dorian Gray Basil simply paints a portrait of Dorian. Basil’s portrait of Dorian showed change. Dorian lost his beauty because of the sins he had committed, but you never saw the changed within his physical appearance. Adam changed because Evelyn wanted him to. He changed to make himself more aesthetically pleasing, he never did it for himself. Another key contrast is the manipulator. In The Shape of Things, the manipulator was the artist who manipulated Adam in the name of art. In contrast, the manipulator in The picture of Dorian Gray, was not an artist rather a trusted friend who corrupted Dorian through literature and persuasive