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How Is Dorian Gray A Morally Ambiguous Character

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“With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone” (Oscar Wilde). One can grow old in age, but still never achieve maturity in wisdom. This is the case for Dorian Gray. He is an alluring young boy who Wilde develops throughout the novel. Dorian wishes to maintain his youth and beauty as he ages. His wish becomes true, but just as wilde’s quote states, he does not gain the precise wisdom and experiences that are necessary to mature as he ages. Dorian Gray is the primary morally ambiguous character of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, a fact displayed through his subservience to Basil Hallward and Lord Henry Wotton. Both characters impose opposite influences on Dorian in the novel, it is for this reason that he cannot be completely resolved as a purely evil or purely good character.
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Basil begs Henry to not impose any influence on his golden subject, Dorian Gray, because he is aware of Henry’s malicious influence, especially on those so innocent and pure. The first time that the reader is able to observe these influences is when Dorian falls in love with the actor, Sybil Vane. “But Juliet! Harry, imagine a girl, hardly seventeen years of age, with a little, flowerlike face, a small Greek head with plaited coils of dark-brown hair, eyes that were violet wells of passion, lips that were like the petals of a rose. She was the loveliest thing I had ever seen in my life” (Wilde 48-49). Wilde is able to display Basil’s influence on Dorian through his description of the lovely Sybil Vane. The passionate love of Sybil and her performance art that Dorian is entranced by reveals Basil’s positive influence of life in Dorian.

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Throughout The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde illustrates the dichotomy of Dorian Gray revealing the corruption of his soul and the reflection of that corruption in the appearance of his portrait. At the beginning of the novel, Dorian is the epitome of youth and beauty: his appearance and innocence enable him to be well-liked among everyone. However, Dorian begins his descent into evil and sin when he pledges his soul to remain youthful while his portrait ages. To illustrate, Wilde repeatedly draws a parallel between Dorian’s corruption and the physical appearance of the portrait. Furthermore, Dorian’s murder of Basil reveals the extent of the irreversible corruption of his soul.

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Cruelty plays a vital role in developing the plot and characters in “The Picture of Dorian Gray”. Throughout the piece, many acts of cruelty are displayed from Dorian Gray and others that show truly who they are how they've developed from it. Dorian takes on a huge change in his morals and standards because of the influence taken in from others. This influence causes him to only care about his own youth and vanity, resulting in a huge change of personality. The more Dorian becomes influenced by Lord Henry and the painting, the crueler he becomes

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In the novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde portrays Lord Henry and Dorian Gray as talkative people with both harboring a great deal of opinions about sentimental relationships and the opposite gender. Both individuals possess different viewpoints about these topics. Nevertheless, they accept each other’s interpretations about romance, even though they do not share the same beliefs. However, throughout the story, the pair do share one thing in common. Lord Henry and Dorian Gray are both depicted as knowledgeable characters on the topics of relationships and the opposite sex through their wise speech and actions.

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His views, opinions and influences captivated by Dorian Gray which continuously encourages Dorian Gray into bad things. The third main character is Basil Hallward who was an artist that paints a picture of Dorian Gray and thus, becomes obsessed with him as Dorian Gray’s beauty was Basil’s art object. Basil feelings towards Dorian were left unclear, likely because in that time, those who involved in homosexual are going to be punish be society. ‘The Picture Of Dorian Gray’ book, Oscar Wilde emphasized some relationships which were Basil Hallward and Lord Henry were friends of Dorian Gray, but, as I reach to the middle pages, Basil had feelings for Dorian Gray as he even confessed to Dorian in Dorian’s

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The Reason for Dorian’s Downfall The Picture of Dorian Gray demonstrates what would happen to an individual who is more devoted to maintaining their beauty on the outside other than trying to better themselves within. Oscar Wilde writes a novel that exposes the truth of what really happens in a society built on those who can only be happy through wealthy and beauty, slowly losing their innocents and soon enough their souls. This is what happens to Dorian Gray, a young man of 21 who knows little of the world, his mind is open to many different aspects of how to start off living and how to grow in the process. It is when he meets Lord Henry that Dorian is steered in the direction that there is one explanation for everything that happens in life and one explanation only, Lord Henry explains, “Because to influence a person is to give him one’s own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions.

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At the end of the book, he has lost all of his innocence and gained cruelty. Bad company and objects are what causes Dorian Gray 's corruption. Basil Hallward is a painter who wants to paint Dorian 's picture. He is a quiet and unchangeable man. When he first meets Dorian, they talk about how it was destiny for them to meet.

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2) I believe that even though Dorian's influence over Basil was unintended, Lord Henry's intentional manipulation has drastic consequences for Dorian because to influence a person is to give one's soul. His virtues are not real to him. This is a quote from ( The picture of Dorian Gray.) I think Dorian was responsible because of the ruined lives of his friends. He was obsessed with beauty and easily influenced nature and very irresponsible.

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The Picture of Dorian Gray written by Oscar Wilde. The Picture of Dorian Gray shocked the moral judgments of British book critics. Some of them said Oscar Wilde deserved to be pursuance for breaking the laws guarding the common morality because the uses of homosexuality were in that time banned. This book was for that time unusual because it had a pretty serious criticism on the society from that time. The novel is about a young and extraordinarily beautiful youngster, named Dorian Gray that have promised to his soul in order to live a life of eternal youth, he must try to adapt himself to the bodily decay and dissipation that are shown in his portrait.

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As soon as Dorian enters in Chapter 2 of The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wildes’ one and only novel, its is evident that there will be a battle between who will have the most influence on his pure, untouched soul. Basil Hallward, a painter and worshipper of art is an optimist and sees only the good in even the wickedest of people, such as Lord Henry. Lord Henry is a charming, self-indulgent aristocrat that shapes and molds Dorian to lead a life devoted to pleasure. Both Basil and Lord Henry represent two important opposing forces in the novel, good and evil. The greatest struggle in The Picture of Dorian Gray is inside Dorian; he himself embodies both pure good and pure evil.

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From the beginning of the novel we get to see a model of poor and unconventional morality, Lord Henry Wotton, a man who is moved by an ethic current called “New Hedonism” which taking into account society’s ethics (specially the ones from the Victorian Era) is quite immoral. The New Hedonism basically consists in looking for the individual’s best comfort, pleasure and happiness (based on beauty), leaving aside the other’s comfort and what should be morally done. This character with poor morality is who guides the book’s main character Dorian Gray along his adventure. However, it is vital to take into account the fact that Dorian Gray is never forced to follow New Hedonism and that Wilde never influences or invites the reader to follow New Hedonist

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1753 Words | 8 Pages

Also, he remained not a man of himself, yet created by one who was afraid. A man who “talked no morals and did nothing wrong” Dorian became what Henry couldn’t become. It really is a pity, being so beautiful yet so dumb that it forces you into becoming an ugly fiend. Pictures are meant to be immortal, no matter how much he might run away from it, he can’t escape reality, but then he shows moments of indecisiveness, since he wants to leave his corruption yet he wants to keep going. Dorian Gray truly depicts the fall of innocence and that outer beauty is meaningless if the seed is rotten.

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1078 Words | 5 Pages

Unlike Tell-Tale Heart, the protagonist and the narrator are not the same character in The Picture of Dorian Gray. In Oscar Wilde’s story the protagonist is a young, attractive, wealthy man by the name of Dorian Gray. Dorian is portrayed this way at the beginning of the story, but takes a drastic change for the worst turning into a horrible character who is up obsessed with beauty. Dorian Gray is extremely narcissistic and is very keen on his own personal appearance. Dorian seems to be so obsessed with himself that he really has no true value of morals or what is right.

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1048 Words | 5 Pages

In the novel, there is a trinity of primary characters: Dorian Gray, Lord Henry Wotton, and Basil Hallward. Wilde illustrates the macabre aspects of human nature through the medium of the characters, but he also shows that within said context Basil Hallward stands out. Within the setting of Victorian London the reader sees both the

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829 Words | 4 Pages

The Paper of Dorian Gray Throughout Oscar Wilde’s novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, we view the horrible actions of the main character, Dorian Gray. These actions, however, never seem to affect Dorian. We soon come to realize that this self-portrait reflects Dorian’s actions and aging process instead of Dorian and allow him to live a secret life of horrible acts. In the novel, Dorian takes full advantage of the portraits power, calling the portrait a reflection of his soul, and makes no effort to preserve his soul due to the poisonous influence from Lord Henry and his own selfishness.

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The theme of appearance extends further in Dorian’s life. Dorian’s outer beauty allows him to get away with almost anything, due to the fact that people equals his outer beauty to him being a good person. In reality, Wilde makes it very clear that Dorian Gray is not a good person. The theme of appearance is illustrated through underlying criticism within Wilde’s use of motifs and symbols. A main motif used by Wilde is the painting done by Basil Hallward.

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