The Ignorance Of Youth In The Picture Of Dorian Gray

In the novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian eventually shows Basil what his portrait has become and Basil suggests that Dorian must pray for forgiveness to which he responds that it is far too late and looking back at the grotesque portrait once again fills Dorian with rage against Basil, taking a nearby knife and stabbing him to death. Dorian blackmails an ex-friend, Alan Campbell, into helping him cover up Basil’s murder and some time later there is gossip of Alan’s suicide. Dorian sees glances of James Vane everywhere he goes and is terrified that he will be assassinated. Dorian once again confronts his portrait, grabs the same knife used to kill Basil and stabs his portrait in hopes that this will destroy any evidence of such a shameful

As aforementioned, the focus and high praise of youth is a major theme throughout and is something that many enjoy or long for. For example, when Lord Henry is preaching his idolism of youth, "To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable. Youth! There is nothing like it. It's absurd to talk of the ignorance of youth. The only people to whose opinions I listen now with any respect are people much younger than myself. They seem in front of me. Life has revealed to them her latest wonder. As for the aged, I always contradict the aged. I do it on principle. If you ask them their opinion on something that happened yesterday, they solemnly give you the opinions current in 1820, when people wore high stocks, believed in everything, and knew absolutely nothing." we can clearly see that even to the end, Lord Henry still holds youth to a high virtue. But as the reader can see from Dorian’s experiences that this is not true and that Lord Henry’s innocent wish in actuality is extremely foolish. In contrast with the ideals that have been put upon the idea of youth and beauty, these last few chapters of the novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, is the cause of their downfalls. Dorian does not realize this until the end that his insatiable desire for eternal youth to avoid the disgusting characteristics that come with age was imprudent. He realizes that his youth was merely an illusion and he had used this illusion for evil, time and time