The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde is a novel that heavily symbolizes the worship of youth and beauty. Dorian Gray was a young beautiful man who had his portrait painted by artist Basil Hallward, representing that Dorian will only remain youthful only for a short period of time, while the painting is eternally young. Dorian is somewhat unable to accept this, and he pursues a hyper-hedonistic lifestyle, not caring about whether the means to achieve this are moral or immoral. This pursuit leads Dorian down a major slippery slope, where his portrait becomes more grotesque and hideos as his sins grows. Many cultures around the world including the United States idolizes physical beauty on varying degrees. Within America, it is very apparent that the beauty of youth is flaunted on many platforms, from high billboards to television commercials. One case of this in American television is the advertisement of lotion company Avon, claiming that their product will restore skin to a “younger age” and “make you look ten years younger just after 24 hours.” Models in the commercial are composed of not older women who have youthful skin, but young women in their mid to late 20’s with glamorous skin. This is represented in the novel with Dorian who does not want to accept that he will age and lose his attractiveness. There must be a large psychology with Americans who want to prolong their “youth” for as long as they can for these beauty product industries to remain so successful. …show more content…
This phenomenon defines beauty for a person to be more on the inside, and to become more acceptable of those who are less attractive by not shaming them for that. However this resistance is only in its early stages and doesn’t appear to to have made a wide scale