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Analysis ending the picture of dorian gray
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No matter how hard Dorian tries to act innocent, his sins cannot easily be erased since he acts pure for selfish reasons, such as clearing his conscience. Additionally, Wilde uses mist to symbolize Dorian’s uncertainty about beauty. As Dorian enters the opium den, “the mist thickened, he felt afraid” (205). In Plato’s theory, Dorian does not completely understand the beauty of something, since he glances it from at a surface level and therefore, remains far from the truth and results in confusion and uncertainty, such as the mist. Moreover, Wilde suggests how before Basil’s murder, Dorian did not appear completely innocent but society could still consider him pure and white if he prayed for God’s forgiveness.
Chunk # 5 Chapters: 9 - 10 Dorian starts to become more like Henry, and Dorian finds a new book - When Basil comes to Dorian’s house to give his condolences, Dorian, in a manor akin to Henry, shrugs it off in an apathetic manor – For which Basil blames on the influence of Lord
In conversation with Lord Henry, Dorian says, “I was terribly cruel to her. You forget that.” then quickly follows up with, “You have explained to me myself, Harry, I felt all that you have said but somehow I was afraid of it, and I could not express it to myself.” (Wilde, 90). Dorian is continuing on the path of no return.
but I think I have the gist of it. Art represents God (abstract, everywhere, expressing emotion), and Basil is an extension of that he creates the world in his choosing and believes that Gray can be redeemed even after looking upon the state of his soul. Whenever, he creates Dorian’s portrait he creates the perfect version of him, an angelic form of him if you will. Henry is also introduced opposite of Basil, he can represent Dorian’s own devil on his shoulder coercing him to sin. When Dorian meets Henry, he realizes that he will never live up to the seemingly better version of himself, so he wishes to be better than it.
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
I would give my soul for that!’” (28: ch. 2), describes Dorian’s Faustian pact which basically mangles his soul like Tom Riddle, and “’He felt that the secret of the whole thing was not to realize the situation.’” (159: ch. 14) refers to Dorian’s emotional detachment, also like Tom Riddle. Even “He rushed at him and dug the knife into the great vein that is behind the ear, crushing the man’s head down on the table and stabbing him again and again.” (158: ch. 13) becomes easier to comprehend when compared to Tom Riddle, and traced back to both men’s intense fear of mortality.
Dorian is a young man who is not yet fully formed in his thinking and has a very handsome appearance. Basil is instantly taken with him and finds that he wants Dorian all to himself. The way Basil influences Dorian isn 't through words but rather through his actions. He idolizes him.
Dorian Gray is a handsome, narcissistic young man enthralled by Lord Henry 's new enjoyment. He satisfies in every pleasure of moral and immoral life ultimately heads to death. Henry tells
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.
Lord Henry’s painting showed Dorian the reality of life and all the sins he had committed. With the picture, Dorian destroyed it plus his own life because he could not bear the fact that his beauty was going to fade. In addition, Henry influences Dorian by manipulating him because; he carries on with his idea of remaining youthful. This is evident when he says, "To get back to my youth, I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable" (Liebman 300). Lord Henry had everything to do with Dorian’s obsession of wanting to remain young especially with the picture and his philosophy.
In the story The Picture Dorian Gray he slowly destroys himself with his narcissistic tendencies. With the encouragement from Lord Henry, Dorians narcissism only grows. While Dorian 's
The Picture of Dorian Gray, one of Oscar Wilde’s masterpieces, portrays one of the most important values and principles for him: aestheticism. As a criticism to the life lived during the Victorian era in England, Wilde exposed a world of beauty a freedom in contradiction to the lack of tolerance a limitation of that era; of course inspired due to Wilde’s personal life. All the restrictions of the Victorian England lead him to a sort of anarchism against what he found to be incoherent rules, and he expressed all this to his art. His literature is a strong, political and social criticism. He gave a different point of view to controversial topics such as life, morality, values, art, sexuality, marriage, and many others, and epigrams, for what he is very well known, where the main source to the exposure of his interpretations of this topic.
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.
Basil has come to ask Dorian about all the horrible rumors surrounding him, and hopes they turn out false. Basil also asks about the portrait and why Dorian hides it, so Dorian decides to show him his “to see your soul. But only God can do that—you shall see it yourself to-night!”. Dorian then takes Basil to see his picture, which at first cannot be recognized by Basil, but soon he realizes the true horror of the situation, “an exclamation of horror broke out from the painter’s lips as he saw in the dim light the hideous face on the canvas grinning at him” (Wilde 113). Dorians soul has become rotten to the core with selfishness and pleasure, mainly because of Lord Henry’s poisonous words.
Not one blossom of his loveliness would ever fade. Not one pulse of his life would ever weaken. Like the gods of the Greeks, he would be strong, and fleet, and joyous.” (Wilde 98). Through this scene, Wilde makes it clear to the reader how corrupt Dorian’s world perspective is.
