Review of ​The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

​The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde is a novel about a young man whose painted portrait displays the age and sin of Dorian, while he stays as youthful as ever. The painter, Basil Hallward, sets his eyes upon Dorian at a party and finds the soul of his art in him. So he decides to paint Dorian. The painter’s friend, Lord Henry, accompanies the both of them during a session, essentially telling Dorian that he is young and that he needs to experience pleasure rather than care about anything else. Once the portrait is done, it’s so beautiful, Dorian cries and when Basil says he can destroy it, Dorian prays that he stay as young and pretty as what the portrait captured. Thus, Dorian takes the portrait home and displays it while he goes about his life. Upon Lord Henry’s suggestion of experiencing pleasures, Dorian attends a play where the actress, Sybil Vane, stars. Dorian falls in love with her, in large part to the talent of her acting. Every night he goes to her afterward, and after a few weeks the two are engaged to marry. Lord Henry is skeptical of Sybil because he believes marriage is not what it’s cracked up to be. Dorian tells Lord Henry and Basil that if they were to see her plays, they’d understand why he wants to marry her. So all three attend a show where Sybil plays Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, but she does so terribly, Basil, Lord Henry, and half of the audience leave. By the end of the show, Dorian is so disgusted and has fallen out of love with Sybil that he tells her as much after. She’s heartbroken when he leaves. Later that night, Sybil kills herself over love. Back at his home, Dorian gazes at the portrait and notices the mouth has turned slightly grotesque. The next day when Dorian hears the news from Lord Henry, he was just about to go back on his word with a letter to marry Sybil. Dorian then finds himself unharmed by the whole ordeal and decides that he can do whatever he wants. For eighteen years, Dorian buys all the things he desires, goes to (I assume) brothels, drug dens, and makes other people’s lives spiral. All the while, the portrait becomes absolutely horrid. Then, Basil confronts Dorian about the rumors outside of his place. Dorian invites him inside and as they discuss, Dorian says that if Basil wanted to see if he truly was what everyone said he was, he’d go upstairs. In the room Dorian has stored the painting, Basil sees it has taken on all of Dorian’s age and bad deeds. As Basil is crying over what Dorian has become, Dorian sees a knife on the desk and slits Basil’s throat. The next day he has his old chemistry friend dispose of the body by blackmailing him. A time passes where he starts to get cravings for opium, so gets a ride an hour away late at night where he goes to a den. He sees the man he’s ruined, and doesn’t want his friend to know he smokes anymore. So he goes down to a wharf where he knows someone else is selling opium. However, Sybil’s younger brother approaches him and threatens he will kill Dorian because he had killed his sister. Though, Dorian says that because it was eighteen years ago, how would it have been possible when he still looked so young. Dorian escapes before Sybil’s brother realizes it was actually him. Later on, when Dorian attends a shooting party, the man he’s with inexplicably shoots Sybil’s brother, the man Dorian had greatly worried about. In the end, Dorian decides to destroy the painting because it has only brought him misdeeds and evil. As he does so, the painting is transformed back into the youthful beautiful man he once was, while the dead Dorian is an old wretched heap.
 
Wilde really made this story sing with the tension of murder, suicide, and Dorians actions. Though, I couldn’t help to read the novel with a queer lens when Dorian is first discussed. “…but it is what Dorian Gray has been to me. The mere visible presence of this lad…The harmony of soul and body!...if you only knew what Dorian Gray is to me!” This is when Basil is talking about why he painted Dorian, and the reader is led to believe that it was purely because Basil saw the distillation of art in Dorian. Though, over and over again, Basil is desperate to paint Dorian, lending a feeling of love that goes far beyond painting. The question of why Dorian hasn’t married, or frankly, has a woman in his life after eighteen years is quite telling, when Lord Henry is still by his side. It also felt like there was a hint to this when Dorian blackmails the chemist alluding to a secret he will reveal if the chemist doesn’t dispose of Basil’s body. The question is, what was in the letter Dorian intended to send if the chemist didn’t do what he was told? At the time, being queer was very likely for someone to be kicked out of high society. So because of the mystery within the letter, it lends itself to this type of reading. This may also explain why Lord Henry feels apathetic towards marriage and goes to Dorian after his divorce.
 
There was a lot to love in this novel, and I felt totally immersed in the extravagant and dark life of Dorian Gray. Which is funny because in the edition that I have, there’s an introduction by Allan Donaldson who seems to be dismissive of the novel. He says, “The Picture of Dorian Gray is not a great novel, and its failings are often the failings of an amateur uncertain of the imaginative atmosphere which his characters must inhabit of they are to remain credible…Nevertheless, the novel survives while other, abstractly better, novels of the period have been forgotten.” I think it just confuses me to have such a lukewarm introduction for the book someone had ostensibly bought. It leaves me wondering why have Allan Donaldson give an introduction in the first place? Regardless of the critique, I really enjoyed Wilde’s scenes, the way he can zoom out eighteen years, the descriptions of people, and the way Dorian is tainted by Lord Henry’s philosophy.
 
Final Rating: 5/5