Commentary on the Picture of Dorian Gray - Part 2

I left off while describing the artist Basil Hallward and the divan-gracer Lord Henry Wotton talking about the subject of the portrait. Well, the entire book can't go on with just two side characters talking about the main, and sure enough, Dorian eventually makes his appearance.

I don't find the boy himself quite as fascinating as Basil's description, though. Dorian seems kind of like an empty shell, albeit a pretty one, with no goal in life. Not at first, anyway.

That changes when impressionable Dorian listens to Lord Henry's words about passing beauty. Like a Narcissus that wants to gaze at the same unchanged face in the mirror forever, he offers up his soul in exchange for youth and beauty unmarred by time's ravages. (This theme of the soul's worth and function seemed to fascinate Wilde, for it crops up again in his short story about a fisherman that sells his soul to be with a soulless mermaid. Can you say "still a better love story than Twilight"?)

As Dorian ages imperceptibly, his friendship with Lord Henry earns him a similar reputation as that of Lord Henry--an impossibly corrupt but impossibly fashionable rogue.

It's really amusing that practically everyone, especially matrons with young daughters, chide Henry for his rotten morals one minute, and invite him to a dinner party the next. It's like they just think of him as a sort of naughty tropical bird to add color to social gatherings, like a parrot that swears. So long as you cover the kiddies' ears, he won't do much harm. So seems their reasoning.

Either that, or they secretly admire Henry for having the confidence saying every wicked, controversial thought that comes into his head. And then cluck their tongues at him so they can feel better about suppressing their own wild side. I really don't know.

This funny, flippant character type seems to be a favorite of Wilde's--it pops up in many of his other works, too--which, incidentally, I blazed through right after reading Dorian Gray. (And that recurring personality encourages me. In my own writing, I have a character type that insists on dominating half my stories in different forms. I've been developing it--him--without knowing it since I was little. No wonder I'm compelled to write.)

I can't help wondering if these recurring characters, consciously or unconsciously, were based on Wilde himself. Interestingly, he rarely, if ever, condemns them himself--he merely states that others do. He seems fond of them, like an indulgent father.

It also makes me wonder if he wrote his works, especially The Picture of Dorian Gray, just as he wanted them--or if he had to keep some parts to himself, to avoid offending the conservative sensibilities of the time. At any rate, he still did offend, and that mightily, from what little I've read of the reception from contemporaries.

(ETA: I've since read a summary or two on Wilde's life, and now I feel a tad dense for stumbling at the obvious. Of course he's speaking through his characters. Don't all writers? Also, there is apparently more than one version of The Picture of Dorian Gray--primarily, the thirteen-chapter version first published in a magazine, and the edited and expanded twenty-chapter version published as a full-fledged novel, complete with the defensive preface. Now I'm curious to find a text of the original . . .)

The theme of ideals, which Wilde touched on in the beginning, reappears when Dorian falls madly in love with a little-known actress. Just as Basil was entranced by Dorian, Dorian himself is entranced by the girl, who personifies his ideal of beauty and perfection in every possible way. (I'm sure all of us can identify with that.)

This state of worshipful ecstasy doesn't last; when the girl purposely botches a performance to prove just how lovesick she is for Dorian, Dorian's interest vanishes. Feeling only the sting of his own crushed feelings, he leaves her to pick up the pieces of her broken heart.

Pity doesn't settle in until he hears of her death--and he realizes it was a suicide into the bargain.

But guilt doesn't fully take hold until he realizes that his lost soul has gained a stain, and that his portrait, which Basil used his own soul to paint, now reflects the state of Dorian's soul. (Spoilers: it isn't pretty.)

I love the idea of using a picture to paint a metaphor.