"The Picture of Dorian Gray:" A Christian Perspective

Hey there, internet. In this edition of Dat Blog, I'm going to share with you a short essay which I wrote that analyzes Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray from a Christian perspective. Enjoy:

The Picture of Dorian Gray: A Christian Perspective

            Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray is a truly remarkable and strange novel. The protagonist, Dorian Gray, is a very handsome young man. He is described by many as beautiful and captures the heart of an artist named Basil Halward, who paints a portrait of Dorian. After a friend of Basil’s, Lord Henry Wotton, influences Dorian to consider beauty as the only thing that matters in life, Dorian becomes dismayed at seeing the painting. This is because the painting would remain beautiful while he would age and wither. He wishes out loud that the situation would be reversed and that he would remain young while the painting would deteriorate.

            As the story continues, it becomes evident that Dorian’s wish has become a reality. After harshly breaking up a romantic involvement with an actress named Sibyl Vane due to his realization that he was only interested in her for her beauty on the stage, he notices that the painting has changed. The likeness of his face is now slightly sneering. The story goes on further and we witness the continuous degeneration of Dorian’s morality and the disappearance of his conscience. It begins to seem as if his soul is no longer with him and that he is not capable of moral thinking. When Dorian Gray wished that the painting would bear his deterioration, perhaps in a way his soul was transferred into the painting. The image would now bear the burden of his sins, becoming more and more grotesque as his soul becomes more and more damaged.

            The Picture of Dorian Gray can be analyzed from a Catholic perspective, which brings to the forefront some interesting aspects. First of all, it can be inferred that the transfer of Dorian Gray’s soul into the canvas portrait is his own death. This is because death is, simply put, the separation of the soul from the body. As Dorian lives his life with less and less of a conscience his behavior becomes motivated only by desire for pleasure, which is characteristic of an animal. Dorian Gray, at this point, has changed into either an animal or a zombie of sorts. At the beginning of the novel, he is an unspoiled, unblemished specimen of a human being. By the end of the story, he has become a horribly internally disfigured person, which is manifested by the change in the painting. Having essentially died, Dorian is an illustration of what happens to our souls when we sin continuously and unrepentantly. We start out as innocent souls with only original sin, but when we choose to live sinful lives our souls become rotted as Dorian Gray’s soul became rotted.

            In a way, the Lord Henry Wotton character can be seen as a representation of the Devil. He holds many traits embodied by the Devil. He is charming, egotistic, verbally seductive, and his character really doesn’t change from the beginning of the story to the end. Lord Henry doesn’t directly cause any of the atrocities committed in the book, but rather was the catalyst for Dorian Gray’s criminal activities, just as the Devil does not usually directly and physically commit crime himself but influences weak human beings to do the evil that he wants done. In the opening of the book, Lord Henry infiltrates Dorian’s mind with deeply flawed ideas that are damaging to his morality, just as the Devil did in the Garden of Eden. These ideals act as a poison that slowly eats away at Dorian’s conscience, which is very much like what happens when we surround ourselves with sinful things, and very much like what happened to Adam and Eve when they were tempted. Dorian, naïve and without any kind of guard up, easily falls to the ideas planted in his head by Lord Henry.

            The Picture of Dorian Gray, when examined through “Catholic lenses,” appears more illustrations of human spirituality and man’s ancient and constant battle with the Devil. Without a strong moral guidance and protection by our peers and by God, we fall very easily to the Satan’s lures and subtle attacks. This is why we must always surround ourselves and other people who are spiritually vulnerable, especially children, with Godly people and things, always staying prepared for the evil one’s wiles.

Peter,

Dat Blogger