The Picture of Dorian Gray

Morally ambiguous characters -- characters whose behavior discourages readers from identifying them as purely evil or purely good -- are at the heart of many works of literature. Choose a novel or play in which a morally ambiguous character plays a pivotal role. Then write an essay in which you explain how the character can be viewed as morally ambiguous and why his or her moral ambiguity is significant to the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde is one of the best novels that portrays a morally ambiguous character. Dorian starts out as a good and innocent young man. After his influences of Lord Henry, Dorian is no longer the naive young man anymore. HE is not all bad, at this point, but he is not morally perfect either. When he meets this actress named Sybil Vane, he is smitten and the two become engaged. Some events happen that were very minor to the readers point of view, but apparently it was a very major event to Dorian and he leaves Sybil in a very teary scene. After going to his house that night, he realizes that the picture that Basil painted of him has some lines around the mouth and the fingers, like someone who has spent their entire lives frowning or scowling and clenching their fists in anger. Dorian realizes the physical impacts of his emotional explosion on Sybil through the painting and he doesn't like it at all. All Dorian has been told from his new-found friend is that beauty and youth are the only things that a person has to hold on to, but that will eventually dissipate over time; and consequently sells his soul to the painting so he never ages, but the painting will show the sins of Dorian's soul. So Dorian decides that he is going to repent for all of the bad things that he did to Sybil and ask her to take him back and become the good, loving husband that he promised Sybil he would be. That morning Henry comes to Dorian's house to inform him that Sybil had died that night.

This is the first time that we see the ambiguousness of Dorian's character. He really truly wants to repent and become good, but the thing he wants to repent for is gone so all of that goes out of the window. I am sure that if Sybil had not killed herself ,though it was officially ruled as "death by misadventure", Dorian would have turned himself around and been a decent human being. But as soon as the criminal investigation where Dorian was a suspect was over, he was back to his old ways and even more morally wrong deeds. The reader starts to give Dorian redemption points, and then that goes out the window. We pick back up with Dorian doing all sort of bad things; including opium, visiting bars and whorehouses in the not-so-nice parts of the back alleys, and then in the morning returning to the aristocracy brunch and cocktails. He puts this facade of being this well mannered upper-class gentleman to the society, and then in the night becoming a regular low-class opium addict. This double life only makes the reader want to smack Dorian in the face. He had every opportunity for himself to be a great person, he never ages! He could have lived for a very, very long time and still had a pretty clean soul; but he threw it all away.

Dorian has another possible redemption moment in the last part of the book. Sybil's brother, James, is on the hunt for Dorian, wanting to kill him for causing all of the pain in his sister's short life. Fortunately for Dorian, due to a freak hunting accident, James is killed while on Dorian's property stalking him. Dorian has another bout of wanting to bee good, but here comes Lord Henry, King of Corruption, to Dorian's rescue. This is the point where the reader sort of feels sorry because you realize that Dorian has spent this whole time tring to emulate all of the B.A. things that Henry personifies, sort of a very early age sex, drugs and rock n' roll vibe, only to get shot down by Henry saying that Dorian's life is perfect and good and nice and he doesn't need to be anymore perfect. Dorian finally gets tired of his life and stabs the painting, in return killing himself.

Dorian had a few moments of possible redemption that made his character defined as having ambiguous morals we cannot perfectly define Dorian as completely bad or good,because he was a little of both. But in the end the bad got to be too much.

The second half of the book has a lot of twists and turns in it. The first big one is when Dorian kills Basil. Dorian blamed Basil for all of the problems that Dorian has had in his life because of the portrait. He killed Basil in the room at the top of the stairs where Dorian has hidden the picture. Dorian has so many morally wrong deeds in his life that any person that saw the original picture would know that it has changed. Dorian has lost some of his youthful beauty and you can tell that the picture has some deviant wrinkles and gray hair is creeping its way in as well. Basil decides that he is going to move to Paris to paint there, but catches Dorian on his way home. Basil asks to see the painting and is a pest about it, till Dorian finally concedes. Basil asks Dorian about these terrible rumors Dorian kept a knife in the upstairs room, because he was going to stab the picture. he ends up stabbing and killing Basil instead. He calls his friend Allen Campbell to come destroy the evidence, including the body, because Allen was a scientist that had the chemicals necessary to do the job; plus he owed Dorian a favor.

I know that killing Basil made Dorian feel better about his situation, but Dorian got himself in his mess of problems, not Basil. If anything it just created more problems for Dorian because he has that guilt hanging over hes head and it causes Allen Campbell's suicide some time later. Later in the book Dorian goes to an opium bar in the slums on the outskirts of town. The whores and waitresses refer to him there as " Prince Charming". This was the nickname that Sybil had given for Dorian to her family, because she didn't want them to know his name. One of the people sitting in the bar was a sailor named James Vane, and he is Sybil's brother. He swore to Sybil before he left on a voyage that if this Prince Charming guy ever did anything to her, that he would hunt the guy down and kill him. James pretty much jumps Dorian, says hi I'm Sybil's brother and I'm gonna kill you before Dorian knows whats going on. In his defence, Dorian says that this person knew your sister eighteen years ago, and I'm only twenty, so I must not be this person. James, in his drunken stupor, lets Dorian leave, just as a waitress walks up and tells James that that man has been coming to this bar for over eighteen years and hasn't aged a day since then.

Then, James starts to just pop up places and scaring the poop out of Dorian, a t friends homes and parties, even at his own home. One evening at one of Dorian's gatherings, they decide to host a shooting party.A man gets mistaken in the bushes for a rabbit, and Dorian just dismisses it as a dumb servant who wasn't paying attention to the warning to stay back off of the shooting range. Dorian is kind of worried that it is a bad omen, but it turns out that the man shot and killed was James Vane!

Weeks later Dorian comes to Henry, saying that he pretty much hates his corrupted life and wants to reform and be good. Henry laughs him off and commends him of his exquisite life and never aging beauty. Henry also tells him that this little yellow book that he gave Dorian in the first half on the novel is very corruptive and that Dorian should never EVER give that book to others. This is one of those WTF moments in the novel. Why would Henry have given the book to Dorian if he knew its terrible hold on the weak minded? This book exposed Dorian to the ideals and philosophies that caused the ruination of his soul. And this didn't just happen months after Dorian got the book; this was multiple decades later. Dorian was obsessed with this book; he even had it bound in every color so he could read it no matter his mood. Like I said earlier, the King of Corruption is the root problem in Dorian's life. Dorian eventually kills himself by stabbing the painting with the knife that he used to kill Basil (ha ha ironic).

Despite the fact that this was a required reading book and I usually hate required reading, I really enjoyed this book. Henry is a trip in and of himself, and the ironic turns and interesting lifestyles of the characters really provide for an enjoyably read.

So the story starts out with a list of the basics in the Aesthetic movement, which both Lord Henry and Oscar Wilde were believers in. They are pretty interesting, in fact almost all of the crazy ideals that Henry, and eventually Dorian Gray, talk about through out the entire book are pretty interesting. Some are just plain hilarious, some show how pompous Henry is about his aristocratic station, and some are really creepy, (like crazy pervert in the woods creepy); but they are great fun to read and think about.

The main focus of the first half, and the whole book really is Dorian and exploring his corruptive influences from Lord Henry Wotton. Dorian starts out as this beautiful, innocent young man, still trying to step out of the womb and into his big boy pants, when he is introduced to Henry from their mutual friend and painter, Basil. Henry lays it on Dorian right off the bat, telling him that the only thing that anyone can have in this world is youth and beauty, which Dorian has; but like with all men it will wither away. It is at this point that Mr. Gray has to make a decision; does he want to end up like most men in the upper middle class of this time, and become dried up and boring by the time that he is thirty, or; enjoy all of the pleasures, feelings and desires that life has to offer. Dorian wants to feel to the capacity that Henry does and pretty much sells his soul to the portrait that Basil has just painted of him for a life of immortal youth and beauty.

Then Dorian meets this girl, Sybil Vane, who is an actress in this low rent theater that is about two steps up from a whorehouse. The accomidations are severely lacking, the sets and stage props are horrible and the acting is even more horrid. But Sybil atracts a crowd, because she is beautiful and can act pretty well. Dorian becomes smitten and the two become engaged. Like, two seconds later Dorian leaves her because she acted badly on purpose, and was trying to tell dorian it was his fault. She was spewing some rose-color filtered poop about the exreme love they had for each other made her realize that the entire acting bit was fake and she didnt want to be fake any more. OF COURSE ITS FAKE!! thats the point sweetheart, we dont really want to see Romeo slay Tibaly. That is why it's called ACTing. So then she kills herself, and Dorian's life turns to hell in a handbasket, though he doesn't realize untill years later.

When he goes home after breaking up with Sybil (he doesn't know that Sybil killed herself yet), he notices that the painting that Basil did sort of looks different, like there are some lines around his face that look like he has spent years scowling. He suddenly remembers throwing his fit earlier in Basil's studio about wanting to be as young and beautiful as his painting for all of eternity, and then realizes that he actualy did sell his soul. He decides that he is going to become good again and marry Sybil like he said he would, because he left her for all of the wrong reasons, and the painting will never become wrinkled or ugly again. Then Harry, like every thing else in Dorians life, comes over and tells Dorian that Sybil had died. After this point Dorian doesn't really care about being good anymore and does pretty much as he pleases.

THis just shows how malleable, for the most part, that young, ineperienced adults can be when exposed to the influences of those that are way more experienced than the average human is. The defining moment in Dorians switch from good to bad wha after enry gave Dorian the book about the young Parisian. This young man would watch people in numerous differn situations and try to capture the emotions that they experienced; and then try to experience them for himself. This philosophy of life intrigued Dorian, and he adopts it; to his own ruination of his soul.

The most recent movie was done in Europe in 2009, starring Ban Barnes as Dorian, Colin Firth as Lord Henry and Rachel Hurd-Wood as Sybil.The only way to view it in America, because an American friendly DVD has not been released yet, is to watch it online at stagevu.com; but it looks really good. THe other productions of this film include Das Bildnes des Dorian Gray, a German film released in April 1970; The Picture of Dorian Gray, released in 1945; Pact with the Devil, a modern interpretation of Dorian Gray that was released in 2001;The Sins of Dorian Gray; and multiple variations of The Picture of Dorian Gray have been released through out the years.

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde,
Born 16 October 1854 in Dublin,Ireland
Died 30 November 1900 (aged 46) in Paris,France
Wilde was an Irish writer, poet, and prominent aesthete. From an early age he was tutored at home, where he showed his intelligence, becoming fluent in French and German. He attended boarding school for six years, then attending a university at seventeen. After university, Wilde moved around trying his hand at various things. He published a book of poems and toured America lecturing extensively on aestheticism. He then returned to London, where he worked as a journalist for four years. Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress, and glittering conversation, Wilde was one of the most well-known personalities of his day. He next produced a series of dialogues and essays that developed his ideas about the supremacy of art. However, it was his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, that brought him more lasting recognition. He became one of the most successful playwrights of the late Victorian era in London with a series of social satires which continue to be performed, especially his masterpiece The Importance of Being Earnest.He sued his lover's father for libel, though the case was dropped at trial. After two subsequent trials, Wilde was imprisoned for two years' hard labour, having been convicted of "gross indecency" with other men. In prison he wrote De Profundis, a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure. Upon his release he left immediately for France, never to return to Ireland or Britain. There he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, a long, terse poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life. He died destitute in Paris at the age of forty-six.