The Struggle In Oscar Wilde's The Picture Of Dorian Gray

In growing from youth to maturity, literary characters often develop a new worldly perspective resulting from their own experiences; scholars classify these works that focus on a single event defining a character’s life philosophy as bildungsromans. Set in nineteenth-century England, Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray recounts Dorian Gray’s growth from a young man to an adult in the midst of the growing aesthetic movement, with his friend Lord Henry Wotton introducing him to its morality. After their first encounter, Lord Henry’s hedonistic values corrupt Dorian by causing him to worship youth and beauty, as seen through Dorian’s reaction to their first conversation, Dorian’s relationship with Basil Hallward and Lord Henry, and Dorian’s final feeling of remorse for his actions. Dorian’s incapability to focus on life in terms other than that of his own youth and indulgence drives him to an eventual madness that corrupts his previous innocence and naivety. The aesthetic …show more content…
As a result of his first encounter with Lord Henry, Dorian learns to superficially value himself above everything else, which the reader sees through the aesthetic movement’s impact on him, his relationship with Basil Hallward, and his final reflection on his actions. This is crucial in the developing theme of how solely valuing superficial beauty and one’s self can corrupt a person because it shows Dorian’s development from a naive young man to a self-centered, self-obsessed adult. In choosing to follow in Lord Henry’s footsteps, Dorian makes the grave mistake of placing his own external beauty and youth on a pedestal, which drives him to a state of complete madness at the thought of losing the only thing that makes him valuable in the eyes of