The Picture Of Dorian Gray Death Analysis

For the Wages of Sin is Death: The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray tells the tale of a beautiful young man with a disturbing curse. The novel follows the moral corruption of the protagonist Dorian Gray, who is introduced to us as someone innocent and unspoiled. It is only after he gets his portrait painted by an artist named Basil Hallward, that his death begins its countdown. Basil reluctantly introduces him to Lord Henry, a rather interesting character in that he is clever and speaks in paradoxical epigrams. Dorian, who isn’t as witty, falls prey to Lord Henry’s hedonistic philosophies and becomes drawn towards pleasure, sin, and narcissism. While looking at his portrait, he wishes to become like the painting itself; forever young, unchanged, and beautiful. Remarkably, this wish becomes his reality as Dorian has sold his soul in return for immortality while the painting …show more content…
Oscar Wilde, as a follower of William Pater, believed in art for the sake of art – that it has no place to judge or teach what is moral or immoral. However, the novel doesn’t seem to follow these parameters and has a message to teach its reader. Even though Wilde claimed that “all art is quite useless” in his preface, we are consistently shown by every character that art is a powerful enough medium that it can control a person’s actions. Dorian falls prey to pride, the worst and most dangerous of the seven deadly sins, and doesn’t understand that sins manifest and change us; they may hide behind a beautiful and young face for the time being, but eagerly catch up in the long run. When he looks at his portrait, he sees himself for what he truly is – an unrecognizable face that has drowned in his sins and misfourtune. Dorian’s most valuable trait, his ego, is what ultimately leads him to his tragic fate and proves that once again, evil is as evil