The Picture of Dorian Gray Essay: the Life of Secrecy

In the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, secrecy greatly affected Dorian Gray and the weakness his mind had caused a tragic downfall. Dorian Gray was an innocent, beautiful, handsome young man who sold his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Influences changed him from an innocents into an evil person who blames others for his action and into someone full of dark secrets. He admires his beauty so much to the fact that only his beauty is what remains on the outside and it doesn't matters what remains on the inside. Dorian Grays secrets of mind had change and shaped his true self. The fact that Dorian Gray kept his secrets and how he uses hedonism has impacted him a lot. He is hideous and beautiful but most importantly he is a living human being and a portrait.

It all started when he thought he felted the love for Sibly or so did he think he was in love. Sibly is naive and likes to live in her own fantasy world thinking that Dorian Gray is her prince in knight play. Dorian on the other hand only used sibly for his own entertainment and for her beauty. "I loved you because you were marvelous, because you had genius ad intellect, because you realised the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the shadows of art. You have thrown it all away. You are shallow and stupid." Chapter 7, Pg 91. Dorian Gray only wants to manipulate Sibyl and it shows that his love for Sibly was absent. This also show how hedonism is affecting him.

Every steps that Dorian does shows the exact reflection in his self portrait. For example, Dorian Gray starts to notices the facial changes in the portrait, it started frowning. In the novel it stated that, This portrait would be to him the most magical of mirrors. As it had revealed to him his own body, so it would reveal to him his own soul. Chapter 8. This would mean that because he treated sibyl badly, it reflected onto his portrait. He would blamed on Sibyl for causing her own death. Aside from this, he kept the Portrait to himself without revealing to others, he went as far as hiding the portrait.

Thus, Dorian changed drastically when he killed Basil. He blamed Basil for introducing Henry in the first place. Even after he killed Basil he continued to hide the fact that he killed Basil. Clearly said in chapter 14 page 173, Its was a suicide Alan, he is selfish using excuses to make others help him. He forced and threatened Alan campbell to disposed the dead body in the boardroom. At this point Dorian Gray was already an ugly and hideous human being.

By selling his soul, he had committed many ugly crimes and the way it is done is how it starts to shape his life. He never admit any wrong doings and it is what dragged him down. The portrait has impacted most of what he has done, it is a reflection of his soul. At the end, it reveals that he has done many ugly things as far as dealing with drugs. It basically showed the ugly side of him when the portrait revealed bloodied handed.

Cited Work

Oscar, Wilde.The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1890 Barnes & Noble Classics 2003

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