Dorian as Faust 

.......And so Gray, it appears, becomes a sort of Faust, and that evening he goes to the opera with his Mephistopheles, Lord Henry. In the following days, Wotton indeed proves a “bad influence,” for Dorian begins following him in the pursuit of pleasure for the sake of pleasure. They engage in scandalous activities which erode Dorian’s innocence.  
.......One evening, while attending the Royal Theatre in the Holborn district of London, Gray becomes enthralled with a young woman playing Juliet in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Her name is Sibyl Vane. She is quite striking, Dorian thinks. She is a portrait in beauty, like the portrait of himself, and a wonderful actress. After they meet, she becomes equally enthralled with Dorian. In a short while, they pledge their love for each other. 
.......Meanwhile, Wotton visits his uncle, Lord George Fermor, to find out about the history of Gray’s family. Fermor, an old bachelor who owns two townhouses and a colliery business, lives in chambers at the Albany Hotel and is well connected in aristocratic circles. When told that Gray is the grandson of a certain Lord Kelso, Fermor says he knew Kelso and Dorian’s mother.  
.......“She was an extraordinarily beautiful girl, Margaret Devereux, and made all the men frantic by running away with a penniless young fellow–a mere nobody, sir, a subaltern in a foot regiment, or something of that kind.” 
.......Margaret, who had inherited a fortune from one side of her family, could have had her choice of established young men but shocked her father, Kelso, when she married a cipher. So enraged was Lord Kelso that he hired a Belgian thug to pick a fight with his son-in-law, and the Belgian killed him in a duel. Margaret died less than a year later. Dorian thus became heir to his mother’s fortune–and later, apparently, was designated to receive a goodly sum from old Kelso. 
.......Wotton believes Dorian’s family history makes him all the more interesting: “Behind every exquisite thing that existed,” he muses, “there was something tragic.” And he would seek to take advantage of Gray and “make that wonderful spirit his own.” 
.......Gray takes Wotton and Hallward to the theatre to show off Sibyl Vane. Mr. Isaacs, the fat Jewish manager of the theatre, greets them at the door and escorts them to a box. Dorian despises Isaacs, thinking of him as a Caliban (a beast-man in Shakespeare's The Tempest), but Lord Henry likes him because of his sponsorship of the arts. When Sybil recites her lines, Dorian is surprised that she is not the actress she was when he first saw her. Her performance is perfunctory, incompetent–just plain bad. Apparently her fervid love for Dorian has made her feigned stage love for Romeo seem hopelessly artificial.  
.......But she is a happy young lady, nonetheless, and she tells her mother all about Dorian, calling him a true “Prince Charming.” Mrs. Vane, who knows nothing of Dorian’s background, frowns on the relationship, suggesting that Sibyl pay more attention to Mr. Isaacs, who has provided the Vanes 50 pounds to pay debts and buy clothing for Sibyl’s brother, James. James cautions Sybil about Dorian, noting that she hardly knows him. But Sibyl says her heart is set on him. 
.......However, when he next visits her, he criticizes her severely for her poor stage performance, calling her “shallow and stupid” and a “third-rate actress” who embarrassed him before his friends. He then ends their relationship. She turns white with disbelief. “You are not serious, Dorian,” she says. “You are acting.” He assures her he is serious. When she begs him not to leave her, he walks out. 
.......At his elegant residence he glimpses the painting as he enters. The expression on the face has changed! It cannot not be possible, yet there it is “with the touch of cruelty in the mouth.” The portrait “had taught him to love his own beauty. Would it teach him to loathe his own soul? . . . . Here was a visible symbol of the degradation of sin” into which Dorian had plunged. Suddenly afraid, Dorian decides it would be best to redeem himself. So, even though he no longer truly loves Sibyl, he writes her a love letter in which he begs forgiveness.  

Sybil Kills Herself 

.......Wotton stops by to see him on an urgent matter, following up on a letter he had sent Dorian earlier in the day. Dorian tells Lord Henry of his cruel behavior toward Sibyl but says he plans to marry her anyway. Wotton realizes Dorian has not yet read the letter, so he informs him of its message: Sibyl Vane has been found dead. She had swallowed a concoction laced with prussic acid. Dorian regrets her death, which he knows he caused, but apparently only because he thinks Sibyl would have kept him from the dangerous, dissolute life he has chosen to lead under Wotton’s influence. “She had no right to kill herself,” he says. “It was selfish of her.” 
.......Lord Henry consoles him, telling him not to spend tears on Sibyl but instead to look forward to the wonderful life that awaits him. “There is nothing that you, with your extraordinary good looks, will not be able to do,” Wotton says. 
.......So Dorian continues on the path cleared for him by Lord Henry. That very evening, he and Wotton attend the opera and Dorian forgets Sibyl. The following day, when Hallward arrives to offer his condolences, he is shocked to learn that Dorian had attended the opera on the very day that Sibyl died. Dorian manages to explain away his behavior, and Hallward seems satisfied. Hallward walks toward the painting, which is behind a screen, to again admire his handiwork. Dorian, terrified that Hallward will see the change in it, forbids Hallward to look at it, saying he will never speak to him again if he draws back the screen. Dorian’s fists are clenched. He means business. Hallward is dumbstruck. He tells Dorian he had meant to show it at an exhibition in Paris, but he backs away from the painting. 
.......The experience so disturbs Dorian that he decides to move it where no one has access to it–a room upstairs he had not used in years. It is where he studied as a child. “The old schoolroom,” he calls it. His grandfather, Lord Kelso, had had it built especially for Dorian so that he could keep the boy out of his sight. He despised Dorian, for the boy’s face reminded Kelso of Dorian’s mother and her shameful marriage. After obtaining the key to the room from his housekeeper, Mrs. Leaf, Dorian engages a frame maker, Mr. Hubbard, and his assistant to move the heavy, bulky painting–which Dorian has wrapped in a coverlet–to the room. 
.......Later, in his library, he sits down to read a book Lord Henry had sent over for him–a novel about the sinful life of a young Parisian. It is a “poisonous book,” Dorian realizes, and he devours it.  
.......Dorian continues to lead the dangerous life ordained for him by Wotton, engaging in every manner of profane activity. Many years pass in which people whisper about his shameful behavior, but he still enjoys some favor in society because of his looks, which simply do not change, and because of his money and the pleasures it can buy. He holds lavish parties at his house, where only the most celebrated musicians perform. Sometimes, too, he hosts little concerts at which gypsies and Indians and Tunisians play exotic instruments. He collects jewels, tapestries, embroideries–anything that strikes his fancy, even church vestments. He maintains a great house in Nottinghamshire, where he and his guests pursue forbidden pleasures. For a time lives abroad with Lord Henry at a villa in Trouville, France, at a house in Algiers, Algeria. But he always returns–to look at the portrait, to see that it remains safe in its hiding place. 
.......The portrait, meanwhile, becomes more and more hideous. One day, when Dorian is 38 but still appears young, Hallward reproaches him about his scandalous lifestyle, and Dorian decides to show him the portrait. The time has come for him to reveal the state of his soul. When Dorian pulls away the curtain hiding it, the narrator says, “An exclamation of horror broke from the painter's lips as he saw in the dim light the hideous face on the canvas grinning at him. There was something in its expression that filled him with disgust and loathing.” 

Dorian Kills Hallward 

.......Hallward concludes that Dorian must be even more evil than the rumors say, and he urges him to recant his sins. “Pray, Dorian, pray.” But by now, the devil owns Dorian. Suddenly a feeling of deep hatred for Hallward seizes him. In a rage he takes up a knife he had brought to the room days before to cut a cord. He plunges it into Hallward again and again. Then he blackmails an acquaintance, Alan Campbell–a man with a dark secret known to Dorian–to dissolve Hallward’s corpse with chemicals.  
.......Late in the evening, Dorian visits an opium den by the waterfront, where smokers lie on old mattresses and Dorian well knows "in what strange heavens they were suffering, and what dull hells were teaching them the secret of some new joy." He recognizes Adrian Singleton, a young man whom Dorian had brought to ruin. Now no one but Dorian will even speak to Singleton. When they later have brandy together at a bar, Dorian–in a rare moment of remorse–offers to help Singleton: "You will write to me if you want anything?" "Perhaps," Singleton says. 
.......After Dorian leaves, he walks along the river in drizzling rain. For a moment–just a moment–he feels sorry for Singleton, then decides it was not his fault that Singleton had fallen so low. Each man makes his own decisions, and each man must pay the price for making the wrong ones.  
.......Dorian continues on, "callous, concentrated on evil, with stained mind, and soul hungry for rebellion." But in a moment he is confronted by another man from his past: James Vane, Sybil's brother. He means to kill Dorian to avenge the death of his sister. But Dorian tells him he has the wrong man and, under a light, shows him his face. It is still as young as it was 18 years before, when Sybil killed herself. This youth could not be Dorian Gray, Vane believes, and he leaves Dorian alone. Later, however, a woman informs he that he was indeed speaking to Dorian Gray. One day, while Dorian and is out hunting with acquaintances, one of the hunters shoots what he thinks is a hare. But it turns out to be a man–James Vane, who was apparently stalking Dorian.  
.......In the following days, Dorian looks to a new life in which he will change his evil ways. One evening at Wotton's home, he tells Lord Henry that he has actually done something good: He has given up a beautiful village girl, Hetty Merton, whom he had been seeing two to three times each week. They were to run off together, but Dorian decided not to steal her innocence. Dorian speaks further about reforming himself and even reproaches Wotton: "You poisoned me with a book once. I should not forgive that. Harry, promise me that you will never lend that book to any one. It does harm." 
.......Wotton is unmoved. He tells Dorian that morality, the existence of the soul–it is all nonsense. "Don't spoil [the rest of your life] by renunciations. At present you are a perfect type. Don't make yourself incomplete. You are quite flawless now."  
.......After returning home, Dorian continues to think about his new life. Vane is dead and buried, Alan Campbell has shot himself, and Basil Hallward’s disappearance remains a mystery. What has he to worry about? Perhaps the painting. However, his good deed–his sparing of Hetty–may be reflected in the painting. Perhaps the painting has already changed for the better. He goes upstairs for a look. When he beholds it, he cries out in pain. 
.......“He could see no change, save that in the eyes there was a look of cunning and in the mouth the curved wrinkle of the hypocrite. The thing was still loathsome–more loathsome, if possible, than before. . . .” 
.......Dorian turns around and picks up the knife that he used to kill Basil Hallward. He stabs the painting. There is a loud crash. Servants come running. They summon a coachman and a footman, but no one can break down the locked door to the room that gave out the noise. So they go on the roof, drop down onto a balcony, and break through windows to the room. There they see the portrait of Dorian in the full bloom of youth, unchanged from the day Hallward had finished it–and a dead man in Dorian Gray’s clothes. He is old and withered, with a hideous face.. 

Gothic Elements 

Although the work is not a true Gothic novel in the manner of the books of Horace Walpole and the Bronte sisters, it does contain characteristics of many Gothic novels, such as the suggestion of a supernatural presence, darkness and rain, murder and suicide, characters with mysterious pasts, and a secret room (the “old schoolroom”). The Gothic atmosphere of the novel even manifests itself in the brightness of a cheerful day, as the following passage in Chapter 14–describing events on the morning after Dorian's murder of Basil Hallward–demonstrates: 

.......As he opened his eyes a faint smile passed across his lips, as though he had been lost in some delightful dream. Yet he had not dreamed at all. His night had been untroubled by any images of pleasure or of pain. But youth smiles without any reason. It is one of its chiefest charms.  
.......He turned round, and leaning upon his elbow, began to sip his chocolate. The mellow November sun came streaming into the room. The sky was bright, and there was a genial warmth in the air. It was almost like a morning in May. 
.......Gradually the events of the preceding night crept with silent, blood-stained feet into his brain and reconstructed themselves there with terrible distinctness. He winced at the memory of all that he had suffered, and for a moment the same curious feeling of loathing for Basil Hallward that had made him kill him as he sat in the chair came back to him, and he grew cold with passion. The dead man was still sitting there, too, and in the sunlight now. How horrible that was! Such hideous things were for the darkness, not for the day.

The novel satirizes Victorian aristocrats. First, it ridicules them for having little more to do than gossip, attend parties, and dabble in the arts. They live on inherited wealth and/or on enterprises sustained by the underclass. Lord Fermor, for one, derives income from his Midlands collieries (coal-mining operations). He regards this “taint of industry” as excusable because it provides money for him to burn wood in his fireplace. Second, the novel ridicules these same aristocrats for prizing appearances over substance. They assay a person’s worth on his looks, his money, his social status. For example, Lord Kelso disdains his daughter’s husband because he is a lowly subaltern in the military. On the other hand, Wotton and Hallward extol Dorian Gray primarily for his physical qualities. Late in the novel, after Dorian descends into depravity and tongues wag against him, he continues to move in the highest social circles because of his money and unchanged looks. 

Tragedy 

Finally, the novel can be regarded as a tragedy in that the protagonist, Dorian Gray, suffers a downfall and dies because of a flaw in his character–inordinate pride, or hubris–about his physical appearance. 
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The Picture of Dorian Gray is easy to read and understand, thanks in part to long dialogue passages that keep the action moving at a brisk pace–like that of one of Wilde's stage plays. (A notable exception in the use of dialogue is Chapter 11, written entirely in narrative paragraphs.) Whether it is a great book is debatable. A major flaw is that too many characters end up sounding like, and living like, the author himself, who was known for clever repartee and outrageous behavior. Among the hallmarks of Wilde's literary style are frequent use of allusions that refer to mythology and literature; symbols that foreshadow or reveal characters'  feelings and motives; and witticisms that make liberal use of paradox, irony, and antithesis. 

Examples of Allusions 

Dorian Gray Compared to Adonis and Narcissus, Chapter 1: In Greek mythology, Adonis was an exceptionally handsome young man favored by the goddess of love, Aphrodite. He is killed by a wild boar while participating in his favorite sport, hunting. Narcissus was also a young man of extraordinary good looks. One day, while gazing into a pool of water, he fell in love with his reflected image. He was so in love with what he saw that he was unable to turn his gaze away. Consequently, he wasted away as he stared at the image.  
Reference to Sculpture, Chapter 4: An allusion to sculpture occurs at the beginning of Chapter 4 when, in Lord Henry's house in Mayfair, Dorian sees a statuette by Clodion. Clodion (1738-1814) was a French rococo sculptor who portrayed sensuality in the form of satyrs, nymphs, and votaries of Bacchus, the god of wine and revelry. 
Theatre Owner Compared to Caliban, Chapter 7: An example of an allusion to literature is Dorian's reference to the theatre owner, Mr. Isaacs, as Caliban. Caliban is a savage, ugly half-man in Shakespeare's play The Tempest. There are many other allusions to Shakespeare as well, including references to Imogen (Cymbeline), Ophelia (Hamlet), Cordelia (King Lear), and Brabantio (Othello).  
The name Dorian as a Reference to Ancient Greeks: The historical term Dorian refers to people of ancient Greece, thought to have originated in a region known as Doris, who developed the simple but elegant Doric style of architecture. This style was used in the design and construction of one of the most beautiful buildings in the history of the world, the Parthenon, a temple of white marble on the Acropolis in Athens. When musing about Dorian Gray in Chapter 3, Lord Henry Wotton links Dorian with ancient Greek architecture: "Grace was his, and the white purity of boyhood, and beauty such as the old Greek marbles kept for us."  

Examples of Symbols  

The Picture of Dorian Gray contains many symbols. One of the most telling appears in Chapter 1, Paragraph 2, in this passage: "Lord Henry Wotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured blossoms of a laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to bear the burden of a beauty so flamelike as theirs." A laburnum is a poisonous tree of the pea family." Certainly Dorian turns out to be "poisonous" to many characters and, like the laburnum, has difficulty bearing "the burden of beauty." This symbol appears to foreshadow many plot developments. Examples of other symbols are Lord Henry's "opium-tainted cigarette," representing his corruption-tainted lifestyle; the portrait, symbolizing the state of Dorian's soul; the purple and gold coverlet draped over the portrait, symbolizing a pall covering the morally dead Dorian; and Lord Fermor's collieries, representing the oppression of the underclasses.  

Examples of Witticisms 

Oscar Wilde indulges his witty pen again and again in epigrams loaded with paradox, irony, and antithesis, frequently couched in parallel sentence structure. Most of these witticisms occur in dialogue spoken by Lord Henry. Here are examples: 

There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.  
Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul. 
All crime is vulgar, just as all vulgarity is crime. 
Books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.  
I don't want money. It is only people who pay their bills who want that, Uncle George, and I never pay mine. 
She is a peacock in everything but beauty. 
We have emancipated them [women], but they remain slaves looking for their masters.

It often seems to me that art conceals the artist far more completely than it ever reveals him.–Basil Hallward. 
Harry spends his days in saying what is incredible and his evenings in doing what is improbable.–Dorian Gray. 
A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure–Dorian Gray.

Dorian Gray acts out the Faust legend, but unlike Faust he does not redeem himself. According to the Faust legend–told in the Faustbuch (1587) and retold in numerous literary works, including Goethe’s Faust in the early 19th Century–Faust sold his soul to the devil in exchange for 24 years of pleasure. However, Faust redeems himself through good works and repentance. In the first chapter of The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian says, “I would give my soul” in order to remain young. Nearly two decades pass and Dorian does remain young–on the surface. Although he makes half-hearted attempts to reform, he ultimately fails to redeem himself. 

Author Information  
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Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was born in Dublin, Ireland, to highly educated parents. His father was a surgeon and writer and his mother, a poet and political activist. He studied at Trinity College in Dublin and graduated from Oxford University in England in 1878, where he earned a reputation as a wit. While developing his skills as a playwright, poet, and novelist, he married Constance Lloyd, the well-to-do daughter of an attorney, and fathered two children. He worked for a while writing and editing articles for periodicals before devoting himself to his literary pursuits. He was at his best when writing plays, the most popular and most esteemed of which are The Importance of Being Earnest and Lady Windermere's Fan. In 1895, after three sensational trials, a British court found him guilty of committing homosexual acts and sentenced him to two years in prison. The jail time ruined him financially and emotionally. After his release, he spent the rest of his life in Paris, where he died of meningitis in 1900 after converting to the religion he had long esteemed, Roman Catholicism.  
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Study Questions and Essay Topics 

• Write an essay arguing that a major fault of many of the characters in The Picture of Dorian Gray is that they judge others by how they look or what they have rather than by the quality of their character. Include in your essay specific examples from the book. 
• Does Dorian Gray have any redeeming qualities?
• Are their characters in the novel whom you admire?
• Compare and contrast Dorian Gray with Faust, the title character of Wolfgang von Goethe's masterwork.
• Compare and contrast Lord Henry Wotton with Mephistopheles, the devil figure in Goethe's Faust.
• Comment on the validity, or lack of it, of this observation in the novel: "Books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame."