The Picture of Dorian Gray
Summary
The Picture of Dorian Gray was arch-aesthete Oscar Wilde’s only novel, although he wrote a number of poems and children’s stories before it was published in 1890 (in Lippincott’s Magazine) and became a very successful playwright in the 1890s themselves. Like much of his work and life, the Gothic melodrama Dorian Gray was controversial. In his preface to the book he famously wrote that, "There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. That is all". The novel is a brilliant portrait of vanity and depravity tinged with sadness. The picture of the title is a splendid work painted by Basil Hallward of the orphaned boy Dorian Gray who is the heir to a great fortune. Lord Henry and Hallward discuss the boy and the remarkable painting. Dorian enters and declares that he would give his soul if he were always to be young and the painting instead would grow old. As the story pans out, Dorian leaves his fiancée - the actress Sibyl Vane - because through a single bad performance he claims that she has ‘killed’ his love. She kills herself with poison and Dorian is unaffected. So begins the tale of the boy’s descent into low society in London while still giving dinners and musicals for high society. He is inspired by two things: the book Lord Henry sends him that seems to predict his own life in dissecting every virtue and every sin from the past; and secondly the picture of himself which grows steadily older and more vicious looking compared to his own mirror image which remains young. Fanatical about the portrait, he is driven to murder and deception. As others are drawn into this web of evil Dorian himself longs to return to innocence but his method is horrific and tragic.
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The Picture Of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde, author of The Picture of Dorian Gray, makes Basil's life change drastically by having him paint a portrait of Dorian Gray and express too much of himself in it, which, in Wilde's mind, is a troublesome obstacle to circumvent. Wilde believes that the artist should not portray any of himself in his work, so when Basil does this, it is he who creates his own downfall, not Dorian.
Wilde introduces Basil to Dorian when Basil begins to notice Dorian staring at him at a party. Basil "suddenly became conscious that someone was looking at [him]. [He] turned halfway around and saw Dorian Gray for the first time" (Wilde 24). Basil immediately notices him, however Basil is afraid to talk to him. His reason for this is that he does "not want any external influence in [his] life" (Wilde 24). This is almost a paradox in that it is eventually his own internal influence that destroys him. Wilde does this many times throughout the book. He loved using paradoxes and that is why Lord Henry, the character most similar to Wilde, is quoted as being called "Price Paradox." Although Dorian and Basil end up hating each other, they do enjoy meeting each other for the first time. Basil finds something different about Dorian. He sees him in a
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde is the story of moral corruption by the means of aestheticism. In the novel, the well meaning artist Basil Hallward presets young Dorian Gray with a portrait of himself. After conversing with cynical Lord Henry Wotton, Dorian makes a wish which dreadfully affects his life forever. "If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that" (Wilde 109). As it turns out, the devil that Dorian sells his soul to is Lord Henry Wotton, who exists not only as something external to Dorian, but also as a voice within him (Bloom 107). Dorian continues to lead a life of sensuality which he learns about in a book given to him by Lord Henry. Dorian's unethical devotion to pleasure becomes his way of life.
The novel underscores its disapproval of aestheticism which negatively impacts the main characters. Each of the three primary characters is an aesthete and meets some form of terrible personal doom. Basil Hallward's aestheticism is manifested in his dedication to his artistic creations. He searches in the outside world for the perfect manifestation of his
Picture of Dorian Gray
The late nineteenth century in Europe gave rise to a gap between social classes in society. Similar to the Gilded Age in America, European countries experienced the disappearance of a middle class, while a large wealthy and poor class emerged. Although the wealthy class was revered and respected in society, one author, Oscar Wilde, chose to capture and satirize its life and ideals through his literary works, The Importance of Being Earnest and The Picture of Dorian Gray. Through his pieces, Wilde stresses that the only way to escape society’s superficiality is to remain true to one’s inner self and righteous morality.
In both The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest, British high society, representing superficiality, seduces common men. In The Picture of Dorian Gray, society, manifested in Lord Henry Wotton
Dorian Gray, the beautiful, talented, charming young man, has managed to capture the hearts of both men and women alike during nineteenth-century England. His incredible purity has attracted Lord Henry Wotton, who vies for his attention with Basil Hallward, a trusting and gentle artist. Basil, having poured his soul into a wonderful portrait of Dorian, resents the recent closeness between Lord Henry and the boy. The portrait that Basil did of Dorian turned out marvelously; it was almost a perfect likeness. In a heated moment, Dorian wishes that his portrait bear the suffering for his sins. He realizes that his fervent wish came true when his fiancйe – actress Sybil Vane – kills herself. As time progresses, Dorian realizes that his portrait becomes more and more hideous, bearing the burden of age and wrongdoing while he remains young and carefree.
Dorian continues his glorious lifestyle, making friends, causing trouble, and passing his time at Opium bars or clubs, not caring who he hurts. Eventually, the burden of his horrible secret becomes too much for him to bear, and he shows Basil Hallward
The Picture of Dorian Gray is an excellent novel about vanity and influenced lifestyle. Dorian gray is a very inflencial perdson and when Lord Henry tellds him how precious his young life is dorian vbegins to worry. He is afraid of growing old. He is having his portrait painted by his good freind Basil Hallway. Dorian wishes that he could remain forvever young and the portrait would grow old. His wish comes true in the worst way. His becomes evil with the help of lord henry. He begins to kills people who stand
Picture of Dorian Gray
The quest for eternal physical beauty has plagued societies for centuries. We live in a society that worships beauty. We are bombarded daily, sometimes even subliminally, by this eternal quest for beauty. Oscar Wilde explored this theme in his book, The Picture Of Dorian Gray. The book was written over 100 years ago but even today the emphasis on beauty and youth in our culture are stronger than ever. Our media always seems to feature young and beautiful people. How often do we see the elderly or fat people featured in advertisements? We have been taught to place more value on physical appearance than on the quality of character.
As Oscar WildeЎЇs first and only novel, the importance of The Picture of Dorian Gray is undoubted. Most of his "wrong, fascinating, poisonous, delightful theories" are put forward in this novel, especially in the preface of it. As we all know, Wilde was famous for his philosophy of art saying that art should not serve other purpose except to describe beauty. In this novel, he not only exclaimed that art was not a function of morality but also disclosed the decay of the Victoria society.
To support this idea, first of all, I will make an overview of the story. At the beginning, Basil painted a portrait of Dorian Gray and sent it to him as a gift. The picture showed the youth and purity of the young man. However, Dorian began to follow a life of new hedonism mentioned by Lord Henry. His life betrayed and the change of his soul reflected on the portrait. Dorian was able to maintain his youth even at the age of 38, while the picture recorded all his sins. The story went to the climax when Dorian killed the painter of the portrait, Basil. Then he blackmailed another young man once corrupted by him to destroy the body of Basil. DorianЎЇs ever-young appearance aroused many rumors, but there was no proof, except the changing picture.
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In his London studio, artist Basil Hallward puts the finishing touches on his latest portrait, that of a young man. Although Lord Henry, who is visiting with Basil, asks about the young man’s identity, Basil declines to answer, noting his preference for secrecy. Basil never intends to exhibit the painting, because if he did, it would bare the deepest feelings in his soul. However, Basil lets slip that the subject of the portrait is Dorian Gray, who shortly thereafter pays the two men a house call.
Lord Henry immediately begins to influence Dorian, suggesting that he should treasure and guard his youth and beauty while he has them, because they will soon fade. Terrified of aging, Dorian wishes he could trade his soul to stay as young as he looks in the portrait; a short while later, he again wishes that he could stay young while the image in the painting aged. The portrait thus begins to take on a life-like existence; in fact, Basil’s threat to burn the portrait is likened to “murder” and Basil prefers the company of the portrait to the real Dorian.
Dorian falls in love with a young actress, Sibyl Vane, a woman he barely knows. She plays a different woman at each night’s performance, earning the label of “genius” from Dorian, who is as smitten with her acting more than with her personality. They become engaged, much to the surprise of Lord Henry and Basil.
The sweet, wholesome Sibyl discusses her engagement with her family. Because her mother is indebted to the theatre manager, Mr. Isaacs, for fifty pounds, she is against the marriage unless Dorian is wealthy; they do not know that he is. Sibyl’s angry brother, James, is leaving for Australia, but he vows to kill Dorian if he wrongs his sister in any way. James also confronts his mother about gossip he has heard—that his mother and deceased father never married, which Mrs. Vane admits is true.
Dorian attends a performance of Sibyl’s with Lord Henry and Basil, but the performance is terrible. Sibyl tells Dorian she can no longer act, because he has shown her a beautiful reality. Dorian is disgusted by her poor acting, because her performances were what drew him to her; he dismisses her and returns home. To his surprise, the portrait shows marks of cruelty around the mouth, lines that do not show on Dorian’s face. He begins to suspect that his wish is coming true, so he vows to be good so that both he and the portrait can remain young. He, therefore, intends to apologize to Sibyl the next day and makes to marry her after all.
However, he is too late: Sibyl commits suicide at the theatre that night. Dorian first feels responsibility for her death, but then views it both as wonderful entertainment and a selfish act on her part. Lord Henry tries to keep Dorian’s name out of the scandal. Dorian and Lord Henry spend the evening at the opera. The next morning, Basil arrives and expresses concern for Dorian, given the events of the previous day. Dorian, however, is completely unconcerned about Sibyl or her family; he wants to talk only of happy subjects. The next day, he covers his portrait and moves it to the attic, to which Dorian has the only key. He then settles in to read a yellow book sent by Lord Henry; the book becomes Dorian’s blueprint for life.
Several years pass, and Dorian lives a hedonistic life according to the guidelines established by Lord Henry and the yellow book. While the face in the portrait has turned ugly, Dorian remains young, beautiful, and innocent. People talk about Dorian’s “madness of pleasure” and his dreadful influence on the people around him, but that is of no consequence to him. Finally, when he is thirty-eight years old, Dorian shows the portrait to Basil, who begs Dorian to repent of his sin and ask that the wish be revoked. Instead, Dorian kills Basil and hides his body.
Blackmailing his old friend Alan Campbell, Dorian is able to dispose of Basil’s body. An hour later, Dorian attends a party, but is bored and distracted. He then heads for an opium den and, out on the street, meets Sibyl’s younger brother, who has been waiting for an opportunity to harm Dorian for nearly twenty years. Dorian makes a case for mistaken identity when he claims to have the face of a twenty-year-old and cannot be the man James is looking for. A woman in the street reveals that Dorian “sold himself to the devil for a pretty face,” so James again pursues Dorian.
At his country estate one week later, Dorian entertains guests but believes James in hunting him. Dorian soon learns, however, that a man accidentally killed in a hunting accident is James, and so he feels safe.
The novel concludes six months later. Dorian and Lord Henry dine, and talk turns serious—Dorian talks of Basil, and Lord Henry reflects on a sermon he heard the previous Sunday while walking in the park. Lord Henry also inquires about the secret of Dorian’s youth, which Dorian dismisses. Dorian then asks Lord Henry never to give the yellow book to anyone else. That evening, while Dorian examines the portrait, he decides to destroy it with the knife used to murder Basil. Soon after, Dorian’s servants and a police officer find an old, ugly man lying dead on the ground in front of a portrait of a young and innocent Dorian.
http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/LitNote/id-144,pageNum-3.html
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Preface & Chapters 1-3
Summary
The preface is a collection of epigrams in praise of art and beauty, and against the notion that art should be the expression of moral ideas. The epigrams have no direct relationship to the story that follows.
In Chapter 1, the aristocrat Lord Henry Wotton lounges on the divan as he talks with his friend, the artist Basil Hallward, in Hallward’s studio. In the center of the room is Hallward’s portrait of a young man of great beauty. Lord Henry tells him it is his finest work and encourages him to exhibit it. But Basil says he cannot exhibit it because he put too much of himself into it. He does not explain what he means by that remark. The two men go outside to the garden and continue their discussion. When Lord Henry presses him to explain, Basil replies that he is afraid that in the portrait, which is of a man named Dorian Gray, he may have shown the secret of his own soul. He tells Henry the story of how he met Dorian, at a party given by Lady Brandon. When he first saw the young man, he was fascinated but also terrified. He had some premonition that Dorian’s personality was such that it might exert an undue influence on him, and that he was on the verge of a crisis that might lead to “exquisite joys and exquisite sorrows.” As Henry talks about life with an amiable cynicism, Basil disagrees with him and also suspects that Henry does not really mean a word he is saying.
The subject then comes back to Dorian Gray, who now sits as a model for Basil every day. Basil thinks that because of Dorian, he is now creating the best art of his life. Dorian’s personality has suggested to him a new mode of style in artistic expression that would attain a perfect harmony of body and soul. Henry tells Basil that at some point he will tire of Dorian and not find him so inspiring. The butler then announces that Dorian Gray is in the studio. Henry wants to meet him but Basil worries that Henry will be a bad influence on him. He fears that he may lose the person on whom his art depends.
In chapter 2, Henry and Dorian meet. Henry thinks there is something in Dorian’s face that makes him appear trustworthy. He then excuses himself, inviting Dorian to visit him at his home. But Dorian tells Basil that if Henry—to whom he has taken a liking—goes, he will too. This prompts Basil to persuade Henry to stay.
Dorian steps up on the dais so as to allow Basil to finish the portrait. While Basil paints, oblivious to the conversation, Henry explains to Dorian his philosophy of life. He advocates a life in which people are not afraid to live completely, giving expression to all their desires and their dreams. He sees no point in self-denial of any kind. His words have a strong effect on Dorian, who is aware that fresh, exciting influences are at work on him. Henry is aware of the effect of his words on the young man, and he is amazed by it.
Dorian needs a break from posing, so he and Henry go out to the garden. Henry continues to expound his philosophy, and Dorian is fascinated, even frightened, by what he hears. Henry talks to him about beauty as the most wonderful thing in the world, and that Dorian has only a few years in which to enjoy it, since it fades with age. He should take the opportunity to “live really, perfectly, and fully.” He urges Dorian always to seek new sensations, and he calls this philosophy of life the new Hedonism. Dorian listens intently.
They return to the studio and Basil resumes painting, and finishes the picture. Dorian looks at it, as if he has recognized himself for the first time. He sees his own beauty, which he had never felt before. The thought that he will age, and lose his beauty, disturbs him intensely. He is saddened by the fact that although he will age, the picture will remain always young. He wishes it could be the other way round. He would give up his whole soul if that could be the case. He tells Basil that when he finds that he is growing old, he will kill himself. Upset that his painting has had this effect, Basil goes to rip up the canvas with a knife, but Dorian restrains him. Basil then says he will give the picture to Dorian. Dorian and Henry then leave; they have arranged to go together to the theatre that evening, although Basil does not seem to be happy with that arrangement.
The next day Lord Henry visits his uncle Lord Fermor and asks him for information about Dorian Gray. Lord Fermor apparently knows or has known almost everyone in London society. It transpires that Dorian’s father died before Dorian was born, and his mother died before Dorian was one year old. Dorian stands to inherit a lot of money when he comes of age. Henry then goes to lunch at his Aunt Agatha’s. He is still thinking of Dorian, and wants to influence him with his ideas, to dominate him in the same way that Dorian was dominating Basil’s ideas about art. At the lunch are various members of the aristocracy and the upper classes, where there is a discussion of the merits or otherwise of America and Americans, and of the social problems of London, all of which Lord Henry uses as an opportunity to discharge more of his epigrams (clever sayings). Dorian, who is also at the lunch, is fascinated by Henry’s dazzling talk. As Henry leaves, Dorian asks to come with him.
Analysis
The artist Basil Hallward expresses one of the ideals of the Aesthetic Movement that flourished in the late nineteenth century in France and England. According to Aestheticism, the purpose of art is simply to embody beauty. As Wilde, a leading exponent of the ideas of Aestheticism, puts it in his preface, “The artist is the creator of beautiful things.” This is why Basil is so ecstatic about Dorian Gray. Dorian embodies in himself such physical beauty that he has enabled Basil to take his art to a completely new level. Dorian has transformed his artistic vision. For Basil, Dorian’s beauty is an entryway into a superior kind of art, one that has not been seen before. This applies to landscapes as well as portrait painting. Dorian’s presence has conveyed to the artist the spirit of beauty in all things, and this is why Basil worships the young man and is so emotionally attached to him. (Later in the novel it becomes clear that Basil parts company from the Aesthetic Movement because he does not believe that the artist has no moral responsibilities.)
Lord Henry embodies another aspect of the Aesthetic Movement, which in contrast to the Victorian emphasis on hard work and social responsibility advocated the enjoyment of sensual experience. The idea was to seize on each fleeting moment and experience it to the full. This aspect of the movement is associated with Walter Pater (1839–1894), a professor of classics at Oxford University. Pater was a great influence on Wilde. At one point in his life, Wilde would not go anywhere without a copy of Pater’s work in his pocket. In the “Conclusion” to his work, The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry (revised edition, 1888), Pater wrote, “Every moment some form grows perfect in hand or face; some tone on the hills or the sea is choicer than the rest; some mood of passion or insight or intellectual excitement is irresistibly real and attractive to us,—for that moment only.” Pater’s ideal was to maintain that moment of maximum beauty or passion in every passing moment: “To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life.”
This is what Lord Henry means by the new Hedonism. No experience or desire should be rejected or repressed, because it is in each desire as it arises that the flame of life exists. Lord Henry opposes conventional morality, which preaches restraints on desire and action, because he thinks such restraints are opposed to the essence of life. Moral restraints kill desire and divide life into separate categories of good and evil, which for Lord Henry have no meaning.
Lord Henry sets out to influence Dorian and persuade him to live according to his principles. It should be noted, however, that Henry does not appear to live up to his own ideals. He talks a lot but acts little. Basil seems to understand his friend well. After Henry has claimed to have a marriage in which both parties are deceitful, Basil chides him, “I believe you are really a very good husband, but that you are thoroughly ashamed of your own virtues. . . . You never say a moral thing, and you never do a wrong thing. Your cynicism is simply a pose.” (ch. 1).
Henry regards Dorian as the subject of an experiment. He wants to see how far he can influence him and what happens when he does. These early chapters are like temptation scenes. Dorian is the young innocent, his ideas about life yet unformed. Henry is the more experienced man of the world who will try to dominate him, just as Dorian himself is effectively dominating Basil. But whereas Dorian’s influence on Basil has an uplifting effect, at least as far as Basil’s art is concerned, Henry’s influence on Dorian will turn out to be destructive. (It might also be argued that Basil’s virtual idolatry of Dorian is also a negative influence on him because it feeds Dorian’s vanity. Dorian himself says this to Basil in chapter 13.)
http://www.novelguide.com/ThePictureofDorianGray/novelsummary.html
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The press release for The Picture of Dorian Gray calls this new stage adaptation a "Gothic melodrama". Most video stores put the film version in the "Horror" section. The original novel -- Oscar Wilde's only full length one -- is one of the defining works of the last decade of the 19th Century. In it, Wilde memorably, and amorally, assays the soul of the title character. While warning us in the prologue that " [t]hose who go beneath the surface [of art] do so at their peril," the links to Wilde's own pneuma are inexorable.
The play focuses on three characters: Basil Hallward (Andrew Seear), an earnest painter, Dorian Gray (Crispin Freeman), his beautiful young subject and Lord Henry Wotton (Daniel Pearce), a self-indulgent, hedonistic disturber of the peace. Floating onstage with them is a narrator, here called Shadow One (Paul Anthony McGrane).
After seeing Basil's completed portrait of him, Dorian is prompted to say, "Why should it keep what I must lose? Every moment that passes takes something from me and gives something to it. Oh, if it were only the other way! If the picture could change, and I could be always what I am now!" It's a wish that will come true. As his innocent heart morphs into an unscrupulous, uncaring one, Dorian remains a beautiful young man, but the portrait becomes ugly. He offers up his soul to remain young, with disastrous effects for a host of people, and ultimately for himself.
O'Byrne's adaptation remains quite faithful to the novel, perhaps to a fault. Wilde's is a playwright's novel, long on dialogue, with enough witty quotes to seed an entire volume of Bartlett's. O'Byrne's effort consists mostly of judicious trimming rather than re-thinking: when the novel shifts to narrative, we hear it recited as narration; where Wilde has supplied dialogue, it is freely claimed. To underscore the story as a Greek tragedy -- it's best thought of as a cautionary parable -- O'Byrne employs a Greek chorus that sometimes joins with its master, McGrane, for recitation (as well as to provide atmospherics, sometimes effectively but just as often divertingly).
One could think of Dorian's wish-that-comes-true as a Faustian bargain, but Lord Henry, his corruptor, is more Falstaff than Mephistopheles. Pearce's rendering is serviceable if not especially alluring. Freeman is believable as the young Narcissus, hampered somewhat by O'Byrne's inability to truly evoke Dorian's rampage of nightcrawling through the seedy underbelly of London. Seear is fine as Basil; ditto for McGrane's Shadow. On film, the portrait itself is essentially a character, a tricky proposition on the stage, not solved deftly here. O'Byrne has used masks to represent the faces of those dozen or so other characters (performed by about half as many actors) for whom the aging process has not been arrested.
To suggest the dimly lit streets of London and its dens of iniquity, Brian Nason lights the stage spottily, at times a choice that is at the audience's expense. The set designers rely on complicated and often clumsy inventions to portray the various scene shifts demanded, with resulting staging that seems pointless (as when actors must circle through the frame of a door to return to the same stage space from which they departed. David Toser's period costumes induce no quibbles.
Bringing this literature to the stage does no violence to it, but as with any play informed by antecedents in both book and film, one must ask whether the instant approach affords any advantages. This production doesn't find any.
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Oscar Wilde’s famous novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, was another one of those works that seemed to get made into a movie at least once every couple of weeks during the silent era. Considering the sheer number of silent versions there were, it’s a bit surprising to see that no talkie version was attempted until 1945, when the second big Hollywood horror boom was already on its last legs. But in light of the way Paramount’s The Picture of Dorian Gray came out, my inclination is to say that they ought not to have bothered in the first place.
Perhaps when the studio heads told him they wanted to do a talkie Dorian Gray movie, director Albert Lewin thought they had asked him for a talky version instead. In any event, that’s certainly what he gave them! Admittedly, Wilde’s novel isn’t exactly action-packed, concerning itself more with the philosophical dimensions of its story, but this movie is absolutely consumptive. On the other hand, it is at least relatively faithful to its source material (in fact, I think it’s a bit too faithful for its own good— more on that later). We begin with Lord Henry Wotton (George Sanders, who would go on to appear in Psychomania and the original Village of the Damned) taking a carriage ride out to the home of his friend, Basil Hallward (Lowell Gilmore). It’s difficult to grasp what these two men see in each other. Hallward is a man of fairly conventional ideas about life and how it should be lived, while Wotton is that most annoying species of bohemian, the sort who seems to choose his opinions solely on the basis of their power to shock the genteel sensibilities of his neighbors, and who prefers to speak in epigrams whenever possible. Perhaps Wotton likes Hallward for his artistic talents; the later man is a painter of no mean skill. And in fact, when Wotton arrives at his destination, he finds his friend setting up his easel in preparation for work on an especially striking portrait which he has very nearly completed. Wotton wants to know who the young man portrayed in the painting is, and Hallward reluctantly tells him his subject’s name is Dorian Gray. Hallward absolutely refuses to introduce Wotton to Dorian, however, on the grounds that the latter man is young and impressionable, and an acquaintance with Lord Henry could only have a bad influence upon him.
But circumstance has other plans, and Dorian (The Boston Strangler’s Hurd Hatfield) arrives at that very moment to begin his last sitting with Hallward. And sure enough, as Hallward paints, his friend fills the youth’s head with precisely the sort of hedonistic nonsense that the artist feared. Wotton’s ideas about youth (it’s “the only thing in the world worth having”) especially seem to strike a chord in Dorian, and by the time Hallward is finished, Gray has internalized Wotton’s thinking to such an extent that he idly makes a wish that Hallward’s uncannily lifelike portrait could be the one to shoulder the burden of the years instead of him.
A word of advice: before you go making wishes, look around and make sure that there aren’t any statuettes depicting “one of the 73 great gods of Egypt” lying about. Otherwise, you might just get what you wish for, and we all know what a drag that usually turns out to be. Hallward, you see, has just such a sculpture sitting on a table in his parlor, situated in such a way that its basalt eyes are staring straight at the painting when Dorian makes his wish. And as we shall soon see, Dorian Gray is about to become famous for (among other things) his remarkably well-preserved youth.
But all that is some years (and several scenes) in the future. Before we get to that, we must first establish what else is going to show up in the painting, rather than on the face that would be its natural home. The seeds of hedonism planted by Lord Henry send up their first shoots when Dorian begins frequenting a nightclub in one of the seedier parts of London. It is here that he meets, and is instantly smitten by, a pretty young singer named Sybil Vane (Angela Lansbury, who appeared many years later in The Company of Wolves and as a voice-actress in The Last Unicorn). Sybil, for her part, is equally taken with Dorian, and the two of them make plans to marry, despite howls of disapproval from all quarters. Dorian’s friends are scandalized that he would take a wife so far down the social ladder from him (except for Wotton, of course, who opposes marriage on principle); Sybil’s brother, James (Richard Fraser, from White Pongo and Bedlam), thinks Dorian just sees her as a fine piece of ***, to be used and discarded when she becomes inconvenient or tiresome. But it’s Wotton who ultimately gets everybody into trouble; he again has some advice for Dorian, and against his better judgement, his young protege ends up taking it. Wotton’s bright idea is that Dorian shouldn’t marry Sybil unless and until he is certain she is as virtuous as she appears on the surface. To that end, he advises Dorian to take her back to his place on some pretext or other— Hallward’s portrait will do nicely— and then protest when she decides it’s time for her to go home. If the girl still wants to leave, Dorian should turn the headgames up a notch, and make a big show of withdrawing his affection. Then, if she still insists on leaving, Dorian will know that he has indeed found a woman of outstanding purity, whom he can marry safely. You know what’s coming. Sybil is a good-hearted girl, but she lacks the willpower to stand on principle when it looks like her relationship with Dorian is at stake. The next day, Dorian, disgusted at Sybil’s weakness in the face of his own treachery, sends her a letter saying he never wants to see her again. The day after that, the heartbroken singer swallows poison and dies. Well, one certainly hopes that will teach Mr. Gray not to be such a gaping asshole in the future.
Of course, if it had, this would be one short-*** movie, and since this is Paramount and not Universal we’re dealing with here, such things clearly cannot be. As a matter of fact, Sybil’s death convinces Dorian that there’s absolutely no point in trying to be good. He derives this somewhat counterintuitive notion from the fact that he learned of the girl’s suicide mere moments after deciding to return to her and beg forgiveness for his inexcusably shitty behavior. And at just about the same time that he learns he has Sybil’s blood on his hands, he notices something funny about Hallward’s portrait of him. The expression on his face has changed just slightly— a faint sneer has crept into his lips, giving him a hard, almost dangerous look. This is Dorian’s first hint that his earlier wish has come true, that the painting will henceforth become the repository for all the corrupting effects of age and debauchery. And so debauch Dorian does (off-camera of course— this is 1945, you realize), until, years later, a nimbus of sordid rumor surrounds him, sharply dividing his acquaintances into those who believe the stories, and those who believe the innocence written on his preternaturally youthful face.
One of the very few iniquities we are allowed to see Dorian commit involves his old friend, Hallward. The painter has plans to move to Paris, and before he goes, he wants to take one last stab at setting Dorian straight. It almost works. Though he of course does not go into detail (I remind you again of the date), Gray does confess that the nasty rumors circulating about him are true, in essence if not necessarily in their particulars. Hallward doubts him at first, but when he remarks offhand that no man can see another’s soul, Dorian realizes that he’s got something upstairs in his attic that will surely convince his friend. Though Hallward may be right as far as most people are concerned, Dorian’s soul is perfectly visible to those who know what to look for, for upstairs, in a locked room just beneath the eaves of his mansion, Hallward’s portrait lies concealed behind a drop cloth, so that no one but the sinner himself might see the incriminating evidence it depicts. The scene in which Dorian brings his friend up to have a look— and in which we finally see for ourselves what changes a life of unspecified depravity has wrought on the painting— is one of the truly great horror movie moments of the 40’s. But once Hallward has seen the proof with his own eyes, Dorian gets second thoughts about the wisdom of his “confession,” and in a mad panic to protect his secret, he murders his friend, and then watches with renewed horror as the hands of his oil-and-varnish alter-ego turn red with Hallward’s spilled blood. Next, Gray compounds his crime further by blackmailing another old friend, a scientist of apparently questionable professional ethics by the name of Allen Campbell (Douglass Walton, who had played Percy Shelley in the prologue to Bride of Frankenstein), to dispose of the body. Worse yet, Campbell kills himself in remorse shortly thereafter.
So with all this going on, it can’t be a good thing when Dorian sets his romantic sights on Hallward’s young niece, Gladys (Donna Reed— yes, the Donna Reed!). Gladys has had a crush on Dorian since she was a little girl, and even though that was 20 years ago, the man’s stubborn refusal to age like the rest of us has kept him fresh enough to remain desirable to a woman young enough to be his daughter. With their attraction thus established as mutual, it’s only natural that neither Dorian nor Gladys sees the fact that she already has a boyfriend (his name is David Stone, and he’s played by Peter Lawford) as much of a problem. What unquestionably is a problem, though, is the reentry into the plot of Sybil’s brother, James. You remember James— he was the guy who didn’t want Sybil seeing Dorian, on the grounds that he would only hurt her. Yeah, well evidently, James has spent the last 20 years or so tracking Sybil’s “Sir Tristan” down, and it’s at this point in the movie that he finally catches up with him.
But don’t you go fooling yourself. This movie isn’t over yet. James is gunned down in a hunting accident while trying to ambush Dorian, and so he will not be available to serve as our climax-inducing plot device, except in the most indirect manner. All he is able to do is give Dorian a sudden attack of conscience, leading ultimately to the ageless degenerate’s decision to destroy Hallward’s accursed painting, and take whatever consequences may come to him. I’m sure you have some idea of what those consequences might be, so I needn’t tell you what Gladys, David, and Lord Henry find when a chain of chance meetings brings them together with the intention of stopping by Dorian’s place and figuring out once and for all exactly what his deal is.
Ladies and gentlemen, the name of your enemy is Boredom. The Picture of Dorian Gray certainly isn’t all bad (it’s got that fantastic unveiling scene— shot in Technicolor for added effect!), but it suffers tremendously from the effects of mid-40’s prudishness. Having pondered the issue at length, I think the last chance for a really good, really faithful Dorian Gray movie came in 1934, just before the industry-wide agreement on the part of studio-affiliated theater owners not to show movies that didn’t carry the Production Code Administration’s seal of approval finally gave the Hays Code some real teeth. Under the PCA’s rules, The Picture of Dorian Gray’s creators weren’t even allowed to talk about all the dirty things Dorian does to amuse himself. True, Wilde’s novel is just as elliptical, as it had to be given the cultural climate of Victorian England, but there are some things you can get away with on the printed page that are simply unacceptable in a visual medium like film. With no authority to depict or even describe Gray’s sins, the filmmakers had no other option but to rely heavily on voice-over narration. In fact, if you ask me, narrator Sir Cedric Hardwicke (who also narrated War of the Worlds), though completely uncredited, ought to have received top billing— God knows he gets more “screen time” than any of the real actors! The movie thus leaves you with the unpleasant feeling that you’d have been just as well served by listening to someone synopsize the novel. On the other hand, I don’t really think a post-Code Dorian Gray movie could have been much better (though one could certainly have been more fun). By the time the Code collapsed under the weight of its own irrelevancy in the early 1960’s, the public’s taste for, and indeed expectation of, increasingly explicit portrayals of formerly taboo material made it just about impossible to tell this story in anything like a restrained and tasteful manner. And in fact, when this movie was remade as The Secret of Dorian Gray in the early 70’s, the new creative team was so utterly unbridled in their depiction of the title character’s squalid lifestyle that this remake has become nearly legendary in the world of exploitation cinema. Now it’s a rare day indeed when I, of all people, come out in favor of taste and restraint, but in this case, I think the character of the source material demands it. But restraint isn’t the same thing as a straightjacket, and unfortunately, a straightjacket is exactly what the mid-40’s censorship regime imposed on The Picture of Dorian Gray.
http://www.1000misspenthours.com/reviews/reviewsn-z/pictureofdoriangray1945.htm
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Review Summary of The Picture of Dorian Gray
Young and beautiful Dorian Gray's wish comes true. A portrait of him ages while he does not. Caught up in the pleasure of evils, he loses sight of everything valuable to him and becomes his own worst enemy.
Wendy Edwards, Resident Scholar
An artist, besotted with the beauty of the young man Dorian Gray, paints his finest work, a portrait of breathtaking power and youthful splendour. Dorian, having been rocked by the thought that he too will grow old and unlovely one day, impetuously wishes that he could ever and forever look as the proud beauty in the picture does. The moment is bewitched, and his wish is granted. He proceeds to live life to the full, he takes what pleasure he wishes, to the degree he wishes, whenever he wishes, without regard for consequence to himself or others. He remains a pristine god-like wonder to behold. But the picture tells his tale in the changing portrait, which he must hide in the dust of the attic. Every debauch, every cruel and unheeding act, every draining of life's dregs is reflected in the horror that the portrait becomes. One day it must all be paid for and come to an end. And too late he realises that he has been paying for all that he has done as he went along, despite appearences - paying with his soul and his humanity.
Michael JR Jose, Resident Scholar
Artist Basil Hallward has painted a picture
he considers his masterpiece, and much too
good for the likes of the traditional Salon
in Paris. No, he tells Lord Henry,
this one he's keeping for himself, or possibly
make a present of it to the blond young man
who sat for the picture. The man portrayed is
an orphaned society child named Dorian Gray.
Later, when Dorian finishes sitting for
the portrait, he makes a wish that he would
stay perfect and beautiful and youthful just
like his picture at 22. Basis makes the portrait
a present to Dorian. Dorian then becomes apprenticed
to Lord Henry in the ways of the world, (which
includes both boys and girls). This is what
Basil Hallward feared the most: his beautiful
blond boy becoming decadent like Lord Henry.
When an actress named Sybil Vane commits suicide
over a broken engagement to Dorian, the picture
takes on the slight look of cruelty around the
mouth. Dorian indulges himself in his money and
social fame, and his face remains unchanged.
http://www.allreaders.com/Topics/info_857.asp
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The novel begins with Lord Henry Wotton observing the artist Basil Hallward painting the portrait of a handsome young man named Dorian Gray. When Dorian arrives at the London Studio he meets Lord Henry Wotton. Wotton's low musical voice enchants the lad as he stands upon a little dais in the afternoon sunlight. The constant flick and dash of the artist's brush melt away, as Lord Henry's doctrine of self-development corrupts Dorian's innocence. "The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it [..]" murmurs Lord Henry. "Resist it and the soul grows sick with longing."
Under the influence of Lord Henry, Dorian begins an exploration of his senses. He starts by discovering a brilliant actress, Sibyl Vane, who performs Shakespeare in a dingy theatre, but although the theatre is a wretched hole of a place, her acting outshines it all. Dorian approaches her, and very soon, proposes marriage. Sibyl, who knows only his Christian name, and refers to him only as "Prince Charming", rushes home to tell her skeptical mother and brother. Her protective brother, James, tells her that if Prince Charming ever harms her, he shall find and shoot him like a dog!
Dorian then invites Basil and Lord Henry to see Sibyl perform in Romeo and Juliet. Sibyl, whose only previous knowledge of love was through the love of theatre, suddenly loses her acting abilities through the experience of true love with Dorian, and performs very badly. Dorian rejects her, cruelly saying that her beauty was in her art, and if she could no longer act, he was no longer interested in her. Once he returns home, Dorian notices that Basil's portrait of him has changed. There is a touch of cruelty in the mouth. After a close examination of the painting Dorian realises that his mad wish has come true - the portrait is ageing and will bear his sins while his own outward appearance remains unchanged. He decides to reconcile with Sibyl, but Lord Henry arrives in the morning to say that Sibyl has killed herself by swallowing prussic acid.
Dorian accepts his fate. Over the next eighteen years he experiments with every vice forbidden to man, mostly under the influence of a "poisonous" French novel, a present from Lord Henry. Wilde never reveals the title but his inspiration was likely drawn from Joris-Karl Huysmans's À rebours (Against Nature).
One rainy night, before he leaves for Paris, Basil arrives to question Dorian about the dreadful rumours of his indulgences. Dorian does not deny the debauchery, and endeavours to show Basil his soul. He takes Basil to the portrait, now hidden in the old nursery, which is revealed to have become monstrously ugly under Dorian's sins. In a sudden rage of anger, Dorian blames the artist for his fate, and stabs him to death. He then blackmails an old friend into destroying the body.
Dorian seeks escape from the deed he has done in an opium den. After being rejected by the proprietor, who calls him by the name "Prince Charming", he leaves. Sibyl Vane's brother,coincidentally in the same room, has been searching for someone named "Prince Charming" for 18 years. He follows Dorian out and attempts to shoot him; but he is deceived when Dorian asks to be thrust under the lamplight, and in the dripping mist tells James Vane that he would have been too young to have been involved with his sister 18 years ago—his appearance has not changed since. The sailor goes back inside the opium den, where the woman tells him that Dorian has not aged for the past eighteen years.
Whilst at dinner at Selby Royal, Dorian's country estate, Dorian sees Sibyl Vane's brother stalking the grounds and fears for his life. However, during a game-shooting party the next day James is accidentally shot and killed by one of the hunters.
After returning to London, Dorian informs Lord Henry that he will be good from now on, and has started by not breaking the heart of his latest innocent conquest, a vicar's daughter in a country town. At his apartment, he wonders if the portrait would have begun to change back, losing its sinful appearance, now that he has changed his ways. He unveils the portrait to only find that it has become worse: in his eyes were a look of cunning, and his face took on the subtle air of a hypocrite. Seeing this he begins to question the motives behind his act, whether it was merely vanity, curiosity, or seeking new emotional excess. Another sign appears in the portrait, the stain of blood that appeared with Hallward's murder grows brighter and spreads. He considers momentarily what this could mean, what act would be required to redeem him of this mark. Deciding that only a full confession would absolve him, but lacking any guilt and fearing the consequences, he decides to destroy the last vestige of his conscience. In a fit of rage, he picks up the knife that killed Basil Hallward, and plunges it into the painting. Hearing his cry from inside the locked room, his servants send for the police, who find a bloated, ugly old man with a knife in his heart, and the portrait of Dorian, as beautiful as he was eighteen years ago.
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Themes
Aestheticism and The Morality of Art: Wilde sets this as a major theme in the preface saying "We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless." This may have been said in defence of his novel against reports of its immorality. For instance, the Daily Chronicle characterized it as "...a poisonous book, the atmosphere of which is heavy with the mephitic odours of moral and spiritual putrefaction." Wilde also remarked in the preface "There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all."
Physiognomy: One of the central ideas in the novel is that beauty is marred by vice. Dorian remains beautiful despite his many sins because they take effect on Basil's portrait rather than him.
Pederasty and Homosexuality: The text contains many obscure references and terms, which are often considered to be euphemistic. Indeed, the novel was used as evidence in Wilde's infamous trial for "gross indecency" as evidence of his homosexuality. For example, it is suggested that the name Dorian is chosen as it is a reference to [Greek] love.
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Publication history
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Corresponding chapters in different editions 1890 edition 1891 edition
1 1
2 2
- 3
3 4
- 5
4 6
5 7
6 8
7 9
8 10
9 11
10 12
11 13
12 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
13 19/20
In the fall of 1889 J. M. Stoddart was in London to solicit short novels for one of his enterprises, Lippincott's Monthly Magazine. To one dinner he invited Arthur Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde. They both agreed to write for him and Doyle submitted his second Sherlock Holmes novel The Sign of Four.
There was a delay in getting Wilde's work to press while numerous changes were made to the manuscripts of the novel (some of which survive to this day). Some of these changes were made at Wilde's instigation, and some at Stoddart's.
One especially notable change is the removal from the manuscripts of references to the fictitious book Le Secret de Raoul, and to its fictitious author, Catulle Sarrazin. The book and its author are still referred to in the published versions of the novel, but are unnamed.
The Picture of Dorian Gray was finally published on June 20, 1890 in the July edition of Lippencott's.... It was an immediate sensation.
A substantially revised and expanded edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray was published by Ward, Lock and Bowden in April 1891. For this edition, Wilde revised the content of the novel's existing chapters, divided the final chapter into two chapters, and created six entirely new additional chapters. Whereas the original edition of the novel contains 13 chapters, the revised edition of the novel contains 20 chapters. The table on the right shows how the chapters in the two different editions correspond to one another.
Between the publication of the original edition of the novel and the publication of the revised edition, Wilde published his "Preface" to the novel, in the 1 March 1891 edition of the literary/scientific journal the Fortnightly Review. This "Preface", which could be considered an aesthetic manifesto, consisted of 24 aphorisms - the first being 'The artist is the creator of beautiful things', and the last being 'All art is quite useless' - expounding some of the key tenets of aesthetic philosophy. Wilde added another aphorism - 'No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything.' - to the "Preface", when it was included in the revised edition of the novel published in April 1891.
One especially notable change made for the revised edition is that whereas events in the latter half of the novel were previously specified as taking place around Dorian Gray's 32nd birthday, on November 7; they were now specified as taking place around Dorian Gray's 38th birthday, on November 9. This has the effect of extending the period of time over which the story occurs.
The revised edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray, incorporating the 25 aphorisms of the "Preface", has come to be considered the standard edition, and is widely held to be superior to its published predecessor. Nonetheless, it is instructive to compare the manuscripts and the two different editions of Wilde's novel. Critics have been especially interested in the purging of homoerotic themes and allusions during the course of the novel's development, so that while such themes and allusions abound in the final revised edition, they are less explicit than in previous versions of the novel - although no less effective for that.
These changes to the novel are not merely of academic interest, but were relevant to the three prosecutions involving Oscar Wilde that took place in the spring of 1895, resulting in his eventual arrest and imprisonment. John Sholto Douglas' defence attorney in the first prosecution, Edward Carson, attempted to use The Picture of Dorian Gray as evidence of Wilde's corrupting influence upon Alfred Douglas. Carson referred to the fact that Wilde had revised the novel, and cast aspersions upon his motivation for so doing.
Some later editions of The Picture of Dorian Gray silently change the word 'Jew', which is used disparagingly in chapters 4 and 7 of the novel, to the word 'man', presumably to avoid potential offense.
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Individuals referred to in the novel
The number of each chapter of The Picture of Dorian Gray in which an individual is referred to is given in parentheses alongside their name. These chapter numbers are specific to the revised edition of the novel first published in April 1891
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Picture_of_Dorian_Gray
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