The Picture Of Dorian Gray – “Like the painting of sorrow, a face without a heart”

“There was nothing evil in it, nothing shameful. You were to me such an ideal as I shall never meet again. This is the face of a satyr.”
“It is the face of my soul.”
“Christ! What a thing I must have worshipped! It has the eyes of a devil.”
“Each of us has Heaven and Hell in him, Basil, cried Dorian, with a wild gesture of despair.”

Have you ever wondered what it's like to enjoy all the pleasures and pleasures only? Have you ever imagined being beautiful, charismatic, charming, wealthy, intelligent and well-spoken? Have you ever wanted to be worshiped, thus powerful and never grow old? I bet you have. But, are you ready to sell your soul to the devil?

This is a story about a man of extraordinary beauty and his two friends, the Artist and …let's guess who the other friend is.

The Artist worships the young man and paints a picture of him; the young man becomes vain and self-absorbed and a “dear friend” pulls the strings all the way. His name is Lord Henry Wotton, and you wonder if he was the devil himself?

Let's not give all the importance to Lord Henry right at the beginning. After all, this is not a book about him. This is a story about Dorian Gray and his picture, just like the title says. But what the title doesn't say is soon to be discovered.

There is an ancient Greek myth about a young hunter called Narcissus. He was so beautiful that many fell in love with him instantly. But he showed no other feelings, but contempt. The nymph Echo saw him when he was hunting in the woods and madly fell in love with him. She wanted to hug him, he mercilessly pushed her away. She was hurt so much that she wandered the woods until there was nothing left of her but the sound of echo. The goddess of revenge punished Narcissus by leading him to the pool of water where he saw his own reflection and fell in love with himself. But when he realized that was only the reflection and that he won't get love in return he was in great emotional pain and died of starvation while staring at his own image. The nymphs cried and they wanted to carry him to his grave, but when they arrived his body was nowhere to be found. At the place where he rested his head, there was only a little white flower, the flower of death – It is called Narcissus.

Dorian Gray was as beautiful as Narcissus. He was adored by people because of his good looks especially because it was believed that if one was good at heart it showed in one’s face. He was “wonderfully handsome, with his finely-curved scarlet lips, his frank blue eyes, his crisp gold hair. There was something in his face that made one trust him at once.”

Basil Hallward, the naïve painter, mesmerized by Dorian’s beauty and thus inspired by his personality and “simple and beautiful nature” was the one to reveal the dangerous secret to Dorian Gray, by painting the picture of him with love and adoration; and through the goodness of his own soul. When Dorian saw the picture for the first time “his cheeks flushed for a moment of pleasure. A look of joy came into his eyes, as if he had recognized himself for the first time…The sense of his own beauty came on him like a revelation. He had never felt it before.”

Lord Henry Wotton was present at the moment and was very satisfied with what he had witnessed. He influenced the young man to think about eternal youth by depicting how hideous old men were and how one suffered when one’s beauty deteriorated.

At the moment Dorian Gray was not conscious of such a thing. In horror he wished to remain forever young, begging for the picture of him turning old and hideous, not him. He made his choice.

And what about Lord Henry’s soul? One wonders if he had it at all.

Lord Henry Wotton was a hedonist, clever aesthete, wise in his superficial observation of the world, man of shallow thoughts, who urged the young man to enjoy all the sensations and thoughts, to explore everything society oppressively forbids saying that was the only way to get to know one’s real nature and personality. There is not a single word which explicitly points out that Lord Henry was envious of Dorian, there is not a single word written how he achieved satisfaction by watching Dorian’s demise, there is not a single word describing how he lived his life through Dorian’s and how much of a coward he was. Dorian didn’t see that, either. Dorian believed him and we all would.

The Pandora’s box was opened. The devil was at play.

Through the corruption of his own soul, which wasn’t seen in his face, but in the face on the canvas, Dorian lived life of every possible forbidden pleasure he could think of, but in the end he couldn’t stand the ugliness of the face on the canvas. And the portrait’s bloody hands.

His face became his burden. His sins, hidden from the outside world, couldn’t escape his own eyes.

Did he repent?

That is left for you to find out.

• The source of the text between the quotation marks is from the book “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde.

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