Criticism In Oscar Wilde's The Picture Of Dorian Gray

Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray to me emphasis the corruption that comes from obsessing about aesthetics and the idea that looks are the only things that matter. In this modern era novel Basil Hallward is a benevolent artist who paints a portrait of the young attractive man named Dorian Gray. After speaking with Lord Henry Wotton, Dorian makes a wish while looking at his painting and it would be this wish that turned into a curse that ruined Dorian for Basil and ruined the world itself for Dorian. "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). It’s in this action that Dorian sold his soul to the Devil though in this cause the Devil has a name, Lord Henry Wotton. Dorian lives his life of indulgence based upon a book given to him by Lord Henry, and

"It was his beauty that had ruined him, his beauty and the youth that he had prayed for" (Wilde 242). In contrast with his preface which stated, “there is no such thing as a moral or immoral book” (vii), this novel did have moral, least in our view of world morals. The moral of it being that it is our faith, our hope to make the future a better place and our regard for human life is what supports us from become like the wicked, loathsome monster that Dorian became. The Picture of Dorian Gray is a modern novel which tells tale of the fight between one’s moral consciences and one’s immoral temptation and the agonizing outcome if one gives too much into temptation. As Wilde questions, “to what extent are we shaped by our actions” (26). Though Wilde is a firm believer of aestheticism the story really drives home the idea that aestheticism is like sweets, all things in