Resumo de The Picture Of Dorian Gray

This novel is really a horror story; a dark, chilling tale, where the reader can barely believe the depths to which our hero has sunk. However, it is interesting how often the veil is drawn across before actual acts of debasement are perpetrated and they are rarely, if ever, spelt out to the reader. More powerfully, one is left to fill in those terrible blanks.

In ?The Picture of Dorian Gray? the wonderful fop Oscar Wilde paints a bleak picture of the repellent side of human nature as the beautiful hero Dorian Gray maintains his youthful beauty, despite lewd acts and malefaction, whilst the sinister portrait of him hanging in the attic takes on all the pestilence, age and filth that befits the face of one so lost in hedonism.
Few can read A Picture of Dorian Gray without being entranced by the themes and forced to contemplate them at great length. However, as well as substance, there is style here. It is a novel filled with the luxuriant writing style that Wilde is so famous for. From the beautiful and glamorous circle in which the charming and apparently perfect young gentleman moves in, to the untold horrors of the filthiest, unspeakable whorehouses that he roams to Wilde is simply in his element. His language is rich as only his can be.

The book is not just a tale of one man and his debauchery: it has multiple themes, interwoven amidst Wilde?s purple prose. It is testament to the great skill of the novelist that they never stumble over one another or over complicate the incredibly simple and straightforward landscape that makes it an accessible morality tale for a child. From the seriousness of Basil Hallward, to the deliberate and flagrant excess of Wotten and eventually Dorian, this book is a tale of three characters.

Most obvious to those who have some understanding of Wilde and his life, this book is fascinating as a semi-autobiographical story, as Wilde paints himself as the devious, intelligent, amoral enigma that is Sir Henry Wotton; the man single-handedly responsible for the tarnishing of the otherwise pure heart of Dorian. He achieves this with a few choice words, and my sympathy for Sir Henry and his continuous cutting life to pieces with his epigrams is great. He is a product of a societies largess, with nothing better to occupy his time than becoming increasingly drawn into his own perverse world view.

It is a testament to Wilde that he was willing to paint such an ironic picture of his own lifestyle, as viewed by others, to challenge them and their prejudices; throwing a gauntlet to the reader asking ?Am I really such a monster? Can one man really ruin the heart and soul of another??

Dorian Gray represents the self-destructive, dangerous aspect of Wilde; corrupted during youth, becoming a man of great influence to those around him, for both good and evil. Self destruction is something that Wilde knew a good deal about and this theme of the book parallels a sad theme running through Wilde?s own life. We will all meet our ends at some time or another and whilst Wilde does not patronize the reader by alluding to an all-powerful God he does ultimately take Dorian up the stairs to face the deformed picture of his now terrible self, just as we must all some day be true to ourselves and answer to our own consciences.

With Basil Hallward we see a dedicated artist, eventually destroyed by his most beautiful piece of work. Because surely the portrait destroys Basil as completely as it eventually destroys Dorian. Basil?s worship of Dorian, who is most certainly a false idol with feet of clay, although Basil will come to realize this only too late, is a betrayal of Basil?s own art. For whilst the presence of Dorian Gray inspires him to create fantastically beautiful things, these things also mar and eventually destroy the trio, for it can be seen that Sir Henry?s life after meeting Dorian Gray has hardly been happy, with his divorce, the degradation of his sister and his own descent into a privatee world of amorality and destructive epigrams.

Of course the biggest theme of all is that of individualism and where it sits in any given society. Wilde was true to himself and his homosexual nature at great personal cost. However Dorian Gray is a more difficult character to pin down in this respect. Was he true to himself by not feeling restricted by society?s rules: cavorting in drug dens and with disgraced women because he wanted to, regardless of society?s disapproving gaze. Or did he betray his own nature by allowing himself to be corrupted by Sir Henry Wotten. This question can only be answered by the reader, who will have to decide whether Henry?s words set Dorian free or condemned him to a life of disgrace and misery. On of the most inescapable ideas in the book is that of Wilde?s obsession with art and perfection. He must surely have known how English society would react to his book, and thoughtfully penned a retort to their criticism in advance, with his witty, poetical introduction to the book. The intelligent reader will surely recognize the truth in his arguments.

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