The Picture of Dorian Gray
Kategori: böcker, engelska böcker, recensioner
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Written by Oscar Wilde
Edited by Peter Ackroyd
A painter named Basil Hallward paints a picture of the innocent boy Dorian Gray that Dorian finds so magnificent and beautiful that he utters a wish; “if it were I who was to be always young and the picture that was to grow old! /.../ I would give my soul for that!” Dorian's wish comes true and he starts hurting people because he knows that his good and innocent looks will make people forgive him. No matter how bad his actions are he doesn’t feel guilty or said but the picture changes parallel to his sins cause the picture is now “the face of his soul”.
First of all it’s clear that the book is a gothic novel because Dorian’s wish comes true. Dorian breaks Sibyl Vane's heart and then when he realizes that he is the reason to her suicide he sees a slight change in the picture. Then he remembers the wish he uttered and realizes that he his looks wont change.
Another example is the descriptions of the creepy surroundings and houses which is very typical for a gothic novel. It’s makes the you feel a little more thrilled when something is about to happen, just like you know that you will be scared if it’s creepy music in a movie. An example from the book is “a cold rain began to fall, and the blurred street-lamps looked ghastly in the dripping mist”. (page 220, chapter sixteen)
The main characters are Basil Hallward, Lord Henry and Dorian Gray. Dorian Gray is the one who changes the most, just because he gives his soul for the wish. Dorian changes from being the beautiful innocent boy who cared about everyone to being a jerk who seduces women, murders his best friend without feeling any guilt.
In the beginning of the book Basil doesn’t want Lord Henry to meet Dorian just because it would mark him and he would not be as innocent anymore. Basil said that because Lord Henry is a very special person, he got the most strange theories about life, love and beauty. He’s impact on Dorian is the reason that Dorian chooses to look young and beautiful instead of growing old with a caring heart. In the end everyone in the book had grown old and changed except for Dorian who stays the same because he gave his soul away.
Lord Henry's theories doesn’t change throughout the book, when he and Dorian met for the first time he said things pretty similar to the things he utters on the dinners they had together in the end. Basil disappears from the book for a long time just because the new perspective that Dorian got from Lord Henry doesn’t match up with the things that Basil says. But the little you get to read about him in the end of the book, it seems that he hasn’t changed.
There is a clear byronic hero in the book; Dorian Gray. He is a good person with a good soul, but when he sells his soul for eternal beauty he loses the good in him. Then he behaves bad for many years until he wants to be good again. Unfortunately it’s too late.
When he first notices that the picture is aging and not him he just broke up with Sibyl Vane, but he changes his mind and wants to go back to her again.
Dorian Gray tries to be good, but when he does something bad no one believes him because of the purity in his face. Then he just continues to go down the bad path even tho he is always affected by the bad change in the picture.
The novel reflects the society in some parts, mostly at the dinners cause then they talk about how happy the american girls are and about the country being different from how they have it in England. They were also inspired by france, maybe because it has always been sort of a country with high reputation. They use words and expressions in french, probably just like the swedish people did with the french language at that time.
Beauty, which is the main plot of the story, is a part of today’s society. The ideals that you have to look young and innocent forever is just the thoughts that Lord Henry get into Basils head.
The message is that what’s on the inside is worth more than what’s on the outside. It takes a life of beauty for Dorian to realize it. He becomes the picture in the start and the picture is kind of the real him because it ages. He has no soul and in the end he realizes that he want’s to be good cause he still feels some kind of guilt. Lord Henry told him that beauty is everything which makes Dorian think that, Lord Henry has some sort of manipulative way of speaking and Dorian believes every word he says. In the end, when he gets more bored by his beauty he wants to be good. But when he tries to destroy the picture his soul was already dead.
This message is very relevant today, people always judge others depending on whats on the outside not giving them a chance to show their inside. Plastic surgery is more common now which also is a result of people wanting to be pretty and young longer than the body allows them to.
I think the novel was good, it took awhile to get into it. When Dorian doesn't get older it started to get more interesting. Sometimes two chapters had a time difference in a day or two and sometimes the difference was 37 years which made some parts a little hard to understand. Like is he 17 or is he 30?
The language where challenging but understandable and many times Oscar Wilde wrote interesting things in different perspectives. It’s easy to quote things from this book and my favorite quotes are:
“If a man treats life artistically, his brain is his heart”. page 253
“People are afraid of themselves nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one’s self”. page 41
