The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Gray, the only novel by Oscar Wilde, was first published in 1890 and tells of how a portrait made of the eponymous Dorian Gray is marred because of his many sins, becoming old and disfigured, while he himself remains young and perfect. The novel contains several famous epigrams; many of which appeared in his later plays. The novel thrives on the symbolism of flowers, themes from Greek Myths and timeless images drawn from Wilde's extensive knowledge of the classical world.

Plot summary

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.

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 ^* love.

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.

Cultural references

The novel makes many references to fictitious and real persons, events, and institutions. For a full list of these, please see List of cultural references in The Picture of Dorian Gray.

External links

On-Line text, broken into chapters
plot summary
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Plot summary

Themes

Publication history

Cultural references

External links