DG Journal Three

At first glance, Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray" may appear a provocative and rather shocking narrative of the dangers of vanity and a warning against moral corruption. After all, when one first reads the book, the focus seems to be on Dorian's descent into depravity and the deconstruction of his boyish nature. From the first "sin" he commits (killing Sybil Vane indirectly by rejecting her cruelly), we see that the beautiful portrait of his face distorts to match his similarly distorting soul. This could be interpreted as a warning that drives home the point that Dorian's growing moral depravity is ugly, in every sense of the word. However, if we take into consideration Wilde's personal views that he also expressed in his preface, the perspective shifts into something considerably more difficult to define. Not only did he state that "the artist has no ethical considerations", but he also toys with this idea throughout the book--throughout the novel, beauty still reigns supreme as one of the ultimate values, as witnessed by Dorian's stellar social success, and it isn't James Vane who brings Dorian to his fate; it's Dorian himself, which is very morally ambiguous. Had Wilde intended his story to be one with a moral, he would have judged Dorian at the hands of someone who he had wronged, but instead opts to make Dorian atone for his sins by physically destroying his portrait; he becomes his own judge, and Dorian does not even repent thoroughly for his crimes to begin with. His motivation to destroy his portrait stems more from a desire to make the ugliness go away, rather than to cleanse his own soul of his sins. So which value reigns supreme in Wilde's novel? It is perhaps more accurate to assume that for Wilde, "Dorian Gray" was more of a study in aesthetics and the relationship of beauty and morals rather than a simple parable to scare his readers. In this sense, it is rather inappropriate to try to judge "Dorian Gray" solely in terms of morality.