Cutie ≠ Morality (learned the hard way)

[WARNING: there are a lot of spoilers for “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde if you were thinking of reading it — which you should because it kinda eats] 

    Victorian England, what a time to be alive. I wouldn’t know, of course, seeing that I’m only 17 years old, not 117 years old. But that might be a good thing, seeing how the famous tale of “Alice in Wonderland” was made to condemn Victorian England’s education system that I probably would’ve been a victim of. But it wasn’t only Lewis Carroll that had something to say about good ol’ England; Oscar Wilde uses satire to criticize Victorian England’s hedonism in his novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray.”

    Aesop’s Tales may have used animals for allegories, but Wilde uses people instead. Lord Henry’s influence on Dorian Gray is representative of society’s vice corrupting the innocence of youth. Henry sees power in influence, describing that “to influence a person is to give him one’s own soul.” (20). He takes pleasure in such influence, further telling Dorian that if he doesn’t yield to his desires and temptations, “[his] own soul [will] starve” (20). Wilde observes how these ignoble ideologies pass on from one generation to the next in England, because it is revealed that Lord Henry himself only learned such morals from “a book he had read when he was sixteen” (22). With the youth’s only role models being one that attempts to mimic beauty (a painter) and one that idolizes beauty (an aristocrat) of course they will be influenced to think this way. Henry seeing his own revelations in Dorian was “fascinating” (22), believing that ruining what could’ve been good (Dorian’s hope) brings him pleasure because he was a victim of society himself (because of the book he read in his youth). This is representative of how aesthetic society has corrupted the solaces of nature and religion and has left people with nothing to turn to but English society’s hedonism for any pleasure in life.

    We see Dorian pass his influence on to other aristocrats in England later on with how he has “ruined young women” and has made others turn to drugs and other such things. This cycle of influence is what Wilde despises. And some struggle to believe Dorian has done such things, such as kill Sybil Vane, simply because he looks young and beautiful. He even hides his portrait and kills the one person who has seen it, the artist who painted it, because he is so paranoid of someone seeing who he really is. To fear oneself is a curse. You hate society for being corrupt, you hate yourself for the corruption you have inherited, you are condemned for corrupting others but also condemned for being “restrained” if you do not corrupt others. There is no escape, but Wilde is attempting to give himself one by writing his novel. In a way he is mimicking Lord Henry’s learning experience; maybe he can get to the youth with his own book before Lord Henry’s does.

Me when my soul gets stuck in a painting