Dorian Gray: Question#1

The book The Picture of Dorian Gray is written in a third person point of view. The story is not told by one of the characters, but by an unknown person who is watching the story from afar. I believe that a lot of the author’s attitudes and values are seen in his characters. Most certainly Lord Henry for sure. This book has many characters that are opinionated, and I believe that even the author believed in some of the things his own characters spoke of. One of the main attitudes and opinions of Wilde was spoken by Lord Henry. One of the things Lord Henry says is, “I believe that if a man were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream—I believe that the world would gain such an impulse of joy that we would forget all the maladies of mediaevalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal—to something finer, richer, than the Hellenic ideal, it may be.”(Wilde 20) In the commentary Hellenic ideal was the ideal that homosexuality between men was accepted. Oscar Widle himself was a homosexual, so this opinion was lived out through Lord Henry. This shows his views that people should not hold themselves back and that they should give in to every feeling and not be ashamed of it. Several of the characters live out Oscar Wilde’s views, I believe. Another one of his characters says, “The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.” (Wilde 21) In some histories of the author it was said that this is one of the things Oscar Wilde said in other books of his, so it was a common theory he believed to be true. Wilde clearly valued people who were independent and stood for what they believed in.

Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. New York: Barns & Noble Classics, 2003. Print.