Dorian Gray: Question#2

The main conflict in The Picture of Dorian Gray is the fact that Dorian traded his soul to live a life free of old age and ugliness and now must face the destruction of his own soul which is recorded in his portrait. He now must reconcile himself and make right the sins he has done. He traded his soul to the devil to live a life always beautiful and now all his sins are seen in his self portrait, reminding him what a kind of vile life he’s living. What are the gains of this conflict? Though the picture destroys his life, it does help him gain some things. He gains the ability to see what he looks like on the inside. He gains the conscious to see what he’s done and the ability to regret it. In the story he thinks this when he looks at the picture for the first time after what he did to Sibyl Vane, “One, thing, however, he felt that it had done for him: it had made him conscious of how unjust, how cruel, he had been to Sibyl Vane.” (Wilde 99) He says this, “This portrait would be to him the most magical of mirrors. As it had revealed to him his own body, so it would reveal to him his own soul.” (Wilde 110) The portrait helped him to understand how cruel he truly was. What are the losses? Dorian loses his sanity because of the picture. It slowly drives him mad from seeing the ruin he brought on his own soul. In the story, right before he kills Basil it says, “Dorian Gray glanced at the picture, and suddenly an uncontrollable feeling of hatred for Basil Hallward came over him, as though It had been suggested to him by the image on the canvas, whispered into his ear by those grinning lips.”(Wilde 162) The picture almost literally controls him. It destroys his life and brings ruin to his name. Why? Because it shows him his own evilness.

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