The Picture of Dorian Gray :: essays research papers

When an artist composes a great hu universeity of work, he puts his life into it. Part of that person is invested into its creation, which makes it more than just a statue in the park, or a picture on a groin. In Oscar Wildes novel The go for of Dorian Gray, more than the artists heart is put into his pic. Basil Hallward, an artist, paints an amazing realistic enactment of a man named Dorian Gray. From the mo ment that these two men met, it was clear that Hallward was infatuated with Gray, and there are several indirect references in the book that he is in love with him-though the author never states each is a homosexual.The painting changes Dorians life in ways unimaginable. After the depiction is created, Dorian stops aging over time. The painting on the some other hand, ages with the years and grows older like a real human world would. This picture is a driving force in Dorians life, and while he was once a very good person, his conscience was in the painting that led him to lead a corrupt life causing cataclysm to others.On the final pages of the book, Dorian becomes fed up with what the painting makes him do, and subsequently murdering Hallward, the creator of the evil painting, he decides to get rid of this dreaded piece of art once and for all. Dorian takes the same knife that he killed Hallward with, and stabs the portrait of his older self. A sudden scream echos, leading the servants to his room a short time later. There, gone on the floor, is an old unrecognizable man who they find out is Dorian. The only evidence that this thing was once Dorian Gray was by the rings on his hands. He lay there, dead on the floor, with a knife stabbed through his heart. Hanging on the wall was a portrait of his, but it was him in his younger years-his youth. He played out his last living moments as a young person, as he had since the picture was painted.