In the preface of the novel, Oscar Wilde expresses his general ideas about art.
"'The artist is a creator of beautiful things, to reveal the art and conceal the artist is the purpose of art": this is the best way to represent his motto "Art for Art's Sake", where he said that the purpose of art was to emphasise the art itself, not the artist, because as I said, art is independent of the artist, and one cannot evaluate art using the usual standards.
The story begins with the painter Basil Hallward who was painting a portrait of Dorian Gray because he was fascinated by him. Dorian is the main character in the novel, and is a very handsome young Englishman. When the portrait was finished and Dorian looked at it, he too was fascinated, and for the first time became fully aware of his own beauty. At this point, Dorian meets Basil's best friend, Lord Henry Wotton, an amoral aesthete who influences the young man with his cryptic speeches. In fact, he explained to Dorian the brevity and extreme value of youth: Lord Wotton said that youth is fundamental, because when one grows old, the beauty and tenderness of youth disappears, but pointed out that in reality youth is short. Dorian, listening to his speech, wished he could be young forever, like his portrait, in fact he was annoyed and sad that the painting would always retain its youth, while Dorian would become old and ugly in a short time. For this reason, Dorian decided to take Basil's painting home.
Dorian's life changed when he became one of Lord Wotton's closest friends. In fact, Dorian was extremely influenced by Wotton's devilish and corrupt speeches, as Wotton tried to convince him to live his best life.
When Dorian went to the theatre for the first time with his friend, he was fascinated by a brilliant young actress called Sybil Vane and fell in love with her. She also fell in love with Dorian and decided to give up acting and start a relationship with him. However, he cruelly rejected her, because he said she was only charming when she was on stage. Sybil was so unhappy that she decided to kill herself. Dorian felt her suicide like a knife in his heart, and he also noticed that his portrait changed expression, because now her face in the picture had a kind of cruel and devilish smile.
Always encouraged by Henry Wotton's mentality and corrupting influence, Dorian began to live a life of vices and bad behaviour. Dorian committed the crime, and his portrait bears the consequences of his corrupt soul. Time passed, but while Dorian retained his youth and beauty, his portrait became old and ugly.
When, after many years, he met his friend Basil again, Dorian showed him the ugly face on the portrait, but suddenly killed Basil, to keep the secret. After Basil's death, Dorian committed many more crimes, killed other people and frequented pubs with alcohol, drugs and prostitution.
In the end, when he went to see his picture, he finally realised the horror of his acts: his face was ugly, wrinkled, old, with a cruel smile, with evil eyes, and with some blood stains on his jacket to symbolise his crimes. So he destroyed the painting by stabbing the figure with a knife, but in doing so he killed himself, because Dorian's soul was inside the portrait. When he died, the painting was magically restored to its original appearance, while the real Dorian, already dead, took on the appearance of a disgusting old man.
A.K
Vb ling
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