While some books are fun to read, others may create unrest in the minds of readers. A very few of them have the peculiar ability to look back at readers. Oscar Wilde’s novel, The Picture of Dorian Grey, is one such exceptional book in this respect. Under its beautiful description of art and luxury, this novel raises an important question: what would happen to a human being if he/she were free from the consequences of his/her acts?
The only novel of Wilde was published for the first time in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine on the 20th of June of 1890. The initial version comprised 13 chapters, and its publication incited many heated debates. Editor J. M. Stoddart took away some 500 words from the text before publishing it and did not inform Wilde about it, especially those parts that might be considered offensive.
The story is very simple but at the same time very imaginative and creative. A man named Dorian Grey has strikingly good looks and is painted by an artist named Basil Hallward. The young man is influenced by an immoral and cunning man named Lord Henry Wotton; Dorian Grey begins to appreciate life, beauty, and art more and more. Dorian Grey has even made a wish that he would not grow old while the painting ages and reflects all of his sins.
The wish comes true.
This is an intriguing story but not merely a horror story about witchcraft and retribution. The painting, in fact, illustrates the moral decline of the man, while he remains young and beautiful. His beauty deceives everyone around him, but his act of cruelty, selfishness, and corruption is documented in the painting.
It is evident from Wiley’s genius that the analysis he presented is one of the finest. The painting serves as a masterpiece, a conscience, a mirror and a courtroom. Throughout his life, Dorian tries to separate appearance from reality, while Wilde illustrates how the separation is impossible.
Nevertheless, the book doesn’t just serve as a warning about the consequences of having fun in one’s life. In addition to that, Wilde talks about the idea that dangerous ideas can have power. Henry’s brilliant paradoxes seem to make him free, while Dorian uses them as an excuse for harming people. At the same time, Basil represents another attitude toward beauty that shows the importance of creative activity in the perception of it.
There is a fascinating history behind the novel as well. After the scandalous reaction to the publication in 1890, Wilde made significant revisions to The Picture of Dorian Grey. Ward, Lock & Co. published a new edition of the book in April 1891. It contained 20 chapters instead of 13 chapters in the previous version and had additional six new chapters. In addition, in the new version, Wilde added the preface to The Picture of Dorian Grey, which contained several quotations defending the artistic point of view. The Preface had been published separately in the magazine called The Fortnightly Review earlier on 1 March 1891 before it was included in the book.
The novel results in something very modern. Even though now the emphasis is on public images and identities, the character’s situation seems prophetic. Social media have become a replacement for Victorian drawing rooms, but the desire to present oneself perfectly while hiding the truth remains.
The Picture of Dorian Grey is, in the end, a book about the cost-of-living life with no consequences at all. What makes it so frightening, however, is not the fact that a picture morphs over time. It is that Dorian becomes someone who loses the desire to see the image in the painting.
That is the outstanding secret of Oscar Wilde. The painting’s monster may be Dorian, but the question of what we hide from ourselves is universal.
