It is very strange that a portrait
should be the conscience-keeper of a person. Anything wrong that person
committed it showed on the portrait, but not on the person. He remained
unblemished for his portrait took the beatings of not only his sinful actions
but also the ravages of age on his face and body. Wouldn’t that be nice? That
you are not touched by the anger and jealousy and murderous thoughts and also
debauchery that one can indulge in and still it leaves no traces on your face! The
lines of sneer and scorn of the heart and wrinkles of age did not leave a mark
on the face!
I have heard about King Yayati in
Hindu Mythology who cursed with premature old age, wanting to enjoy youthful
days for some more years, asked his sons to transfer their youthfulness to him,
and one of the sons, Puru obliges him. After having enjoyed the passions of the
senses for a long time, he finally realizes the futility of all these and
transfers the youthfulness back to his son, makes him the rightful heir and
retires to the forest to become an ascetic. Dorian Grey seems to have exchanged
this youthfulness with his portrait and indulged in the passions of his flesh,
but only to come to a tragic end.
That is the amazing story of Dorian
Grey written by Oscar Wilde,[1]
the famous 19th century English writer. His only novel, this was
published in 1890 and took the Victorian society by a storm. He exposed the
middle class morality and the hypocrisy of the aristocratic upper class in his
writings. For all the protest it created, Oscar wrote in his preface that
“There is no such thing as moral or immoral book. Books are well written, or
badly written. That is all.” The book cold be said to reflect much of his own
life.
Born in an aristocratic family,
studied at Dublin and Oxford, he was a leading figure in London. At Oxford he
became a close friend of Frank Miles a painter, and the homosexual Lord Ronald
Gower, both of whom are represented in Dorian Grey. He got involved with Lord
Alfred Douglas and was tried on charges of homosexuality and was sentenced to
two years of prison and hard labor for the crime of sodomy. He died in 1900 in
a cheap hotel in Paris, penniless, at the early age of 46. On his death bed he
seemed to have converted and become a Roman Catholic.
Dorian Grey lost his parents when
very young and was raised by his grandfather, mother’s father. Grandfather
never liked him much, because his daughter, Dorian’s mother, had run away with
a commoner and married him against his wishes. After the death of his
grandfather Dorian inherits his estate and the luxury surrounding it. The story
opens with the painter Basil Hallward, painting Dorian, appreciating his
beautiful visage. Dorian was not even conscious of his beauty, but the painter
seizes it on the canvas. He meets Lord Henry at one of these painting sessions,
who talks about the fatality of the physical beauty which will surely pass away
as age caught up with him.
The painter adores and worships
Dorian’s good looks, the unblemished youthfulness and innocence that were in
his face. But Dorian takes a liking to Sir Henry and gets drawn to him like a
moth to the flame, though Basil fears Henry will be a bad influence on Dorian.
Henry’s philosophy in life was simple: “The only way to get rid of a temptation
is to yield to it.” He further states that all the great sins in the world take
shape in the mind alone, which we fear because of the false morality that is
around us in the society. He would encourage a libertine view point of life, to
enjoy life to the maximum, “to cure the soul by means of the senses.” These
ideas trouble the innocent mind of Dorian and drag him away eventually to the
path of evil.
As the picture was completed, Dorian
gazes his own beauty with pleasure but was afraid that soon he would lose this
youth and beauty but the portrait will always remain young. He wishes, if he
could always be young and the picture can grow old. He says if this could
happen at all, he could give his soul for such an arrangement. Looked like his
wishes were granted!
Seizing the words of Lord Henry as
that of the Bible, Dorian starts his life on the slippery path of enjoying his
senses to the maximum. He goes to a cheap theatre only to fall in love with the
young, beautiful and excellent leading actress, Sibyl, there. He promises her
marriage without even disclosing his name or status, but one day when she was
not up to the mark in acting he loses interest and breaks his engagement with
her. Her brother going away as a sailor had warned her about such rich men for
whom girls like her are playthings. But heartbroken as she was she commits
suicide. Dorian on learning it was not all that heart-broken, but saw a slight
change in the portrait. There were lines of cruelty around the mouth and it had
a cruel smile, but his own face remained as ever without a change. It suddenly
dawned on him that what he wished had come true - that the portrait grew old
while he himself remained young.
This revelation pushed him further
into immoral life. He almost led a double life, one shadowy and deceptive,
another respectable and admirable. He was absent for long periods when he would
indulge his passions in places of doubtful integrity before reappearing to the
society as if nothing had happened. He left a trail of suicides and
disappearances where ever he went and with whomever he was close and friendly.
This led to rumors and gossips, but one look at his handsome face and
aristocratic demeanor no one would believe that he could have done such
horrible things.
After some time, his karma seemed to
have caught up with him. In a dingy hovel where he had befriended a low class
woman and indulged in drugs and sex, the sailor brother of Sibyl, his first
love, seemed to have identified him and tried to kill him. Dorian was shattered.
Though he escaped he was terrified. The painter friend Basil visits him and
confronts him about the rumors he had heard about him. Dorian blames the
painter for having painted that portrait of him and given him this soul-wish.
He takes him to his secret room where he had kept the portrait and shows it to
him. Basil was shocked to see how the painting had been ravaged; it had the
eyes of a devil. It was the face of soul of Dorian.
Basil wept and asked Dorian to kneel down and beg for God’s forgiveness. But Dorian in a fit of anger and hatred plunges the knife into Basil and kills him, as if it was all somehow his fault. He destroys the body and all evidences. The portrait has blood dripping from its hands now. The face of his avenger, the sailor haunted him. But by an accident even he dies, leaving Dorian absolutely free, with no evidence of his past horrible life, except the portrait itself. It showed every sin he committed and every crime he indulged in. It was the only witness and the only evidence to his past life. He decided to destroy the portrait itself so that he can rid of all traces of evidences to his past.
He stabbed the picture with the same
knife he had stabbed its painter. The knife strike fell on Dorian and he fell down
dead with a hideous cry of pain. When the servants crept to the room the next
morning they saw a withered, wrinkled old man with a loathsome face lying dead
with a knife to his heart. Nearby was the portrait of Dorian restored to its
exquisite youth and beauty. Only from the ring he was wearing the servants were
able to identify the dead man as their master, Dorian Grey.
What a story! In youthful innocence
one gets lured into sinful path through unholy friendships and alliances. It
led to his downfall. An unmarred visage gave impetus to an unruly existence
which was not notices by others in the society. But finally he had to pay for
his crimes and conscience has its own way of bedeviling a person who had
committed a crime. It is difficult to wash off the bloodstains from a murderous
hand. He could have repented, sought forgiveness of God, made a clean breast of
all the sins he had committed and turned on a new leaf in his life. Christ
could have saved his soul. But he was too self-centered and proud to do that. He
was busy destroying all evidences of his past horrid life, and in the process
he killed himself; much like Judas Iscariot killing himself after betraying
Jesus.
A terrible lesson to the youth, not to
be led by unsavory characters, and not to sell their souls for beauty or money
or power or position; good character and moral life are any day preferable for these
will give us a clear conscience and favor with our holy God and His Son who gave
his life for us. Much like the portrait in this story, Jesus took the effects of
the sins of the world on his body and died in our place so that we can go free.
Dorian could have appropriated this provision of God for restoring his life. He
missed it. Let it be a lesson to us, not to miss it, but to live by it.
