A lively dead man and his soulful potrait, leafing through the pages of The picture of Dorian Gray…
I knew little about Oscar Wilde, before I came across this book “The picture of Dorian Gray” and the profound philosophy reflecting in each word quoted by the author and the gothic imagery living inside the pages that almost brings shiver down your spine. It might be a book of literature, but it serves a higher order. It is not for reading, it is a material to be studied, a philosophy to be revised, the deeper meaning lying inside which is often overlooked by classic readers.
The critic although in that era named this as a poisoned book, but it is not so. The Victorian society, the character of “Lord Henry and his bad influence over Dorian, his thoughts which are conflicted, because they are far different from what people in real world believe, all these might have brought hate for this book. But I’m so in love with every chapter in Dorian’s life, every influence that made him lose people, he was lonely, no more in people’s good graces, but he achieved what we can never dream of.
The book may have a dark side, but my honest critique is the insanity that drives your spirit. Honestly, holding a knife doesn’t mean you have murdered someone. It is just that a person in action doesn’t always commit crime unknowingly, reading this with passion doesn’t define you as a fictional Dorian.
The plot is completely fictional, it happens that Dorian Gray a youthful personality almost extraordinarily beautiful person, also childlike innocent is affected by Lord Henry’s bad influence, the first time he meets him in the painter’s house (Basil). As their friendship turns out into everyday hangout and deep conversations, they effortlessly match each other’s company and mindset. Soon Dorian becomes passionate about living, also leading a youthful life and ending the curse of aging at cost of his soul, he almost looked like twenties in his late forties. When he loves sibyl vane the theatre actress, he actually becomes a reason for her suicide and death. Later, he moves on in life driven by books he used to read and they had grave impact on him.
When the truth behind his youthfulness and the marks of sin visible on potrait, which had left him untouched by time and despite his sins. In end he kills the painter, he tries to kill the potrait, but ends his own life by attacking his own soul which was present and living in the painting.
What touched me were two things, the way Sibyl Vane describes him her love, my favourite lines of that actress that hits raw, “I might mimic a passion I don’t feel, but I cannot mimic one that burns me like fire.” confesses that his love made her realise everything inside the room was false, it was setting her free, while Dorian loved her for being actress and her talent and beauty not as an ordinary girl, who wanted to run away from cage of theatre. How effortlessly Dorian moves on from everything, the second Sibyl dies she becomes another story in his life: that truth hits hard. And the wish of Dorian to die young, although he died so badly as he was in the picture later; old face with linings, that it would have been hard for anyone to guess it was the body of Mr. Dorian Gray. How he lead his life with pleasures, yet haunted by the sins which were dark shadows from whose trap he couldn’t set free even after his death. The contrast shown in every chapter, the cost of desire, the consequences of desire, and the desire for the desire, that just created a loop of emptiness and fake life.
And overall the thoughts of philosophy of author that lived in his mind, the kind of responses of Lord Henry, “the secret of remaining young is to never have an emotion that is unbecoming”; the language and dialogues of Sibyl and Dorian, every word felt heavy, conflicting allowing readers to understand far more the weight words carry, the meaning they create for someone and what one takes from you after hearing it. I would highly keep this as my all time favourite book, which I open and reread so often that I’m well versed with every statement in that book, and regardless of whether I feel heavy, light or happy, my hands always moves to leaf the pages and I’m taken aback in time that never existed, but the philosophy that fits perfect in both today and yesterday’s era. There are thousand reasons to not touch the book, but only one reason to repeat it, because you’ve already read it once.
