The Picture of Dorian Gray

Dorian Gray is a handsome, intriguing young man. At the age of around 22 he decides to hire Basil Hallward to paint a portrait of him done with a small statue of a cat that is supposedly an Egyptian god. Basil Hallward is fascinated by this young man and doesn’t feel himself as he paints the portrait. His friend, Lord Henry Watton is also captivated by what he says about Dorian Gray and insists on meeting him. Hallward, for some reason, opposes to that idea, but Watton luckily gets his way. As Gray is getting his portrait finished, Watton blabs on about youth and old age, not realizing the impression he is making on the young Dorian Gray. Dorian Gray takes his words to heart and decides to take advantage of his youth as much as possible and have no regrets. He makes the wish that his portrait would get older and he would keep his youthful look forever. Gray is so swayed by Watton that he’s even bold enough and willing to give up his soul in order to maintain his youth. Unfortunately, his wish is granted by the Egyptian god statue of the cat, although he doesn’t realize it yet. Gray’s demeanor changes as he is convinced that beauty and pleasure are of the utmost importance. He starts going to bars trying to live up his youth as Watton says. He meets a beautiful woman and falls in love with her. Watton convinces him to make her feel guilty for not staying at his place late. Slowly, Gray becomes more heartless. He asks her to marry him, but a week later tells her to not contact him ever again. She is heartbroken and commits suicide. Before Gray learns of this he looks at his portrait and sees that it has aged. There are stress marks on the face that were never there before. He doesn’t believe it until he checks it again the next day. He realizes that his wish may have come true and that his soul is being displayed in the portrait through a now visible sneer. He decides to make things right with his love to undo the destroying of his soul, but then Watton comes in telling him the grave news. Gray feels no remorse for her death. He spends most of his time traveling to dark places and taking part in wicked things, but always ends up back at home because he is afraid someone will sneak in and see his portrait. Everyone notices that he doesn’t age and they start to spread rumors about him. The only one whose love still remains for him is Hallward’s niece Gladys. He transforms into a detached, dispassionate, troubled young by looks, old man. Nothing affects him and he doesn’t feel regret or guilt for the things he has done, as Watton told him to do. As he destroys his soul it becomes more visible on his portrait, but never on his face, but this doesn’t bother him because he knows that no matter what he does he will always be beautiful.
In one of the next and best scenes, Hallward comes to visit Gray. This is between the middle and the end. Hallward asks to see the portrait so Gray decides to take him up to see it. As they walk up the stairs the Egyptian cat statue is at the bottom of the stairs on the table facing them. It is almost as if the cat is watching. They enter the room where the portrait is covered in a sheet. What is interesting is that the portrait is placed in Gray’s childhood room, which is ironic because the very picture that was supposed to capture his youth is only showing his age and experiences and damage of his soul. Everything in the room is full of childhood innocence, while the portrait is the most grotesque and disturbing thing possible. It just doesn’t fit in the room. When Gray reveals the portrait to Hallward, the scene changes from black and white to color, so that every detail of every sin is shown more clearly in the picture. Hallward is appalled, yet he can still recognize the painting he made for Gray. Gray suddenly feels hatred towards Hallward, for it is him who put this curse of the portrait on him, and following Watton’s hedonistic advice, he decides to fulfill his desire for revenge and stabs Hallward to death. When he looks back at the portrait, blood forms on the hands, representing Gray’s most recent sin. He hits the light on the ceiling on accident and it swings back and forth, revealing and unrevealing the dead body with Gray standing over him. In a way this explains Gray’s life. His soul and actions are hidden by his youthful, good looks, but whenever he goes back to the portrait he is always reminded of who he really is. This is my favorite scene, because it really captures the depth and meaning of the story.
After Hallward’s death, Gray blackmails an old friend to get rid of the evidence. He then goes off to one of his dark places again, and there is his old love’s brother. He recognizes him by what the others call him and runs after him to kill him, but Gray explains that he can’t possibly have been involved with his sister or he would not look the age he is now. The brother believes him and lets him go. A woman and man explain to the brother that Gray has not aged for twenty years, and desperate to get revenge the brother follows Gray back home. Unfortunately, the brother dies by an accident, and Gray, afraid that this will also be on his portrait, decides to change his immoral ways. Gray had fallen in love with Hallward’s neice, but he told her it would be a sin to marry her. He felt that it would only make him more wicked. He went to check the painting to see if his changed ways had reverted the portrait at least a bit backwards, but when he looked at it he saw it had only gotten worse. He decided the only thing he could do was destroy it, so he pulled out the knife he used to stab Hallward and stabbed the painting in his heart. Instead of the painting becoming destroyed, Gray found that his own chest hurt and he fell on the ground dead. The painting slowly returned to the painting it was twenty years ago, and when everyone saw Gray’s corpse, it was unrecognizable and monstrous.
The movie was a story of a man who only believed in the pleasures of life. As you saw, it only brought him misfortune. Life is not about being beautiful, materialistic, and only having fun. There is much more meaning than that. There are morals that people have to follow, or guilt and hatred will overpower their souls, making them evil. People can run and hide from their wrong-doings, as Dorian Gray did through his portrait, but it will always come back to haunt you, as Gray’s portrait also did. Fulfilling your own desires is selfish, if the feelings of others are not taken into consideration. Life is not about being beautiful on the outside; it is about being beautiful on the inside.