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The Picture of Dorian Gray - Plot summary (02_plot_summary.doc)

The Picture of Dorian Gray - Plot summary

Dorian Gray was the orphaned grandson of Lord Kelso. His mother, Margaret Deveraux, a great society beauty, died in childbirth shortly after Dorian's father was killed in a duel. It was said that Lord Kelso paid a Belgian duelist to cause the fight.

The novel begins with Dorian as a young man. Kelso is dead, and Dorian has inherited much of the Deveraux fortune. He is now the protege of Lady Agatha, Lord Henry Wotton's aunt, and together they entertain and raise money for the Whitechapel poor.

Until Dorian finally meets Lord Henry he is naive of his own good looks and personality. His innocence is unspoiled and his knowledge of the world resembles that of a child. To his friend, the artist Basil Hallward, Dorian is simply a motive in art, a privately worshipped icon in the painter's idealistic world. Dorian is described as "…wonderfully handsome, with his finely-curved scarlet lips, his frank blue eyes and his crisp gold hair. . . . All the candour of youth was there, as well as all of youth's passionate purity.”

One afternoon, while sitting for a portrait in Basil's studio, Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton. Wotton's low musical voice enchants the lad as he stands upon a dais in the afternoon sunlight. Dorian is convinced by him that his looks are in fact his most important virtue.

The constant flick and dash of the artist's brush melt away, as Lord Henry's doctrine of self-development wakens Dorian to mad hungers. "The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it . . ." murmurs Lord Henry. "Resist it and the soul grows sick with longing."

Dorian is transfixed by this philosophy. Flooded with feelings he cannot comprehend, he leaves the studio and goes out into the garden. Lord Henry joins him and under the shade of a laurel tree the boy listens to a second panegyric on youth: "The Laburnum will be as yellow next June as it is now. . . . But we never get back our youth. Our limbs fail, our senses rot. . . . Youth, youth, there is absolutely nothing in the world but youth."

When they return to the studio, Dorian is shown his finished portrait. On seeing it, the sense of his own beauty falls on him like a revelation. The full reality of Lord Henry's warning of the brevity of youth and life's aim of unbridled hedonism, cuts through Dorian's boyhood innocence. In a flash he cries:

I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June. . . . If it were only the other way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that - for that - I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!

In the heat of the moment Hallward, astonished at Dorian's impassioned plea, attempts to destroy the canvas. But before the steel palette knife can do its work Dorian shouts, "No Basil, no . . . it would be murder!"

Under the guidance of Lord Henry, Dorian becomes increasingly self-absorbed and heartless. Yet he discovers and falls in love with Sibyl Vane, a pretty actress. On the night of his introducing Basil and Lord Henry to her, the actress plays poorly; she is no longer able to act out the false love of Shakespeare's heroines whilst filled with a true love for Dorian. Disappointed and bitterly embarrassed for his friends, Dorian ends their relationship.

When the lad returns home at dawn, he notices a subtle change in the painting; there is a touch of cruelty in the mouth. As he looks curiously upon his image, he is unaware that that same night, with her engagement in ruins, Sibyl has committed suicide.

With the passage of time, the portrait ages and spoils. The hair thins, the cheeks grow sallow. It is clear the image is aging instead of Dorian. Incredibly, the portrait also bears burden of his shame.

Under Lord Henry's influence, Dorian continues to live a hedonistic lifestyle, with strong hints of homosexual behaviour. The face of his portrait grows uglier with each moral transgression. Basil comes to warn Dorian of the scandalous rumours that are sweeping London about him. Wholly indifferent, Dorian smiles to himself, and decides to show Basil the painted "diary of his life". Hallward is perplexed as Dorian explains to him that not only God can see one's soul, "for tonight, with your own eyes, you will see my soul."

Together they go up to the old nursery at the top of the house, and as the purple pall is torn from Hallward's painting, the artist falls to his knees and begs Dorian to pray for forgiveness. The loathsome image is sickening. Every vile act, every hideous sign of age oozes from the canvas. Dorian picks up a discarded knife and in a fit of rage, murders his old friend. Blood immediately appears on the picture, staining the bloated hands of its subject. Turning from the scene, pressing his forehead to the cool glass of the window, with Hallward's blood still dripping on the carpet, Dorian determines to hide forever this monstrous mirror.

Towards the end of the novel, Dorian realizes he was wrong to have followed Lord Henry's doctrines. He decides to change, to make amends and to rise above his mentor's cynical epigrams that cut the beauty of life to pieces. But his attempts at reform are shallow and superficial – and in turn the painting gains a cunning and hypocritical look.

At last Dorian plans to rid himself of his terrible sins by destroying the portrait. Realising that only a full confession will absolve him, yet fearing the consequences, he decides to kill the last vestige of his conscience – for it is conscience that has brought him to where he stands now. He stabs the canvas. The servants hear a terrible scream and rush to the nursery, but:

When they entered, they found hanging upon the wall a splendid portrait of their master as they had last seen him, in all the wonder of his exquisite youth and beauty. Lying on the floor was a dead man, in evening dress, with a knife in his heart. He was withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage. It was not till they had examined the rings that they recognized who it was.