“The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde
Dorian Gray is a handsome man. So much so that after having himself painted for a portrait, he becomes obsessed with his own beauty that he makes a Faustian bargain with the devil to trade his soul in exchange for eternal youth and beauty.
First published in 1890 during the Victorian era, this novel shows the zeitgeist of the time where public face and respectability was in the highest order, while behind closed doors anything goes. Similarly, Dorian is obsessed with maintaining his youthful beauty and remaining a gentleman in public appearance, while indulging in a life of hedonism and sin behind closed doors. It is a perfect representation of the 19th century society in England.
But his portrait tells another story. While he retains his public face, his picture begins to age and shows the true state of his soul. And the more sins he committed, the more the picture becomes growingly distorted which reflects the rottenness of his soul.
Dorian’s obsession with beauty and sinful pleasures eventually led him down to a road of destruction, causing harm to his surroundings. And Dorian’s guilt and paranoia finally get to him when he realizes that he’s been living in a hell.
And then in a fit of rage, he stabs the portrait (the symbol of his true soul), which the portrait then reverts to its original form to show a beautiful young man that he once was, while Dorian himself instantly died, turning old and ugly, with a knife through his chest.
It is such an intriguing novel with powerful messages that addresses the themes of vanity and narcissism; sinful desire and hedonism; the tension between outward appearance and inner soul; and the relationship between beauty, morality, and art.
But perhaps most significantly it tells a story about the problems of living life with not a single consequence for your actions, and living life with a two face. A subtle way for Oscar Wilde to criticize the Victorian way of living.
THE CHAOS THEORY 