Why Dorian Destroyed the Painting? - Literary Essay Sample

In Oscar Wilde's text "The Picture of Dorian Gray," Dorian exhibits a wide spectrum of different personalities hence playing the role of a controversial character. Dorian's personality is, however, reflected differently across the various people he associates within the entire novel. The author suggests that "each man thinks he sees a complete individual" (Gillespie 403). Characters such as Basil Hallward perceives him as a god-like figure deserving more respect and a commendable character in the society. However, Dorian has a mixed personality, shifting from a good and adorable person to a completely evil person in society. Every contrasting view on Dorian offers multiple expectations he can't fulfill. As a result of the mixed assumption of trust among the character, Dorian tries all possibilities to hide his true personality. Eventually, His psychological wellness deteriorates, and he reacts by destroying the painting. The paper aims at investigating the reason why Dorian destroys the painting.

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Lord Henry, one of the most influential characters in Dorian's life, develops a plot on how he can become a manipulative subject. "Certainly Dorian Gray was a subject made to his hand and seemed to promise rich and fruitful results" (Wilde 72-73). Dorian finally falls into Lord Henry's trap, and his thoughts become manipulated into believing in pleasure pursuit as the most crucial aspect of life. Finally, Dorian becomes egocentric and loses empathy for other people, one of the major contributions to a drastic change in his behavior. Dorian later falls in love with Sibyl Vane, an actress who plays the role of motivating him to become a better person compared to Lord Henry's teachings. He finally says, "When I am with her, I regret all that you have taught me" (Wilde 65). Through the teachings from his lover, he wishes to change to a good person until Sybil wants to quit acting to be with him. Dorian hates Sybil when she finally quits acting actions, which make her commit suicide. Dorian's downfall is initiated by Sybil's death when he becomes obsessed with me being a bad person wanting to see the painted portrait rot.

Dorian reflects on his current life and experiences shame and regrets for all the bad things he has committed over the years and wishes to purge the evil deeds from his life. After committing all forms of cruelty, he finally breaks loose from his hedonistic frenzy. He begins to experience the impact of Lord Henry's misleading advice and his entry into evil doings. Therefore, the painting can be viewed as a representation of tangible sin Dorian has committed throughout his life. By destroying the portrait, Dorian believes he has deleted all the terrible acts doing after which he could continue with perfect life without sin.

Dorian decides to lock the painting away after realizing if it reflects all his cruelty deeds, which ought to be reflected throughout his body. His actions continued to worsen; hence the painting seemed to scare him, especially the features included in the painting. When the painting was found by the artists who realize all the rumors about Dorian could be true, He decides to kill him. Through the phrase "up until then he doubted it is saying if he were so cruel his face would reflect it" Dorian found the paint taunting. The painting reflected all the terrible things he had earlier done. He did not seem to know how the portrait worked or its fate had sought to get rid of it. By eliminating the painting, he believed he could eliminate his true nature as well as the ugly truth about his actions.

The effect of the painting and the people around him played a central role in making him an evil person. Dorian becomes haunted to doing evil deeds, mainly to observe the portrait rot. The author argues that Dorian developed a sense of individualism pride, often smiling and haunted by sin, which obscured the personal burden he should have carried himself (Wilde 117-118). Only when doing bad things, Dorian was able to get pleasure and satisfaction. Dorian can be described as a character who can be good and appealing to others. However, he is overcome by negligence hence unable to maintain his personality. At the early stages, Dorian is portrayed as a good person dedicated to becoming a philanthropist, but finally, he changes to be the evilest man.

Dorian is overwhelmed by negligence, as observed throughout the text. His main focus was on what he wanted as opposed to the impact it may have on his behavior. Dorian does not want to be responsible for his actions by delegating his moral choices and their impact on other people. When he finally realizes his mistakes, he considers destroying the painting to establish a new way of life. The painting recorded Dorian's shameless action. He feels offended by the portrait, which makes him destroy it to preserve his image and other people's perception. He does not want all his respect as portrayed by other characters to be ruined by evil actions he has committed throughout his life.

Work Cited

Wilde, Oscar. The picture of dorian gray. OUP Oxford, 2006.