The Picture of Dorian Gray

          The discussion in class was very interesting. In The Picture of Dorian Gray, there are many themes such as good vs. evil, youth, appearances, art and culture, etc. In class, we discussed the question: Is Dorian Gray an evil person or was he influenced into performing bad acts and therefore King Henry is the evil person? In my opinion, I believe that Dorian Gray is evil because he performed cruel acts and he knew what his motives were for those acts. The question that can arise from this is how do we know that Dorian Gray was conscious when he performed these cruel acts? In response to this question, I know that he was conscious of what he was doing because after he yelled at Sybil, he was wanted to apologize to her because he knew what he did was wrong.

          When I read the first couple of chapters in the book, I thought that Basil was in love with Dorian. I thought that the plot was going to be about his love for another man. My predictions changed once Dorian revealed that he loved an actress—Sybil. One of the major themes in the book is first impressions and appearance. Basil fell in love with how Dorian looks rather than his personality. The same thing can be said about Dorian and his love for Sybil. He fell in love with Sybil’s beauty and acting. When I was reading these parts of the book, I was relating it to the phrase “inner beauty is better than outer beauty.” In my opinion, the best relationships that last long are the ones that are focused on feelings and the inner self rather than if a guy or a girl is “hot or cute.” This can be said about the relationship of Dorian and Sybil. Dorian fell in love with Sybil’s talent and Sybil fell in love with Dorian’s appearance which she stereotyped as him being wealthy. The thing that shocked me the most was when I found out that Dorian and Sybil were engaged. I told myself…”WTF, they haven’t even talked and now they are getting married.” I believe that their relationship would have never worked out because their motives for getting married are bad motives.  

            All in all, I believe that Dorian is to blame for his actions because he knew what he was doing. He is a narcissistic person and this leads to his death. I believe that he turned crazy and was obsessed with his appearance. A great example of this is when people are obsessed with becoming skinny they ultimately develop an eating disorder which leads to death. The same thing can be seen in Dorian’s obsession with his appearance. He was so focused on looking young that it led to death. Overall, the book was interesting!