The Truth to Dorian’s Beauty

             Truth and beauty must go hand in hand in order for them to exist in harmony. Without one another they often lack attention however when they collide, as seen in Dorian Gray, they often produce chaos of some type. The Picture of Dorian Gray explores the ideas of truth and beauty. It also explores their connection. Dorian is the envy of the town due to his good looks but as he becomes ugly in spirit he becomes his own worst enemy. Eventually the town’s folk also turn on him. 

                Lord Henry thinks of love in the form of lust and does not see that through the beauty of lust truth cannot exist and relationships cannot be sustained. Lord Henry in The Picture of Dorian Gray exclaims that, “She is beautiful,” and then asks, “What more can you want?”(Wilde 69). He asks this due to Dorian’s sudden loss of love for Sibyl after she has performed extremely poorly, showing that their relationship was not completely composed of truth and Dorian therefore did not truly love Sibyl from the start of their relationship. Beauty was the only tie that held them together, but because of the beauty the relationship could not last. Although Dorian quickly moved on, Sibyl had built their relationship on truth. While Dorian knew all about her, she knows nothing of the true Dorian. These opposing forces lead to Sybil committing suicide. 

                Throughout The Picture of Dorian Gray the ideas shown about life change. At first Dorian is naive and the book shows this through the extreme amount of conversation over action. As time moves on Dorian gathers worldly knowledge and the story begins to move at a faster pace. There is more action as well as jumping years in Dorian’s life. This seems to imitate the movement of one through life as one acquires more knowledge and freedom with age. With more knowledge one has the ability to have a faster pace life. As life starts with little worldly influence beauty is prominent and as naivety persists beauty is clear. As naive thoughts fade they give way to the ugly truth of the world. Dorian Gray is first shown to be naive and beautiful but once the truth cannot be held back he dies in truth and ugliness. The style seems to imitate the world as one sees life differently at different stages so too does Dorian and as life as we perceive it shifts pace so does the percentage of action to conversation throughout The Picture of Dorian Gray.