The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde is a beautifully composed piece of literature. The story begins with Basil painting the beautiful and wealthy Dorian Gray. Basil discovered Dorian and immediately sunk into a deep trance, automatically knowing that he must depict this mysterious boy. He portrayed Dorian many times, but one time he became disgusted with his work of art because he thought that he had put too much of himself into. This revealed his life, which is not what he wanted the painting to evoke. Despite his negative attitude towards his piece, Lord Henry thought that it was a mastery work of art. He demanded that it be his, but Basil denied him as he thought the painting belonged strictly to Dorian. Once Dorian met Lord Henry he began to worry constantly that every second of the day he was getting older and could never return to that former youth. This attitude, implanted by Lord Henry, grew and he began to hate being painted because it would only remind him of what he was losing.
Later Dorian proposed to an actress named Sibyl, but later broke it off because she was going to quit acting, and that is what he fell in love with her for. If she no longer played all of those roles, then there was nothing left that interested him. Sibyl in distress over the break up, commits suicide. Lord Henry convinces Dorian that her death is art because it is a beautiful tragedy and that he should constantly remind himself of this to help him through this difficult situation. As time goes on Dorian starts to live a life of sin and corruption and with that the picture of himself that he has in his room starts to get uglier and uglier. But if he is strictly naturally beautiful, then why is his portrait getting more unattractive? This is because something cannot be beautiful unless it is good.
Beauty, especially that of a person, is symmetrical and superficial at first, but once you get to know the ins and outs of that particular being, they become either more or less beautiful. This is because if something, anything, is bad or corrupt it cannot be beautiful. Once a person starts heading to that evil side, the more monstrous they become and they can only reach beauty again by changing paths to the virtuous side. This is why tragedy was not beautiful to Plato. Something that arouses unpleasant emotion and was based on sin and pollution could not truly hold beautiful.
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