The Picture Of Dorian Gray Character Analysis Essay

Known to assume a myriad of guises—a platonic friend, a sensual mistress, a loving spouse, an idealized deity—an artist's muse, in the traditional sense, possesses bewitching inherent characteristics that embolden ordinary men to craft profound masterpieces. Deliberately shrouded in melodrama and mystique, a muse's traits are often idealized with their circumstantial virtues hyperbolized by their artist, while conversely, their critical character flaws are neglected or even omitted (Craft). Dorian Gray, the titular protagonist of Oscar Wilde’s novella The Picture of Dorian Gray, exemplifies all aspects of the muse archetype with his stunning looks and grace that inspired his friend the Artist Basil Hallward to capture Dorian’s picturesque figure in art. Although Basil originally intended for his exquisite portrait to preserve Dorian’s beauty, it ironically evolves to represent Dorian’s guilt, regrets, and corruption that result from his excessively hedonistic lifestyle. Through Basil and Dorian’s intimate interactions,
Initially, Wilde describes Dorian as one who “had kept himself unspotted from the world” (18). This epithet functions as a control to drastically juxtapose and emphasize his dramatic transformation to a man of very little morality. At this point, Dorian’s unique disposition can be described as “one of tabula rasa or a blank slate” that awaits “colorful brushstrokes . . . [to] forever tarnish its originally pure image” (Seagroatt). The inciting moment of discovering Basil’s painting is equivalent to the first blemish on innocent Dorian’s canvas as he reaches the epiphany that he will eventually “grow old, and horrible, and dreadful” while his painting would “remain always young” (Wilde 28). Indeed, it is here that Dorian’s insecurity takes command of his conduct, spurring the commencement of his self-destructive quest to obtain all things