Book Review The Picture of Dorian Gray Reviewed by Erika

The Picture of Dorian Gray, written by Oscar Wilde, indicates a message that ugliness inside would someday represent the outside.

            The story begins when Basil, an artist with excellent skills, was in his apartment room, painting a portrait of a beautiful young man named Dorian Gray. Dorian is a very handsome young man. He did not know his real beauty until he looked at his portrait. Henry, who knows Basil since their Oxford University days, mentions that appearance would change as people grow old. Growing old is a thing that everyone could not ignore. Although Basil promises he would adore Dorian forever, Dorian gets into panic from the fear that he would lose his beauty someday and never be loved again. Standing in front of the portrait, Dorian says his wish to be young forever like the portrait, and the portrait to be old instead. From that day, strange things happen to the portrait. Everytime Dorian does selfish, terrible things to people around him, the portrait’s face becomes creepier and creepier. Dorian remains perfectly beautiful on the outside, but selfish, mean, ugly on the inside. Dorian’s wish lasts forever in his life, but at the end, a very horrible ending awaits for him.

            This book has a main lesson for those who believe that appearance is more important than what people have inside. Of course appearance is important, but what really makes life is the heart that creates good relationships. Dorian himself is a perfectionist about beauty. Soon after Dorian makes his wish, Dorian falls in love with Sibyl, a beautiful new actress at a theater. Sibyl is a great actress but once she knew real romance with Dorian, her play gets awkward and terrible. Dorian is disillusioned and breaks up with her, which made her kill herself from shock. Wilde means that to love, is to understand and accept what he or she has inside. If Dorian had loved all of her, he would not have done such a thing. Dorian only loved and thought important of Sibyl’s acting, which is "appearance". Another lesson from this book is that effortless happiness can have horrible sides. Dorian wishes to be beautiful forever and the dream comes true easily. Since he got everything he wanted without efforts, he forgets the purpose of being beautiful. Being beautiful, to Dorian, was something that kept him being loved. If he wanted somebody to love him, he should have loved too. Because Dorian knew his beauty would last forever, he stopped having interest in others and he became being cruel to others, which he did not think it would make him isolated.

           　One point that I think should be improved in this story, is to increase the number of appearance of Henry and Basil. From the middle part of the story, Dorian was the main character all the  time. If the author had included Basil’s thoughts against Dorian’s heartless change, the story would have been more dramatic and nervous in a good meaning. Other points that I liked about this book is that the author is homosexual, which is rare. The relationship like the  three men, Dorian, Basil, and  Henry have, can not be seen often in other books. The Author is also a hedonist, which describes Dorian more selfish. The significance about the author expressing some personalities in his book by using fiction characters is that we are able to think deep of those specific characteristics without prejudice. Overall, I liked the story because the theme is something realistic that we do not say out loud but always are curious about.