Dorian Grey

Literature and film is often created not only for entertainment, but also to relay a moral message. The Picture of Dorian Gray is one such film. In this film, the main character Dorian Grey is painted by an aspiring London painter named Basil. After the portrait is commissioned, Dorian is influenced by Basil’s friend, Lord Henry, to make a wish to trade his soul for everlasting youth. His wish is unknowingly granted by a statue of a cat (also an Egyptian god), and as time goes on, he does not age. Starting with leaving the woman that loves him, Dorian starts down a long path of cruelty, vice, and sin. With every act the painting becomes older and distorted and hideous, a reflection of his soul. He hides the painting and becomes consumed by making sure that no one ever finds it. By the end of the movie, after committing at least two murders, he realizes the error of his ways and tries to destroy the portrait, and in doing so kills himself.
One can glean several messages from watching this film. The first thing that one can learn is that beauty is not just skin deep. Beauty also has to do with one’s personality and one’s actions; in essence, one’s soul. The portrait of Dorian showed the man beneath the skin, the man without his social mask. His portrait was ugly because of the terrible actions he committed and the way he treated other people. Had he stayed the same old Dorian, a man of good attitude as well as good countenance, then the portrait would have been the same handsome man it was at the time it was commissioned. One can also learn that it is unacceptable to trade the soul for anything, especially youth or beauty. It wasn’t until Dorian made such a trade and was lead to a life of hedonism by Lord Henry that his soul was corrupted. By trading his soul, Dorian opened the door for cruelty and vice, something he was not prone to by nature.
My favorite scene from the movie was when Dorian was getting into the coach after leaving Gladys, Basil’s niece. As he hesitates and contemplates what he has done and then speaks to the driver, the camera view shows his head through the circle of the coach driver’s whip. This foreshadows Dorian’s imminent death and links to the previous scene when the sailor had a rope tied into a small noose, leading the viewer to believe that Dorian would indeed be strangled, perhaps even by the “dead” sailor.