"All art is quite useless."
The story begins with Basil Hallward, an artist painting a magnificent picture of his subject - a handsome young man named Dorian Gray. Dorian Gray starts as the essence of young innocence, with his path in life to find peace in his heart.
This innocence becomes corrupt when he realises that youth and beauty are an illusion, and that the finished picture will become a mockery of him when old age reaches his youthful complexion and wrinkles mark his unblemished face. He wishes that he would stay looking young, beautiful and innocent as he gets older, and that the picture would get older in his place.
He gets what he wishes for. Dorian has the appearence of an angel, yet his soul becomes as corrupt as the Devil - which is what the picture now represents. The purity of his soul becomes corrupted, which is reflected as the ageing and disfigurement of the picture. Dorian now has a visible reflection of his true self which tortures him to no end.
Dorian Gray, still on his path to find peace, tries anything to stay as he was when the picture was painted, ensuring that nothing can get in his way until this happens.
A book on moral corruption, Oscar Wilde no doubt took inspiration for this book from many aspects of his own life, and observations made of society at that time. One could even speculate that this is almost an autobiographical piece of writing.
To find out more about the life of Oscar Wilde, click on the link below:
http://http//www.cmgww.com/historic/wilde/index.php
Over 120 years after it was condemned as 'vulgar' and 'unclean', an uncensored version of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray is published by Harvard University Press - find out more here...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/apr/27/dorian-gray-oscar-wilde-uncensored
Here's the trailer to the 2009 film version starring Colin Firth...
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