…Dorian Grey and his diabolical bargain that Oscar Wilde wrote in 1890. Instead of growing old, he keeps a portrait of himself which does his ageing for him, as well as showing off all the marks of his increasing depravity.
The final stage of his downward slide comes when he slaughters the portrait painter. That was more than an ironic and generic trope for Wilde to hang his hat on, but Wilde was actually probing deeper into the minor vanities, the “mini sins” of the entire youth industry, the push of the secular humanism he so espoused towards an ideology of aesthetics over substance,and on a lesser level the sacrifices people would make to sell some or all of their soul to the Devil, the Faustian bargain for insubstantial trifle. Who knows, if Wilde was a little less conservative, a little less intent on reaching for Poe,he could have tried something a little racier like Dorian Gray meets Dorothy Gray. Truly macabre. Villainy has been celebrated in the arts since the Bible first recorded the exploits of Adam. Satan seems to have all the best lines…
—The Picture Of Dorian Gray (1945)
The original interpretation of Oscar Wilde’s only novel, 1945’s The Picture Of Dorian Gray was critically praised on its release, even if its dark and provocative tone was too much for many. Making a star of the newcomer Hurd Hatfield as the eponymous protagonist, the film hurt his career even as it helped it. “The film didn’t make me popular in Hollywood,” he commented later. “It was too odd, too avant-garde, too ahead of its time. The decadence, the hints of bisexuality and so on, made me a leper!—click image for source…
…He went in quietly, locking the door behind him, as was his custom, and dragged the purple hanging from the portrait. A cry of pain and indignation broke from him. He could see no change, save that in the eyes there was a look of cunning and in the mouth the curved wrinkle of the hypocrite. The thing was still loathsome–more loathsome, if possible, than before–and the scarlet dew that spotted the hand seemed brighter, and more like blood newly spilled. Then he trembled. Had it been merely vanity that had made him do his one good deed? Or the desire for a new sensation, as Lord Henry had hinted, with his mocking laugh? Or that passion to act a part that sometimes makes us do things finer than we are ourselves? Or, perhaps, all these? And why was the red stain larger than it had been? It seemed to have crept like a horrible disease over the wrinkled fingers. There was blood on the painted feet, as though the thing had dripped–blood even on the hand that had not held the knife. Confess? Did it mean that he was to confess? To give himself up and be put to death? He laughed. He felt that the idea was monstrous. Besides, even if he did confess, who would believe him? There was no trace of the murdered man anywhere. Everything belonging to him had been destroyed. He himself had burned what had been below-stairs. The world would simply say that he was mad. They would shut him up if he persisted in his story…. Yet it was his duty to confess, to suffer public shame, and to make public atonement. There was a God who called upon men to tell their sins to earth as well as to heaven. Nothing that he could do would cleanse him till he had told his own sin. His sin? He shrugged his shoulders. The death of Basil Hallward seemed very little to him. He was thinking of Hetty Merton. For it was an unjust mirror, this mirror of his soul that he was looking at. Vanity? Curiosity? Hypocrisy? Had there been nothing more in his renunciation than that? There had been something more. At least he thought so. But who could tell?… No. There had been nothing more. Through vanity he had spared her. In hypocrisy he had worn the mask of goodness. For curiosity’s sake he had tried the denial of self. He recognized that now.
But this murder–was it to dog him all his life? Was he always to be burdened by his past? Was he really to confess? Never. There was only one bit of evidence left against him. The picture itself– that was evidence. He would destroy it. Why had he kept it so long? Once it had given him pleasure to watch it changing and growing old. Of late he had felt no such pleasure. It had kept him awake at night. When he had been away, he had been filled with terror lest other eyes should look upon it. It had brought melancholy across his passions. Its mere memory had marred many moments of joy. It had been like conscience to him. Yes, it had been conscience. He would destroy it.
He looked round and saw the knife that had stabbed Basil Hallward. He had cleaned it many times, till there was no stain left upon it. It was bright, and glistened. As it had killed the painter, so it would kill the painter’s work, and all that that meant. It would kill the past, and when that was dead, he would be free. It would kill this monstrous soul-life, and without its hideous warnings, he would be at peace. He seized the thing, and stabbed the picture with it….( Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1890)
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