It was known that in the Victorian period anyone caught having an affair with the same sex would immediately be tried and exiled. Most unfortunately, the young men acquainted with Mr. Dorian. They have all either mysteriously disappeared or committed suicide for fear of being shunned. Dorian would entertain “the fashionable young men of his own rank who were his chief companions,” (196) and would invite them, to stay for weekends at a time, up at his house in the country. Soon it was discovered by Basil Hallward that most of the men Dorian came into contact with would always disappear. Basil would so often ask “why is it that so many gentlemen in London will neither go to your house nor invite to theirs?” (208) It is obvious that because Dorian has earned the reputation of a dangerous and seductive man. It is because he has “filled them with a madness for pleasure,” and has led them “down into depths” which they have not been able to recover from. Dorian has destroyed the lives of many including the lives of Adrian Singleton and Alan Campbell. Adrian Singleton who used to be a prominent young lord now resides in the opium houses down by the Docks. The opium houses are where he spends his time living in a synthetic reality to escape the pressures of society. Alan Campbell who was also a very prospective chemist and physician kills himself in an effort to avert the Dorian’s clutches. It is obvious that both these and other men were lured to “that indefinable attraction that Dorian seemed to be able to exercise whenever he wished, and indeed exercised often without being conscious of it.” (230) Dorian’s decent into homosexuality has truly debauched his soul and destroyed the souls of others.
Oscar Wilde’s, The Picture of Dorian Gray, clearly deals with the theme of corruption. It is in this novel that a man by the name of Dorian Gray is slowly and completely debauched by the end of the novel. His soul is transformed from innocence to pure evil. The vile crimes and acts which make this transformation possible are mainly to be blamed on the portrait that changes as his soul changes, his companion, Lord Henry Wotton, and Dorian’s slow decent into homosexuality. It is evident by the conclusion of the novel that Dorian has become a dissolute and perverse man who cannot understand that vanity and the thrill of “new sensations” are not what run the world.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cohen, Ed. Talk on the Wilde Side. Great Britain: Routledge, 1993.
Freidman, Jonathan (edited). Oscar Wilde: A Collection of Critical Essays. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1996.
Pearson, Hesketh (edited). Essays By Oscar Wilde. New York: Books For Libraries Press, 1972.
Ransome, Arthur. Oscar Wilde: A Critical Study. London: Mr. Martin Secker, 1913.
Weintraub, Stanley (edited). Literary Criticism of Oscar Wilde. Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1968.
Woodcock, George. The Paradox of Oscar Wilde. London-New York: T.V. Boardman and Co., Ltd., 1950.
Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. Denmark: Wordsworth Editions Limited, Reprinted 1992.