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How I was Influenced by Oscar Wilde's Fictional Character, Dorian Gray (A college application essay)

With the amount of literature I’ve read over the years it is rather hard to pick simply one character who has influenced me and the way that I see the world and other people. Yet as I walked into Borders one day I found a rack of what our English teachers would call the “classics” and I stopped to look. Within five minutes I had found just the one to take home and cuddle into the couch with, never suspecting that in a short while I would be in love with the main character, a Mr. Gray. I took it home never imagining, even for a minute, that I would be forced to reexamine my life and what it means to be human. This was, in fact, what ended up happening. The beautiful main character of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde changed my perspective on almost everything. My perception of time, humanity, and mortality has changed dramatically.

As soon as I opened the book and read of him, Dorian enthralled me. As a fictional character I found him to be one whose sheer personality and charisma could have one fascinated in seconds. For my first impression, he was adorable. Cruel fate twisted him in its relentless waves and played upon his youthful naivety and his boyish wants. Corruption at the hands of his friend, Lord Henry, drove Dorian to yell aloud that he wished he could remain youthful and that the portrait painted at the beginning of the novel by Basil Hallward would take all of his age and sin. Without much thought he exclaims that he would give his soul for that one thing. I could only watch in amazement at the changes in his character, in his personality, slowly beginning to take place, only appearing physically in the portrait.

Time, in light of our mortality, is something that has to be embraced. In the story, Dorian is able to overcome the ravages that time brings upon most because of the wish he cries out for. The rest of us are not cursed as Dorian was, therefore time is something that can’t be taken lightly. It made me earnestly ponder about what I would do if I were cursed to live forever, and have my sins and my age be laid out in front of me in a portrait of myself. I believe at first I would react as Dorian did, interested in how my body would change depending on what sins I committed, but soon I would be disgusted with myself, so disgusted after a while that I could not deal with myself. Time has a way of giving us experience and teaching us lessons that are hard to learn quickly. Time can corrode one, or heal one and should be treated in the highest regard, for we are all bound by its strict limitations.

As I learned from Mr. Gray’s terrible experiences there was much that led him to believe he was able to surpass all that stood in his way, including time. But eventually his humanity kept him from maintaining his charade. In the end he cannot stand what he has become, but instead of blaming himself he does what most people are accustomed to doing—he places the blame on someone else. The painter, Basil Hallward takes the brunt of Dorian’s frustration at his corruption, Dorian’s rationale being that Basil taught him to be vain. In all reality it was he who let himself become corrupt by letting Henry talk him into these fantastic philosophies. Dorian was only human, and to give him the God-like power to live forever in conjunction with his vanity was simply rather cruel. For me, as the reader, it was heartbreaking to watch such a beautiful man with such boyish tendencies turn into something of a monster. By the time he realizes the monster he’s become, it is too late, he cannot turn himself back into the boy he once was. He cannot take away the horrible things that he has done, even if no one but himself knows about them. Too late, he realizes what it means to be human…one does not live life for oneself, but for others.

Mr. Gray has a fascination for death it seems, and his own mortality is something that is a constant thought. He is so afraid to die lest he lose the one thing that he has been told is the only thing worth having, his youth. He begins to look at life differently once he is faced with the threat of dying—something that seems to happen to us all in that situation. For years he lived without a thought to death; he took life and youth for granted and spoiled himself in such a way as to create something ugly. Finally, with his life apparently in danger he is forced to look upon himself. As the reader I couldn’t help but feel for Dorian. Although he had spoiled himself so greatly I couldn’t help but feel that if I was to live forever, I would have done the same horrible things as he. Not so much death itself, but the coming of death, was the most frightening part of the whole ordeal, and Dorian, as well as I, had to look at life in an entirely different light. Life and love have nothing to do with selfish pleasures. It is not what we experience in our own life that holds the most importance. The most important things that we do are the things we do for others that will help them in their times of need and maybe even their whole lives.

I had felt so utterly connected to him that when he felt emotion, I felt emotion. I found myself holding my breath with him, sighing in relief when he did and having my life turned, at least for those few hours, upside-down. The most wonderful thing about Dorian Gray is that he taught me so many things that I never truly think of in daily life. He was not just a character I read about in a book but a friend I felt I had by my side. To see him going through this turmoil was as if I were watching my best friend slip into some horrible waking dream—having to live vicariously through it all as it was told to me. I was hanging onto the hope that somehow Dorian could go back to being the character I had been so drawn to at first. My greatest desire, for the few hours it took for me to read this book, was for Dorian to find his way back out of corruption. In the world of Oscar Wilde, there is no grace. Dorian was cursed forever. My final thought when Dorian plunged the knife through the portrait, in turn killing himself, was that he was finally free. I must, in my mind, thank Oscar Wilde for bringing to the world a character who has stirred so much raw emotion within me. Dorian is one of only a few characters who have ever caused me to feel like I was a part of him, learning some of life’s most important lessons at every turn of a page.