Corruption of Dorian Gray (The
Corruption of Dorian Gray (TheThe soul is thought to be an immaterial entity coexisting with our bodies which is credited with the faculties of thought, action, and emotion. It is the part of our body which is believed to live on after the body dies. In Oscar Wilde's, The Picture of Dorian Gray, the main character, Dorian Gray, destroys the innocence of his soul and becomes corrupt. He becomes corrupt by failing to live a life of virtue but of sin. The main reason for his transformation can be attributed mostly to a portrait painted of him which capture the true essence of his innocence. This portrait is the personification of his soul. At the beginning of the book Dorian makes a wish that inevitably changes his life forever. His wish is that, "If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that - for that - I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!" (Wilde, 40) As Dorian's wish of staying young and beautiful forever come true so does the fact that he has given his soul away to the devil. Another contributing factor to the perversion of Dorian's soul comes from his supposed friend, Lord Henry Wotton. Lord Henry fills Dorian's head with his outrageous philosophies such as, "�.youth is the one thing worth having. �. You have only a few years in which to live really, perfectly, and fully. When your youth goes, your beauty will go with it�" (34) and "The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful." (30) Not only do Lord Henry's ideas influence Dorian but a book that he gives Dorian also changes the man's life forever. A book of "spiritual ecstasies of some medieval saint or the morbid confessions of a modern sinner." (175) Dorian believes that "�.indeed, the whole book seemed to contain the story of his own life, written before he had lived it." (177) All of Lord Henry's actions and ideas are main contributors to the decay of the innocence of Dorian Gray's soul. There is evidence of corruption in Dorian's soul as he slowly transforms into a homosexual. In this century it is not considered to be a felony or social outrage to be a homosexual, however, this book was written in the nineteenth century during the Victorian period when homosexuals were looked down on as outcasts. In Dorian's time homosexuality was considered immoral and illegal. The men who took part in such atrocious behaviour were considered to be truly evil....
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