The Picture of Dorian Gray has got to be one of my favorite books in the classics. Set in the Victorian age, the reader is given glimpses into the life of the affluent upper class. It is not the time period that is intriguing, but the main character, Dorian who finds himself making a Faustian gamble for eternal youth. What would one do if they could stay young forever, and time with all its sins and flaws could be abated?
Oscar Wilde takes the imagination on a journey of the sensuous life and questions if a life lived in pleasure can truly be lived without consequence. One of my favorite parts is the presenting of the portrait of the Dorian to the young boy himself:
“How sad it is!” murmured Dorian Gray, with his eyes still fixed on the portrait. “How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June. . . . If it were only the other way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that –for that– I will give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!”
The Christian is always mindful that the desires unchecked lead the person’s own destruction. This book will provide both illustration and thought to this aspect of man. What role does the desires play in giving meaning to life? Wilde himself having been known to make it an issue that man has only to figure out one thing in his life: whether he will be interesting and amusing or boring. Given our age, would we say that the desires have gone mad (as if to say that the stars wander freely from their constellations) and what result in society at large has resulted from this freedom of the desires? What importance does God place in the role of desires in men? Why has society tended to make age a vice and youth, a virtue? What is commendable about living a life that embraces all stages of life? How does Oscar Wilde depict the nature of man?
These are just some of the questions that ought to challenge the Christian reader to further reflection and search for meaningful answers. It is important to note, that there will always be a piece of Dorian Gray that crops up in every young generation. Our challenge is not merely to face the problem of short-sightedness and sensuous living found amongst our youth, but to provide a coherent, bbiblical, meaningful answer to the blessings of old age and clarify again the beauty of the self-disciplined individual.
In conlcusion, I think the reader will find this book both thought provoking, and shocking. It stands as a wonderful literary accomplishment whose critique of the human’s proclivity towards endless pleasure will leave the reader in sad agreement.
