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Portait of Dorian Gray

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Submitted By JK47
Words 314
Pages 2
Analysis of Portrait In the Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian Gray wishes for eternal youth in exchange for his soul. Even though Dorian always looks the same, his portrait changes with every bad act he commits. Even though Dorian tries to avoid thinking about this, it is always on his mind. The portrait is like his conscience, trying to advise him not to commit all of these evil acts. In the end, the portrait would also lead to Dorian’s death. The stage in the book I chose to draw the portrait was after Dorian killed Basil. By this point, Dorian had already done some pretty terrible crimes, like causing Sibyl Vane’s suicide and smoking opium. These bad deeds affected the portrait by making Dorian’s portrait uglier. For example, after Sibyl Vane committed suicide, the portrait now had a touch of cruelty in the mouth. The more he smoked opium, the more wrinkles he got on his forehead and near his mouth. However, killing Basil was by far the worst crime Dorian had committed. When looking at the portrait after killing Basil, Dorian noticed blood dripping off the hand that killed Basil. Dorian became really disturbed at the sight of it and even considered it for a moment worse than seeing Basil lying on the floor. By this point in the story, Dorian hated looking at the portrait and he was trying to avoid it as much as possible. However, this change in the portrait would contribute to his death. As you can see, there is a big difference between the real Dorian and the portrait Dorian. The real Dorian is young and handsome, while the portrait Dorian was old and ugly. The portrait tried to warn Dorian what would happen if he kept going down the path he was going, but he didn’t listen. In the end, he would pay dearly for that.

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