How Does Basil Influence Dorian Gray

Dorian Gray starts off as a young, beautiful man who is loved by many. Because of this, he is all that Basil Hallward, a painter, and Lord Henry Wotton, a nobleman, ever think about. However, they have different ideas on what they want Dorian to become. Their conflicting influences become one of the main conflicts of the book, and this is noticed by Basil. He says, “Don’t spoil him. Don’t try to influence him. Your influence would be bad.” Basil influences Dorian’s choices and actions the most at the beginning of the novel. This is evidenced when Basil says, “He is all my art to me now.” Basil wants Dorian to devote himself to love and selflessness in order to live a happy life. Dorian follows this advice and falls in love with Sibyl Vane, and she becomes another conflict for the novel. He is willing to sacrifice anything for Sibyl, which pleases

Basil. However, this alarms Lord Henry as it is the opposite of what he wants for Dorian. This is when Lord Henry convinces Dorian that his youth and beauty are going to fade away. Dorian wishes that he could stay young and beautiful forever, and inadvertently makes a deal with the devil. Instead of him aging like normal, the painting of him by Basil will change instead. This incident will influence the rest of the book as it is a constant reminder to Dorian of his ever changing personality.
Another major conflict comes when Sybil loses her acting ability. Instead of maintaining his love of her, he shows how shallow he actually is and starts to reject her. Dorian values his own beauty over everything else due to the influence of Lord Henry, and does not value love as much anymore. This drives Sybil to suicide. While Dorian believes he should be upset about this, he finds that it does not impact him as much as it should. This is shown when he says, “I murdered her as surely as if I had cut her little throat with a knife. Yet the roses are not less lovely for that.” It is at this point the reader can easily tell that Dorian will be following Lord Henry’s mentoring over that of Basil. He sees Sybil’s death as life’s work of art and therefore feels a sense of pride and pleasure from it. At this point, Dorian is heading toward his own demise as his sins get worse and worse.
Another conflict occurs when Basil comes back into Dorian’s life.

Basil wants Dorian to go back to his old ways. It is at this point that the reader can see that Dorian is actually being affected by his conscience, something that has not been seen in him since the beginning of the book. It is at this point that Dorian begins to go back to how he was before and feels the need to reform. However, Dorian is unable to accept how drastically he himself has changed, and attempts to excuse it. This can be seen when Dorian cries, “Each of us has heaven and hell in him, Basil.” Dorian is showing despair, proving that he realizes that he understands that he has committed many sins and thrown away his life, but still wants to explain it away. Despite this, Dorian attempts to shock Basil by showing how drastically his painting has changed to reflect what Dorian has done. However, Basil instead prays for Dorian and shows him love, which Dorian cannot accept. Dorian kills Basil, but realizes that he has made a mistake. He starts trying to reform in order to get rid of the ugliness of the picture and return it to how it was

before.
Lord Henry notices that Dorian is , and again attempts to influence Dorian by saying, “It is not in you Dorian to commit a murder. I am sorry if I hurt your vanity by saying so, but I assure you it is true...I should fancy that crime was to them what art is to us, simply a method of procuring extraordinary sensations.” Here, Lord Henry is trying to prove to Dorian that murdering Basil was just another of life’s works of art. However, Dorian’s opinion has drastically changed after what occurred with Basil. He no longer listens to Lord Henry, and instead attempts to reform. To Dorian, reforming would be the same as getting his old beauty back. His first step toward redemption is leaving the girl whom he had seduced named Hetty. However, when he sees that the painting has not gotten more beautiful, he realizes that the only way to achieve what he wants is to confess his sins in public. This is unthinkable to him as it would destroy his reputation, which is all he has at this point. This is proven when the narrator says, “His beauty had been to him but a mask, his youth but a mockery. What was youth at best? A green, unripe time, a time of shallow moods and sickly thoughts.” All Dorian had was his public appearance, and he knew it. The only other way out to him was to destroy the painting with the same knife that had killed the painter. Dorian no longer feels the same way he did about the painting. He thinks, “Once it had given him pleasure to watch it changing and growing old. Of late he had felt no such pleasure...Killing the painting would kill the past, and when that was dead he would be free.” Dorian knows he must repent for his sins, and stabs the painting. The death of the painting is also the death of Dorian Gray.