Love or Art in The Picture of Dorian Gray

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Love is the greatest gift one could ever give or receive. At times it can be very challenging to distinguish between true love and infatuation. In the novel The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde portrays the love life of Dorian Gray. Dorian’s untamed desire to know everything about life made him hunt for love. This craving caused perplexity between love and infatuation. With a throbbing heart and confused mind, Dorian visits a playhouse and was carried away by the personality and performance of Sibyl Vane. Just by watching her act, Dorian enunciated that he is in love with her. Can this be considered a true love?, absolutely not. A bond between two souls is love, but Dorian fell in love with her art and beauty not with her soul, so it is just an infatuation.

Dorian preferred to address her as “an actress” rather than revealing her name to Lord Henry (Wilde, 34). This is the first clue Wilde gives us about Dorian’s shallow love. Dorian never tries to identify the real Sibyl, as he is deeply embedded in her art. When Lord Henry invited him to dine with him, but Dorian declined his request and said, “ To-night she is Imogen...tomorrow night she will be Juliet.” (Wilde 40). This made Henry question him, “when is she Sibyl?”. Still unclear about Henry’s intentions Dorian proudly answered, “never” (Wilde 40). Therefore, it is evident that he is in love with actress Sibyl, not the real Sibyl Vane. It is so sad that he always sees her as an actress, but within minutes Henry guessed Dorian is not really in love and he tried to divulge his views to Dorian, but it was fruitless. Henry’s efforts might have failed with Dorian, but it’s an eye opener for the readers. When someone is in love they would talk about them not their professio...

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..., love vanished. According to William Shakespeare, one of the finest play writers in history, states “...Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or Bends with the remover to remove”. But with Dorian it was not true love, it was just an attraction which destroyed Sibyl’s and Dorian’s life. Above all, Dorian wished to mold love for his pleasure, but he ended up destroying it. True love can never be altered nor can be molded as we wish. Dorian's love towards was just a passion towards her art; he was in love with her art not her heart.

Bibliography

Ciccarelli, Saundra & White, Noland. Psychology. New Jersy: Prentice Hall, 2008.

San Juan, Jr., Epifano. “Oscar Wilde.” Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Laurie

DiMauro. Vol. 41. Detroit: Gale Research, 1991.

Wilde, Oscar. The Picture Of Dorian Gray. New York: Dover Publication Inc., 1991.

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