Key themes
- Aestheticism and the moral void it enables
- The portrait as conscience and as punishment
- Youth, beauty and the price of preserving them
About this book
A beautiful young man stays young while his portrait rots — a glittering, sinister fable about vanity.
Published in 1890 in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine and in expanded form in 1891, the novel was used as evidence against Wilde at his 1895 trial. It remains the central text of the Aesthetic Movement.
Discussion questions
- Lord Henry's philosophy — that the only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it — is witty and attractive. How does the novel test this philosophy against the reality of Dorian's life?
- Basil Hallward loves Dorian with a devotion the novel never names but the reader can recognise. What is Wilde doing with this unspoken attachment — and why does he choose not to name it?
- The portrait functions as Dorian's conscience made visible. What does it say about the relationship between self-knowledge and morality — that Dorian can see his own corruption but chooses to hide it?
- Wilde was prosecuted partly on the basis of this novel. How does knowing the biographical context change your reading — does it feel like a confession, a prophecy, or something in between?
- The novel is full of paradoxes and epigrams. How does this style relate to its subject — and does the glittering surface serve or undercut the moral seriousness underneath?
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