En cours de chargement...
The Picture of Dorian Gray was first published as a serial in Lippencott's Monthly Magazine, and the publishers thought it would so offend readers that they removed nearly 500 words without Wilde's approval. Wilde soon expanded it and republished it as a novel, including a short preface justifying his art. Even though his contemporaries considered it so offensive that some argued for his prosecution, Dorian Gray today survives as a classic philosophical novel that explores themes of aestheticism and double lives.
Couched in Wilde's trademark cutting wit, Dorian Gray is still being adapted today, with Dorian and his moldering portrait remaining cultural touchstones.
Everlasting beauty has its price...
The story happens during the Victorian era, around the figure of the young and very handsome lad Dorian Gray. After becoming the model and muse of Basil Hallward, a sensitive painter, Gray is so enthralled by his portrait that he implicitly makes a deal with the devil ; he wished for the picture to grow old in his place so he can remain untouched by the marks of time. But every pact has a catch... Influenced by his mentor Lord Henry and his hedonistic world view, Dorian basks in a decadent lifestyle for years while his picture takes all the blames and gets uglier... to a point of no-return.
By portraying a cruel, narcissistic and amoral character, Wilde offers his readers a still contemporary critique of hedonistic behaviors and the superficiality and blindness of those who adopt this way of living.