Dorian
Oscar Wilde was the preeminent satirist of Victorian society, but his stories and plays endure because their dilemmas still resonate. No writer dramatized the pleasures and pitfalls of secrecy more powerfully than he did. Wilde–whose career was ruined when his homosexuality came to light in 1895–saw the need to hide one’s secret self as a fundamental aspect of the human condition; his characters go to extraordinary lengths to conceal their true natures. “What Dorian Gray’s sins are no one knows,” Wilde wrote in defense of his controversial 1890 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. “Each man sees his own sin in Dorian Gray.”
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In the novel, handsome libertine Dorian Gray becomes the living emblem of a “new hedonism” advocated by his decadent mentor, Lord Harry Wotton. Mysteriously, as the years pass and his misdeeds mount, Dorian never ages, nor does he show signs of guilt or worry. But a painting of him hidden in his attic shows him growing old and ugly, its increasingly cruel visage reflecting his escalating corruption. As his obsession with the accusing canvas grows, Dorian spirals into self-destruction.
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An Ideal Husband
