The very phrase “selling your soul to the devil” originated (as we all know) from the German tale of our ol’ pal Faust selling his soul to the devil in exchange for limitless knowledge and worldly pleasures.Its use in ” A Picture Of Dorian Gray” is a little different to its story of origin since there is no physical manifestation  of the devil appearing and offering Dorian limitless knowledge and worldly pleasures in exchange for his soul directly, rather, Dorian simply yells out his wish of him having his painting age while he remains eternally young, therefore excluding the mention of a supernatural force being in play directly.

Also rather than Dorian’s soul being taken by the devil it is simply mirrored  to him via his painting , which shows how Wilde takes a variety of traditions and ideas and adapts them in order to use it within his own work while also strangely bringing in a sense of realism within the book, because rather than a malevolent supernatural force taking action in order to lead Dorian down a darker path, it is instead done so by Lord Henry and Dorian himself, which is what I believe Wilde to be telling his readers that each person is responsible for his own actions and resulting consequences based on the company they keep and their level of discipline over their own actions.

James Vane proves to be the most realistic person compared to his sister and mother. Sybil and Dorian’s engagement interests his mother as she feels there is a possibility that this ‘Prince Charming’ of Sybil’s has some dough to spare. Sybil is absolutely enchanted by Dorian, and the feeling is mutual. However, Sybil and Dorian don’t know each other as well as they think. Dorian sees her as the strong characters she plays on-stage and according to Dorian himself she is ‘never’ Sybil Vane to him. Dorian does not recognize her at the park when she is with her brother because he only recognizes her on-stage in costumes and glamour, not when she is plain Sybil Vane. Sybil has only called him Prince Charming so far, because she has taken the first man to be interested in her as the love of her life that shall save her from her present life and ride into the sunset with her. James is very weary of ‘Prince Charming’ as he knows that his mother was in a similar situation with a gentleman that did not leave a single penny for the her or their kids. James is also younger than Sybil being only sixteen but he is not naïve and can consider the realities of the situation.

The Faustian tradition talks of this character who sells his soul to the Devil in order to gain unlimited knowledge and anything he desired. Although this isn’t exactly like that, Dorian Gray does something similar: he sells his soul to the Devil in order to gain eternal beauty, however, this is at the cost of the painting, one of his best depictions, ageing instead of him, and showing the state of his character.

The picture above which I found in the internet picked my interest, because this reminded me of the actual picture of Dorian Gray. In the picture above, we can see monstrous figures, implying a deteriorated soul. As the novel progresses, the painting keeps getting worse and worse (like himself, too), to the point it terrifies Dorian Gray to watch it: like for the picture above. This implies to me that it is possible that Oscar Wilde did not just pull the entire idea like that from his mind: maybe he got at least a bit of inspiration from this, which could be quite interesting.

Black Books.

The British TV show Black Books, produced from 2000-2004, is amazing. Just, amazing. Interestingly enough, it also is in some ways very Oscar Wilde-like.

Primarily, we see this in the show’s use of epigrams. In many ways not unlike the character of Lord Henry in the picture of Dorian Grey, the main character Bernard is always spouting them off. He, like Lord Henry, has a very cynical world view and tends to see the purpose of life as pleasure.

The largest difference between these two characters is likely in the extremity of Bernard’s cynicism: where Lord Henry looks at society as something to be toyed with, Bernard prefers to entirely avoid it wherever possible.

Bernard is also slightly more deranged than Lord Henry.

As for the homosexual tendencies displayed in Oscar Wilde’s work?

Well, while not universally present, there are definitely one or two memorable episodes of Black Books where the characters, especially Manny, are portrayed in a homosexual light. Of course, this tends to be less veiled than Wilde’s references to the same issue.

The difference: in Black Books, homoeroticism tends to be used to humorous effect in Black Books, compared to Oscar Wilde’s reference to it for more personal reasons.

What I think is rather interesting in Dorian and Sybil’s relationship is that it is largely based on the innocence, or more like naivety of both characters. On one hand, Dorian “met” Sybil while watching Romeo and Juliet, which does make sense, in the sense that since it is a love story, it therefore makes sense for Sybil, the actress playing Juliet, to have an appearance which attracted Dorian. In fact, simply the mood of the play could have influenced him. This “love”, at the point he first saw her was more like an illusion rather than actual love.

On the other hand, Sybil also fell in love with Dorian after he talked to her. However, she gets engaged with him, without even knowing his name, calling him Prince Charming. She’s just hopeless, and all she wants is to find someone who can get her out of her lower class. She is naive to think that Dorian really is the person she needs, because again, they barely know each other. Sybil is innocent enough to think everything is fine. On the other hand, we can see James, her brother, who contrary to her, is rather careful regarding Dorian, which again emphasizes how naive her relationship with Dorian really is.

a picture of “Durian” gray

I believe that the relationship between Dorian and Sybil mirrors the exact same relationship Dorian has with lord Henry prior to his revelation of his actual beauty. Evidence for this is the fact that Dorian has told lord Henry over the fact that she doesn’t realize her true potential and beauty, just as with Dorian  before lord Henry started to lay down his philosophies over various subjects such as youth and sin in which Dorian believed in fanatically. Also, Dorian’s fascination over Sybil resembles the curiosity and fascination that lord Henry has for Dorian, which was made crystal clear after the scene within Henry’s office where the audience discovered his thoughts and emotions towards Dorian.

The antagonist of the novel, Lord Henry exploits Dorian’s desire to retain his youth. He corrupts Dorian who wishes to retain his beauty and envies a portrait of himself, “I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old!” Lord Henry has a great influence on Dorian Gray that Dorian can not do anything without Henry’s agreement or advice. Even with his romantic life, Dorian follows Henry’s aphorism, ” I am putting it into practice, as i do everything that you say.” We see the great, negative influence that Lord Henry has on Dorian Gray and Basil’s constant attempts to save Dorian.

I will get shade for this but I will say it anyway, I think I will like Wilde more than I liked Poe. Oscar Wilde knows where I’m at. He worked for women’s magazines and had fashion sense that was on point, he gets me. It was so interesting to hear about homosexuality in the the Victorian era, apparently Oscar Wilde had a lover before Albert Douglas. Robbie Ross was 17 when he first met father and husband, Oscar Wilde. Ross had been very open about his sexuality throughout high school and was bullied because of it. “He would be threatened with jail time, dragged into court, demonized in the press and eventually forced to leave the country altogether”.

According to multiple websites I found Wilde got together with Robbie Ross during his wife’s second pregnancy. Poor Constance. Also, Ross moved out of the country to meet with Wilde in France when he left due to the drama that had exposed him. Robbie Ross was the man next to Wilde when he died on the 30th of November 1900. Why are we talking about this Bosie person? Robbie Ross was number one till the end! Bosie is like the second. Constance is like sixth or seventh or something.