The man who really stabbed Dorian

           A blank sheet of paper. Plop. A drop of black ink falls, right on the center of the sheet. The instant it touches the sheet, it spreads like wild fire, consuming every whiteness as it pervades the sheet of paper, leaving behind sheer blackness. This is how Dorian Gray, a white sheet of paper, an epitome of purity and naivety, transforms into evil. It is Lord Henry that drops a drop of ink that consumes Dorian Gray at a frightening speed. It is Lord Henry who, although he may not have the intention to cause what he triggers eventually, is accountable for the devilish, wretched man who lies at the floor, stabbed by a knife, at the end of the book. It is Lord Henry, metaphorically speaking, who stabs Dorian Gray.

            Lord Henry corrupts Dorian Gray’s mind in numerous ways. One of them that cause the pitiful transformation of Dorian is when Lord Henry instills in Dorian’s mind the importance of beauty – not as in inner beauty, but physical beauty. Henry views art, or beauty, as the ultimate goal of life. He thus believes that other values deemed more valuable by the society such as virtue can be sacrificed for art. After conversing with Henry while posing for Basil’s picture, Dorian gets obsessed with beauty, especially eternal beauty. Bewildered but firmly persuaded, he cries out, “I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die. I am jealous of the portrait you have painted of me…Why did you paint it? It will mock me some day,-mock me horribly!” Such intense desire to maintain eternal beauty of his picture is actualized in this fictitious novel; Dorian never grows old or unsightly, only the picture does. When Basil accuses Lord Henry of his corruptive influence, Henry merely shrugs, saying that he had just helped find the real Dorian Gray.

            Lord Henry’s influence does not stop at merely providing a new perspective on beauty. The ultimate push that drives Dorian plunging down to the abyss of vice is given when Lord Henry talks about the death of Sibyl. Although Dorian Gray is contaminated by his obsessive desire for eternal beauty, he is not completely full of vice yet; he may be dappled with dark spots, but not completely black. This is illustrated by his initial repentance on his ruthless conduct towards Sibyl; he deeply regrets hurting Sibyl, and vows to marry Sibyl. The nobility of this decision stands out in the fact that Dorian Gray, when vowing to marry Sibyl, is still ambivalent about her; his intention is to purely atone for his wrong conduct. This is where Lord Henry untimely comes in, with the news of Sibyl’s death. However, it is not the news of Sibyl’s death that gives the final push. Henry tells Dorian to view Sibyl’s death not as a miserable tragedy, but an artistic sacrifice. Thus, rather than lamenting and repenting, he gets over Sibyl’s death. He compromises his conscience, which is manifest in his thoughts: “Had she cursed him, as she died? No; she had died for love of him, and love would always be a sacrament to him now. She had atoned for everything, by the sacrifice she had made of her life.” He views Sibyl as having died and accomplishing true and eternal beauty, therefore nothing for him to feel guilty about.

            Most importantly, the yellow book that Henry gives to Dorian, which he describes himself a ‘poisonous book’, devours every bit of goodness left in Dorian. He then embarks on a series of heinous conducts of moral turpitude, represented by his murder of Basil Hallward, whom he regarded as one of his indispensable companions. His end is tragic; he stabs a knife into his portrait, which has bore all the manifestation of his age and vice. As most readers would predict, the destruction of the portrait leads to the ‘real’ Dorian’s death. Ultimately Lord Henry, unaware of his tremendous influence on the young man who couldn’t bear the sudden inrush of the radical philosophy, tugs the strings for Dorian to act beyond corruption.