Dorian Gray’s Picture Hidden In The Attic

Image from Lui Turgo, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

What’s With Dorian Gray’s Picture Hidden In The Attic

Popular culture sprinkles mentions of classic literature rather liberally throughout a wide variety of mediums. Understanding these allusions gives you a better understanding of the work referring to it.

Reading and appreciating classic literature for the sake of understanding these references gives us a better understanding of the world we live in and the people around us.

• • • • • • In a TV show I was recently watching a character referred to having a picture in the attic that would ensure he didn’t get old.
          • In 2003, the movie The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen includes the character Dorian Gray, originally recruited as a good guy but turns out to be a traitor and, more than that, he is part of a plot to start a world war, and doing it for personal profit.
          • In 2007, a New Yorker Article referred to a similarity between Prince and Dorian Gray

What’s the story?

The story concerns the enduring theme of selling one’s soul in exchange for eternal beauty and youth, a theme

discussed in a wide variety of classics, and the inexorable tragedy that results. There’s a painting where all Dorian’s ugliness gets deposited. At first, Dorian revels in the freedom to live and act as he chooses without regard for morality however as time goes on, he is more and more troubled by the very same freedom.

 

 

Why has this story stood the test of time?

We all have a dark side. None of us likes to admit it out loud, but if we’re the kind of person who can find the strength to be honest with ourselves, we know it’s there. And the idea of it not soiling our goodness is tantalizing. This novel is a means for us to see how staying aware of that ugliness keeps us on the straight and narrow.

What about it broadens our awareness and perception of the world

The idea of the picture ensuring our youth and beauty, with our age and ugliness deposited in a hidden picture, has permeated our culture, as much as the theme of selling one’s soul in return for some coveted gift. Beyond just Dorian Gray, which is an allusion to the theme, the wide variety of works on this theme, both in modern work and throughout history, implies it’s a powerful function in the human condition.

You can find this classic work at Gutenberg.org

What are your thoughts about The Picture of Dorian Gray? When did you read it and what made you pick it up? Can you think of other references to it on popular culture?