Claim about Oscar Wilde's 'Picture of Dorian Gray'

At first glance, ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ appears to be a novel that attempts to deliver deprecation of an individual's morality due to excessive pursuit of aesthetic pleasure. After all, Dorian Gray plunged himself into moral collapse once he began to crave for eternal youth and aesthetic pleasure. For instance, Dorian Gray cold-heartedly abandons Sybil, a woman who seemed to be sincerely loved by Dorian Gray, and feels only a slight repentance when he received the news of her suicide. Though Dorian Gray himself claimed that he was deeply in love with Sybil, he abandons her after she lost her skill and talent as a graceful actress, since it was her artistic ability that Dorian Gray loved, not Sybil herself. For Dorian Gray, Sybil primarily existed for satisfaction of his aesthetic desire. In other words, Dorian's inordinate pursuit of aestheticism made him to put moral concerns aside. Through Dorian's moral deprecation, Oscar Wilde seems to deliver a lesson pertaining to morality and conscience.

However, Oscar Wilde did not attempt to link his novel with morality. In fact, he believed that art and morality exist in separate boundaries. For example, he stated in the preface of 'Picture of Dorian Gray that "There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all." In addition, when Oscar Wilde was repudiated by the Scots Observer due to his insufficient concerns and preference for moral values in the novel 'Picture of Dorian Gray', Oscar replied that “If a work of art is rich and vital and complete, those who have artistic instincts will see its beauty, and those to whom ethics appeal more strongly than aesthetics will see its moral lesson. It will fill the cowardly with terror, and the unclean will see in it their own shame. It will be to each man what he is himself. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.” In other words, while Oscar Wilde opened rooms for several possible interpretations of his novel, his original attempt was to create a piece of art that should be primarily judged by aesthetic criteria instead of moral criteria.

Therefore, it is not accurate to assume that 'Picture of Dorian Gray' is a novel that mainly focuses on corruption of morality of Dorian Gray. Instead, it should be viewed as a book that allows several moral interpretations but has its main purpose on illustrating refined and nearly-perfected aesthetic beauty. Many readers may spot moral concerns and conflicts between Victorian moral values and aesthetic values exist to complement beauty to the novel. Still, they should remind that such contents pertaining to morality exist to complement aesthetic beauty of the novel, not to make the novel a morally didactic book.