Dorian Gray and the Quest for Youth and Happiness

Youth and happiness are two of the most desperately sought out qualities in life, both in the time period in which The Picture of Dorian Gray was written and today. This is especially true for the character Dorian Gray, who spends his life in pursuit of pleasure and a way to preserve his innate good looks and charm. His obession, however, eventually leads to his demise.

In the beginning of the book, Dorian is a "good" young man who is innocent to the pleasures and corruptions of the world. However, after meeting Lord Henry he is introduced to a new way of thinking about the time we have here on earth. Lord Henry tells Dorian that he needs to take advantage of his youth and good looks since they will soon fade. He also repeatedly intices Dorian to seek out all his desires and pleasures in life while he is young enough to enjoy them. While Basil is horrified at Lord Henry's influence and sees a change in Dorian, he is powerless to stop the impact Lord Henry has on the young man.

Soon Dorian's main goal is to have fun, and he spends his life trying to fulfill his human desires. However, he is plagued by the knowledge that he will loose his looks as time goes by and he ages. Now a very superficial person, this eats away at Dorian and he desperately searches for a way to preserve his beauty. He wishes that the portait by Basil could age, while he remains young forever. And this almost comes true. As time goes by, the protrait gets noticeably older and deformed, while Dorian seems hardly to age at all. However, time is not the only factor that changes the portrait. The change in Dorian's lifestyle and soul also makes the portrait transform into a horrific and deformed figure, reflecting Dorian's true soul.

In the end, Dorian murders his friend Basil and in an effort to destroy his portrait he kills himself as well. I would argue that such a tragic ending would never have occured if the tormenting desire for youth was not placed in Dorian's heart. It was his actions in an attempt to remain eternally beautiful that changed him into the shallow and immoral man he became.

The same can be said today about the pressures society places on people to remain young and beautiful. How many people have had plastic surgery or other alterating procedures to change thier appearance? They do this in an effort to conform to society's lust for beauty. Many people, like Dorian, become obesessed and take things to the extreme. Some ruin their faces after too many facelifts have been performed, others are left scarred from procedures gone wrong, and others still are never satisfied with who they are and can only see their remaining flaws when they look into the mirror.

Its a shame how our world has placed such importance on something that is impossible to maintain. We will grow older. There is no way around it. No matter how hard we try to preserve our youthful looks with creams, surgery, and hard work, there is just no outsmarting mother nature. If we could learn to be happy with ourselves as we are and focus on living life to the fullest, I think many people could avoid tragic endings such as the one in The Picture of Dorian Gray.