The Picture of Dorian Gray
I really thought I knew what to expect when I picked up Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray . Dorian Gray has a painting down, and that painting grows older while he stays young. And, yeah, that's the basic plot. But the book ended up being a lot more than that. It gave me a lot to think about. Dorian Gray is introduced as a seventeen year old, much younger than I expected. His beauty makes him the favorite model of an artist named Basil Hallword. While sitting for the titular painting, Dorian metes Basil's friend, Lord Henry. Basil and Henry function as the angel and devil on Dorian's shoulders in some respects. But Basil is quickly corrupted by Lord Henry and decides that pleasure, beauty, and selfishness and the best traits one can hope to possess. After Dorian promises to marry a girl, then quickly changes his mind resulting in her suicide, the painting begins to change, to become ugly. It's revealed that it's not just that the painting...