Wilde reinforces the definition of Dorian of conflicting emotion regarding Dorian Gray’s struggle between his sexuality preference, explicit in Chapter 4 when Dorian declares to Lord Henry that “…a voice can stir one. Your voice and the voice of Sibyl Vane are two things that I shall never forget”(57). Although subtle in the book, a clear relationship of Dorian, Lord Henry and Basil Hallward is present in the book beyond friendship and admiration. Throughout the book Wilde shows choices of Dorian to go with Henry to a bar or jealous remarks of Lord Henry describing Dorian’s love for Sybil a “silly infatuation “(87) and the gloom experienced by Basil when Wilde describes him as “silent and preoccupied” and “not being able to bear the marriage since he felt that Dorian Gray would never be to him all that he had been in the past“(94). Sybil Vane however contradicts this homosexual choice of Dorian’s as on page 69 of Chapter 5, Wilde says that “She was free in her prison of passion. Her prince, Prince Charming, was with her. She called on memory to remake him. She had sent her soul to search for him, and had brought him back. His kiss burned again upon her mouth. Her eyelids were warm with his breath” describing a romantic encounter of Sybil and Dorian which proves his heterosexuality as he proposes to her.
The last genuine emotions conflict of Dorian is one of morals regarding good, evil, pleasure and love. Dorian struggles with the fact that he loves Henry which he knows towards the end of the novel is a bad influence, a love that could be symbolized as a love for evil and sin. This uncontrollable love is seen on pages 93 and 94 of Chapter 6 in which he states, “Harry, you are dreadful! I don’t know why I like you so much” and Lord Henry responds, “You will always like me, Dorian. I represent to you all the sins you have never had the courage to commit”. Wilde makes Dorian’s attraction to evil not explicit solely in this passage but also by Dorian’s choice of Lord Henry, evil, over Basil, good. In these few sentences, Dorian’s attraction to evil is made explicit and its application to his life evident in his homosexual love triangle. Although this attraction prevails, Dorian does have his moments of good as on page 109 of Chapter 8 when he mentions to Lord Henry, “I know what conscience is, to begin with. It is not what you told me it was. It is the divinest thing in us. Don’t sneer at it, Harry, any more—at least not before me. I want to be good. I can’t bear the idea of my soul being hideous”, a confession of Dorian that demonstrates his capacity to see how evil is deceiving and how he is good-willed yet the temptation and evil is stronger and prevalent. A similar thought is seen on page 240 when Dorian says, “No, Harry, I have done too many dreadful things in my life. I am not going to do anymore. I began my good actions yesterday”, a clear demonstration of how Dorian strives for salvation, an effort ended when Dorian discovers that it is too late to recover his vile actions.
The lack of moral definition of the word gray is predominantly represented in the novel through Dorian’s superficial ways considering beauty, youth and pleasure the most important aspects of life. This superficiality of Dorian’s is represented in one of the novel’s most important excerpts in which Dorian fears age and its consequences vowing to sell himself, his soul and anything else to remain beautiful and young forever as seen in the following, “How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June…If It were only the other way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that—for that—I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the world I would not give! I would give my soul for that”(29). This lack of his good senses of what truly is important and of respectable principles connect to his name Gray and how it implies this specific characteristic.
Another example of Dorian’s lack of values, his “grayness”, that become almost omnipresent in the novel after Dorian meets Lord Henry is his relationship with the young actress Sybil Vane and its superficial roots mentioned on page 98 when Dorian says, “I loved you because you were marvelous, because you had genius and intellect, because you realized the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the shadows of art. You have thrown it all away. You are shallow and stupid”(98). Dorian falls in love with Sybil’s acting talent and not herself, he sees her as a trophy wanting “to place her on a pedestal of gold” for the “world to worship the woman who is mine [his]” (87). If Dorian were a man of morals and good-hearted principles he would never love at such a superficial level and have such shameful conduct especially with his remarks. If he truly loved Sybil he would want her independent of her acting and independent of what others thought of her. His shallowness is the true definition of gray.
Authors recurrently search for techniques to develop either themes, plot, motifs, or characters in novels, attempting originality at their every choice. Oscar Wilde excels in developing subliminally the characterization of his protagonist, Dorian Gray, with the characters very own name. However, he does this characterization in a veiled manner and a reader will only attempt to analyze the character’s name once he encounters Wilde’s phrase that “names are everything”(223) in which he hints to the reader how much a name can say about a person. Wilde did not just name Dorian Gray for any reason, the reasoning can be discovered once the reader understands this technique of his and searches for the meaning of names. Dorian Gray is truly a man of conflicting emotions that lacks morals, as stated in his own name. This is perhaps one of Wilde’s most genius connections, the work of a literature mastermind.
