While Dorian’s path to his eventual destruction had been coming for some time, his descent truly takes full effect in Chapter Ten. The chapter begins with Dorian deciding to hide his cursed portrait in the attic of the estate, a place to “hide his soul from the eyes of men” (137). Evidently, Dorian has resigned himself to his fate and has decided to hide away the portrait and its horrors, rather than better himself. He tells himself that like “the worm was to the corpse, his sins would be to the painted image on the canvas. They would mar its beauty, and eat away its grace. They would defile it, and make it shameful” (134). This means that he understands the effects his sins have on the portrait and does nothing but hide it away. Truly, he is paranoid that someone might see the portrait, which displays his true self. By doing so, Dorian allows himself to redirect his conscience to the painting without seeing its effects as well as hide it from others. This illustrates an important turning point for Dorian Gray, and later on in the novel, Lord Henry would call this period “the beginning of [Dorian’s] reformation” (239). Throughout the novel, as he sinks lower and lower, one could point to this realization by Dorian as the moment he passes the point of no return. It can be argued that passing this point was a conscious by Dorian, as he convinces himself that he could have been saved “but it was too late...the future was inevitable” (135).
As Dorian considers the horrible changes that will come over his soul in the portrait he walks down to the library to find a newspaper clipping of Sybil Vane’s obituary, which he finds “ugly” and he promptly shred to pieces. This symbolizes Dorian’s past and purity being irrevocably thrown away. Along with the obituary he also finds a yellow book waiting for him. The book, which discusses a young Parisian who devotes his entire life to the passions of every time except his own, will become the greatest influence on Dorian Gray in the novel. As well, it serves as the symbol of the blurred line between vice and virtue that occurs throughout the novel. Dorian is heavily influenced by this book, as it becomes his personal bible of sorts. He removes the virtue and normalcy from his life and replaces them with vices such as passion and exotic pleasure, and nothing more.
When the reader first meets Dorian Gray he is innocent, simple, natural and affectionate to others. He is young though, and easily influenced, and this is his fatal flaw. As Lord Henry’s influence grows stronger over the young man throughout the first ten chapters, he changes significantly, and these changes are put on display for the reader in full in Chapter Ten. Dorian has become selfish, cruel, and coldhearted. As long as his outward appearance remains beautiful he is happy, he has given up on maintaining the beauty of his soul. This is his transformation to hedonism, and these are the characteristics which will define Dorian Gray for the rest of the novel. By hiding the portrait away, he has chosen the life he will lead and immediately falls under the spell of the yellow book.
Dorian calls the book “a poisonous book” (140), yet he tells Lord Henry how fascinated he is by it. Wilde takes great care to make the reader understand that it is not the book itself that is immoral, as he says in the preface that “there is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book” (Wilde, xxiii). To Lord Henry, the yellow book is art, but he does not find the book to be more important than anything else he deems as art, he does not hold it in higher regard, and as such, he does not fall victim to the allure of what is written within it. Dorian however, allows the book to dominate his life and determine his actions so completely that the only path left for him is that of immorality. From the time he becomes entranced by the yellow book in Chapter Ten, his fate is sealed.
This chapter is the turning point for Dorian Gray and the novel. Due to the changes that overcome Dorian in this chapter he sinks lower and lower into immorality. He soon reaches the point where “he would sit in front of the picture...filled...with that pride of individualism that is half the fascination of sin, and smiling with the secret pleasure at the misshapen shadow that had to bear the burden that should have been his own” (158).
The immoral actions he commits early in the novel and in Chapter Ten repeat themselves however , and as he is paranoid in Chapter Ten of anyone discovering his true self and judging him, he becomes even more paranoid of “the coming of death” (231) and the judgement that comes with it. Just as he took Sybil Vane’s art by giving her his love, and destroying the artist by taking his love away, he attempts to do the same with Basil Hallward and his portrait when the strain becomes too much. Ironically, Dorian’s attempt to destroy Basil’s art is what ultimately reveals his true, disfigured self to all those he wished to hide it from, while the beauty of the portrait lives on. From this it becomes clear that the day Dorian Gray shunned Basil and embraced Lord Henry, allowed the yellow book to dictate his actions, and hid the portrait away to bear his sins for him was the day he truly became a face without a heart.
by
randykfox (student)
