*Play recording to enhance e-book experience.
THIS E-BOOK CAN IS ALSO AVAILABLE ON IPHONE/ANDROID VIA WEB
“Whose house is that, Constable?" asked the elder of the two gentlemen.
"Mr. Dorian Gray's, sir," answered the policeman.
They looked at each other, as they walked away, and sneered. One of them was Sir Henry Ashton's uncle.
Inside, in the servants' part of the house, the half-clad domestics were talking in low whispers to each other. Old Mrs. Leaf was crying and wringing her hands. Francis was as pale as death.
After about a quarter of an hour, he got the coachman and one of the footmen and crept upstairs. They knocked, but there was no reply. They called out. Everything was still. Finally, after vainly trying to force the door, they got on the roof and dropped down on to the balcony. The windows yielded easily—their bolts were old.
When they entered, they found hanging upon the wall a splendid portrait of their master as they had last seen him, in all the wonder of his exquisite youth and beauty. Lying on the floor was a dead man, in evening dress, with a knife in his heart. He was withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage. It was not till they had examined the rings that they recognized who it was.
Ultimately, Dorian sees that the only way to make his portrait, and his soul, not so foul was to destroy it. This is, once again, a selfish action, and the easy way out. The hard way for Dorian would have been to fight off his despair and try to change for the better; however, Dorian wants to destroy any knowledge of his sins, blaming the portrait for his own weakness since it holds up a mirror to his soul. Stabbing at the portrait, Dorian stabs his own soul, essentially killing himself.
Even Dorian’s servants, who lived in the same house with him, could not recognize him because they had only ever seen him as young and beautiful. Even they did not know how corrupt his soul had become. This shows how effectively Dorian was able to maintain his dual nature as long as he could live without any sense of morality. As soon as he felt he had a conscience, he could not continue to live.
Dorian is a failed version of someone trying to live the New Hedonistic life. His death undermines the idea of living life with no morality, which is something Wilde ironically advocates.
The reader never knows if the portrait magically transformed itself, or if it was all in Dorian's mind.
The picture to the right represents the typical appearance of a Victorian era Constable. It was the Constable's responsibility to keep people accused of committing a crime in custody until they could be brought in front of a magistrate ("Making").
Lord Henry accuses Dorian of corrupting Sir Henry Ashton, saying that he "had to leave England with a tarnished name" (Wilde 102).
The men cannot enter the room that Dorian has kept hidden from the public through the door. They have to enter it by dropping down from the roof. This goes with the Freudian idea of the superego (the top floor of the house), the ego (the main floor), and the id (the basement or bottom floor). Dorian’s secret room that conceals the painting is associated with the superego—the conscience, that part of the psyche that controls the id’s impulses in accordance with society’s moral values.
