The Picture of Dorian Gray #4; Dorian’s ‘Progression’

            In the latest reading of The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian undergoes more changes.  Dorian’s biggest change so far in the novel has been his adaption of hedonism because of Lord Henry’s influence.  This change is not portrayed in a positive light and the reader is led to believe that hedonism is bad for Dorian.  This hedonism is highlighted when Dorian is talking with Sibyl after her awful performance; Dorian tells Sibyl that her acting was horrible “‘It was dreadful.  Are you ill?  You have no idea what it was.  You have no idea what I suffered’…‘My friends were bored.  I was bored’” (Wilde 89-90).  Dorian is being extremely selfish and rude to Sibyl because all he cares about is that he is happy and when Sibyl performs poorly in front of his friends he becomes unhappy.  Dorian becomes so unhappy when watching the performance and talking with Sibyl that he tells her, “‘You have killed my love!...You are nothing to me now.  I will never think of you.  I will never mention your name’” (91).  The new Dorian, created by Lord Henry is highlighted here as Dorian only cares about how Sibyl can please him.  When that aspect of her disappears he immediately loses his interest in her because he no longer feels any pleasure in her presence.  

            After Dorian escapes his confrontation with Sibyl and returns home he starts to feel regret for how he treated her.  Dorian is portrayed to be once again undergoing a change.  This time however, the reader is led to believe it is a positive change.  Dorian realizes how awfully he treated Sibyl the night before and he blames his actions on Lord Henry’s influence.  Once he realizes how Lord Henry’s influence has affected him, he vows that “He would not see Lord Henry any more – would not, at any rate, listen to those subtle, poisonous theories that in Basil Hallward’s garden had first stirred within him the passion for impossible things.  He would go back to Sibyl Vane, make her amends, marry her, try to lover her again” (96).  Dorian shifts away from hedonism back into the Dorian that Basil knows, the Dorian that cares about other people.  Dorian wants to set right what he did to Sibyl and part of that is to eliminate his hedonism and Lord Henry.  However, Lord Henry is not absent from Dorian’s life for long.

            On the same day that Dorian vows never to speak to Lord Henry, Lord Henry inputs more of his philosophies on Dorian and they make plans to go see the opera.  Dorian fully embraces Lord Henry again and it seems as if he has fallen back into Lord Henry’s influence.  All progress that Dorian had made towards bettering himself disappears when he tells Lord Henry, “‘I am awfully obliged to you for all that you have said to me.  You are certainly my best friend.  No one has ever understood me as you have’” (108).  Once again, Dorian falls into Lord Henry’s influential trap.  The relationship between Dorian and Lord Henry is similar to an abusive relationship; the tension building stage would be when Lord Henry preaches his philosophy’s to Dorian, the explosion would be when a situation like the one with Sibyl happens and Dorian blames Lord Henry for his own wrongdoing, and the honeymoon period would be the current stage where they embrace ach other and become best friends again.  No matter what he does it seems that Dorian cannot escape the grasp of Lord Henry.