Living Like The Picture of Dorian Gray in 2025?
Artwork By: Julia Pedden
I want to ask:
How do you define the word beautiful?
Is it in the eye of the beholder? A combination of physical appearance and personality? Is it energy? Spirit?
According to the Oxford dictionary, beauty refers to “pleasing the senses or mind aesthetically”.
Yet, I wonder…can the magnitude of “beauty” really be summed up in so few words?
Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray tackles this very question. Its Preface sets the stage with a provocative reflection on the purpose of art and the role of the artist, ultimately declaring that “all art is quite useless”. Here, Wilde suggests that art is not meant to instruct or moralize, but simply to be beautiful. Its function is aesthetic rather than ethical. Moreover, art does not reflect life itself, but instead mirrors the spectator who beholds it. In this sense, the meaning of art is not inherent but contingent, stretching only as far as the audience’s imagination and capacity for appreciation.
Despite this, the cautionary tale of Dorian Gray begins, highlighting how beauty, when idolized, can destroy the soul. Far from neutral, art raises moral questions precisely because beauty is never detached from power.
The story begins with the painter, Basil Hallward, who becomes enamoured with the extraordinary beauty of a young man named Dorian Gray. He paints a portrait of Dorian that captures his youth and perfection, claiming that “his beauty is such that Art cannot express it” (13). Through Basil, Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton, a witty aristocrat who preaches the philosophy of hedonism and the supremacy of beauty.
He defines beauty as:
“A form of Genuis– is higher, indeed, than Genuis, as it needs no explanation. To me, Beauty is the wonder of wonders. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible… Yes, Mr. Gray, the gods have been good to you. But what the gods give they quickly take away. When your youth goes, your beauty will go with it, and then you will suddenly discover that there are no triumphs left for you” (24-25).
These words and the wonder of the portrait strikes terror in Dorian:
“The sense of his own beauty came on him like a revelation. He had never felt it before. Yes, there would be a day when his face would be wrinkled and wizen, his eyes dim and colourless, the grace of his figure broken and deformed. The life that was to make his soul would mar his body. He would become dreadful, hideous, and uncouth.”
Soon after, in despair, Dorian proclaims:
“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 whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!” (28).
To his horror and fascination, the wish comes true. From that moment, Dorian’s outward appearance remains untouched by age or corruption, while the portrait bears the burden of his sins. The deeper he sinks into indulgence, cruelty, and crime, the more grotesque the portrait becomes. Ultimately, Dorian is destroyed by the very obsession with beauty that he, and society, hold above all else.
But Wilde’s tale is not confined to the nineteenth century. The anxieties it dramatizes still shape our world today. I argue that this obsession that society, Dorian, and us (as individuals) have with the supremacy of “beauty” is not totally unfounded.
For, being beautiful is synonymous with humanity, as many claim, but what happens when you don’t fit this ideal? As Lord Henry stated, all your triumphs wither away. To be seen as beautiful is to be recognized as fully human; to be denied beauty is to be rendered disposable.
That is the society that we live in. Now, society pushes messages claiming that everyone is beautiful, or beauty is on the inside of each individual, or that one should never judge a book by its cover. Yet, there isn’t really any follow through.
For example, most stories show the heroes in society being relatively good-looking.
Seriously, really think about that.
When was the last time that you saw an ugly hero in the story? An ugly love-interest? An ugly woman? Of course, these heroes can be outcasts, different, or underdogs, but often they are beautiful in some form. The prevalence of the significance of beauty in our daily life and structure in society is so over-looked.
Women know this all too well.
Each message of “loving yourself” is contradicted by industries built on concealing wrinkles, reshaping bodies, and erasing the marks of time. Aging for a woman is forbidden, and once it occurs, the worth of your life diminishes. Honestly, you might as well be dead, because society, which already has no place for a woman, has absolutely no room for an aging ugly one.
Beauty isn’t just confined to gender, but interlaced within race as well. Of course, I see beauty in myself and in others, even when the world doesn’t. But, I thoroughly believe that the world refusing to see the beauty in CERTAIN people is a political choice.
The reality is, when you can find the beauty in something, suddenly, it has value. This thought occurred to me many times as I scrolled through social media and saw several hateful and racist South Asian rhetoric online.
As a South Asian living in Canada, I have seen how immigration and multiculturalism are shadowed by stereotypes coding people of color as undesirable: “smelly,” “backwards,” “the least attractive race”. These judgments are not accidental but part of the legacy of colonialism, where Eurocentric beauty standards defined who was worthy of respect, desire, and ultimately… humanity.
Our society insists on clinging to this ideal of “beauty,” obsessing over it, as a determinant of value. Those who don’t fit the eurocentric beauty ideal are dehumanized, treated as less than. But even if one were not beautiful, why should that justify mistreatment? After-all, it is immoral to treat humans as a means to an end, rather than as ends-in-themselves, to borrow Kant’s words. Beauty may be one way society grants value, but morality demands value regardless.
To declare one race beautiful and another ugly is not just an aesthetic judgment; it is a political act of valuation. If only white is beautiful, then only white is valuable.
That is what Lord Henry kinda gets at, and what Dorian fears. For what worth does a life have if it is not valued? And a life isn’t really valued unless they are seen as beautiful.
The tragedy lies not in beauty itself, but in society’s refusal to recognize it universally. If beauty were truly seen everywhere, in every race, gender, and culture, it would be harder to dehumanize, exclude, or erase. Wilde’s novel warns us of the peril of idolizing beauty above all else, but our world shows another danger: the refusal to see beauty in everyone. This refusal is not neutral; it is a political choice.
At its core, in its pursuit and obsession for beauty, society yields to having an immoral and ugly soul; one devoid of beauty, no matter what outward aesthetic is presented.
The fact is clear: if you find us beautiful, then maybe you’d have to treat us like it too, and that’s something that society cannot afford to do.
Our society functions, relies on, the idea that everyone must be beautiful, but not everyone can be, and those that can’t are barely human. So, beauty is a dream that everyone must attain, must cling to, even if it sacrifices the soul and morality of society, because without it… your humanity, your value, is rendered non-existent.
In the end, Wilde’s novel shows us that beauty is never just surface. It is a mirror, reflecting the desires and prejudices of those who behold it. Dorian traded his soul for eternal beauty, but our society makes a similar bargain every day. So long as beauty remains the sole measure of value, humanity itself is at risk of withering, its moral portrait growing ever more grotesque.
Xoxo,
Khushi Kumari
