1970 Also. Choose a work of recognized literary merit in which a specific inanimate object (e.g., a seashell, a handkerchief, a painting) is important, and write an essay in which you show how two or three of the purposes the object serves are related to one another.

Today, living in a world of screenshots and photographs, people often lack appreciation for the significance of a simple portrait.  In The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, a portrait is central to the story, arguably as important as any of the characters. Though inanimate, the title object serves to remind Dorian Gray of his moral decay as well as ultimately destroy him, two separate but interconnected purposes.  These purposes combine to convey Wilde’s message about the dangers of beauty.

                Throughout the novel, the painting acts almost as a portal to another world, a portal of truth.  In the world in which Dorian and his acquaintances live, everything appears fine.  Dorian is a young, handsome man, living life and making the most of it.  He attends fancy parties, falls in love, and has good friends.  However, through Wilde’s use of imagery, the painting allows us to peel back the shiny exterior of Dorian’s life and see what lies beneath.  Really, Dorian’s “soul grows sick”.  Though he stays beautiful, his moral wrongs manifest themselves in the painting.  It grows old and hideous.  Wilde uses vivid description to make even the most sturdy of readers shudder just thinking about the twisted lips and fiery eyes of Dorian’s portrait. 

                Even Dorian is unnerved by his painting, allowing it to lead to his downfall.  At first, the young Mr. Gray hides his painting away.  However, as time passes and Dorian grows more and more evil, he begins to delight in the painting.  The physical manifestation of his evil is something only a truly corrupt person can enjoy, signaling to the readers that the innocent Dorian Gray they once knew is gone.  Finally, remembering the horror it had once caused him, Dorian decides not to let a silly painting control his life any longer.  Why had he not destroyed it years ago?    Wilde here uses diction, selecting words that give the final scene a truly ominous feeling.  As Gray plunges a knife through the painting, the evil flows back into him.  The Dorian Gray everyone knew is gone, replaced by an old, mangled man, dead on the floor. 

                The portrait of Dorian Gray serves the two main purposes listed above, to document evil and to kill it.  However, these two meanings are not independent of each other.  Dorian’s life is ended by the painting because it so accurately portrayed his immorality.  In it he saw his evil, and trying to eliminate any evidence of it, Dorian destroyed it.  However, the painting was that evil.  In destroying it, he destroyed himself. Dorian Gray, though beautiful on the outside, was far from it beneath the surface.  Wilde, through these purposes created by diction and imagery, is saying that beauty really is only skin deep.