Vampirism and the Bible in the Picture of Dorian Grey Essay Sample

Unsurprisingly for the Gothic narrative The Picture of Dorian Gray. vampirism and a strong scriptural mention to a downward spiral from artlessness are found skulking within the pages. Matching chapters of Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor: Nice to Eat You: Acts of Vampires” and “…Or the Bible” elaborated on these devices. which enhanced Wilde’s novel by adding degrees and deepness to it that the secret plan itself could ne’er give.

Unadulterated artlessness can non stand long without a autumn. as Wilde emphasizes in the early pages of his novel. playing on our cognition of this cosmopolitan truth that we all are familiar with from Genesis. the first book of the Bible. In Chapter II. Basil Hallward has completed his portrayal of the immature Dorian. depicting the male child to his friend Lord Henry Wotton as his chef-d’oeuvre. unspotted from the universe ; much like adult male was when God created him in the Garden of Eden. However. the misanthropic Lord Henry is shortly acquainted with Dorian. following him out into Hallward’s garden and get downing to allure the beautiful male child with corrupted thoughts disguised by his “romantic olive-coloured face. ” “low. dreamy voice. ” “cool. white. flower-like custodies. ” and “curious charm” ( Wilde 23 ) . Henry presents himself to Dorian in the same manner that Satan disguises wickedness. doing it seem desirable. even sensible.

In the garden – and it can non be a happenstance that this scene occurs in a garden – Dorian receives knowledge about himself that changes his position and gives him the desire for passion and young person. culminating in the merchandising of his psyche for ageless beauty. Lord Henry tells him he is unconscious of who he truly could be if he had cognition. Satan used the same persuasion with Eve. stating “your eyes will be opened” ( New American Standard Bible. Gen. 3:5 ) after eating from the tree of cognition of good and evil. After Dorian hears these things. life becomes different for him. and he feels things he has ne’er earlier felt. He is ashamed that his beauty will non last everlastingly. that he is capable of ugliness. and becomes so hard-pressed that he hides his face from his two friends. verbally arising against the 1 who loved him and painted the portrayal that comes to stand for him. Similarly. Adam and Eve’s cognition was what made them recognize they were naked and turn humiliated. finally arising against God ; without the cognition. there would be no wickedness. Dorian and Lord Henry. though they came into the garden individually. go forth it together. imbibe tea together. and leave Hallward’s studio together. representative of the manner Adam and Eve became one with wickedness after their enticement.

As they depart from his studio. Hallward appears to be in great agony. claiming to detest his greatest work. throwing himself down with a expression of hurting on his face. This is a clear comparing to God’s hurting after projecting out his ain creative activity from Eden. After Dorian’s artlessness is corrupted. the reader begins to see a instead unhallowed alteration in the male child who was one time good and pure. Chapter VII of Dorian Gray may look like nil but a secret plan turn to most ; nevertheless. when compared to Foster’s analysis in his chapter on lamias. it is a clear representation of Dorian Gray taking his first of many victims. Sybil Vane. Vane absolutely embodies Dracula’s type harmonizing to Foster: she is immature. bribable. and naive ; beautiful in a manner merely artlessness could do one. Wilde establishes this beauty by giving paragraphs to the description of her flower-like characteristics. giving her “something of the dun in her diffident grace and startled eyes” ( Wilde 86 ) . While the image of a dun brings gradualness. immature life. and beauty to mind. it besides stirs up the thought that the dun is ideal game for a huntsman. its naivete doing it the perfect victim.

Gray easy consumes Vane’s life force with all the stealing of a lamia. Easily captivated by her pure passion on the phase. where she moves in ways so beautiful it is described as otherworldly. he shortly becomes intimate with the immature adolescent. Gray enters a enchantment whenever he sees her act. at the same time feeding his passion – much like blood provenders a vampire’s hungriness – and depriving Vane of her ain passion on the phase. For one time Vane comes across Gray. her love for him becomes her lone world. dominating her fantasy universe of Shakespeare. go forthing her “curiously listless” ( Wilde 87 ) on the phase that one time exhibited the plangency of her life. Disguised as Sybil Vane’s “Prince Charming. ” Grey acts as a Jesus to her from a life of both poorness and solitariness. Yet Gray has all the characteristics of a lamia. person who will stop up taking her life. His beauty is emphasized in the scene where he ends his relationship with Vane. further adding to the supernatural image of prolonging his ain life force by taking off person else’s.

It is “with beautiful eyes” and “chiseled lips curled in keen disdain” that he looks down upon the one time vivacious miss wailing at his pess. lying “like a trampled flower” ( Wilde 92 ) . This comparing to a dead. wilted flower is a blunt difference from the original description of Vane’s “little flower-like face” and “lips that were like the petal of a rose” ( Wilde 54 ) . Without Gray. Sybil can no longer survive ; the apposition of true love with the world of her life exposed its ugliness to her. and she has nil more to populate for. She is stripped of the artlessness and endowment that made her great. When Dorian returns place that dark. the grade is finalized on his portrayal. the first expression of ugliness on his existent face spared. It is his first of many Acts of the Apostless of vampirism. his life being “well worth hers” ( Wilde. 95 ) . As Basil Hallward subsequently says of all the fallen work forces Gray had come into contact with. “They have gone down into the deepnesss. You have led them there” ( Wilde 155 ) .

Plants Cited

1 ) “Genesis. ” New American Standard Bible. Anaheim. Calcium: Foundation Publications. 1995. N. pag. Print. 2 ) Wilde. Oscar. and Camille Cauti. The Picture of Dorian Gray. New York: Barnes & A ; Baronial Classics. 2004. Print.