The contrast of inner and outer beauty is seen throughout the book. “ Those who find ugly significances in beautiful things are corrupt without being capturing. This is a mistake. Those who find beautiful significances in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. ” ( pg.17 ) . This quotation mark from the foreword is stating that people that can merely happen the bad out a good thing are the type of people that do n’t hold interior beauty because they are crooked and do n’t hold temptingness. Being crooked and deficient temptingness are things that are considered an mistake in these people. Then there are those people who can see the beauty in beautiful things and those people are considered civilized. These people are seen with optimism in them.
Besides a character who invariably talks about beauty is Lord Henry Wotton. He is seen throughout the book conveying up inner and outer beauty. He tells the creative person Basil Hallward that Dorian Gray is an highly fine-looking immature adult male and that he is so beautiful because he is n’t an rational. He is merely a pretty face. “ Why, my beloved Basil, he is a Narcissus, and you-well, of class you have an rational look and all that. But beauty, existent beauty, ends where an rational look begins. Intellect is in itself a manner of hyperbole, and destroys the harmoniousness of any face ” and “ Your cryptic immature friend, whose name you have ne’er told me, but whose image truly fascinates me, ne’er thinks. I feel rather certain of that. He is some headless beautiful animal who should be ever here in winter when we have no flowers to look at, and ever here in summer when we want something to chill our intelligence. ” ( pg.21 ) . Lord Henry besides tells Basil that most intellectuals or successful people are ugly because of the manner their faces expression when they think. “ The minute one sits down to believe, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid. Look at the successful work forces in any of the erudite professions. How absolutely horrid they are! ” ( pg.21 ) He besides uses this so called theory of his to “ close down ” or dishonor Basil when he briefly compares himself to Dorian Gray. “ “ I know you will express joy at me, ” he replied, “ but I truly ca n’t exhibit it. I have put excessively much of myself into it. ” Lord Henry stretched himself out on the divan and laughed. “ Yes, I knew you would ; but it is rather true, all the same. ” “ Too much of yourself in it! Upon my word, Basil, I did n’t cognize you were so conceited ; and I truly ca n’t see any resemblance between you, with your rugged strong face and your jet hair, and this immature Adonis, who looks as if he was made out of tusk and rose-leaves. “ ( pg.20 ) “ Do n’t blandish yourself, Basil: you are non in the least like him ” ( pg.20-21 )
Another manner Lord Henry shows that when it comes to the contrast between inner and outer beauty, he chooses interior beauty alternatively outer beauty is the manner he chooses the people in and out his life. “ I choose my friends for their good expressions, my familiarities for their good characters, and my enemies for their good minds. A adult male can non be excessively careful in the pick of his enemies. I have non got one who is a sap. They are all work forces of some rational power, and accordingly they all appreciate me. Is that really vain of me? I think it is instead conceited ” ( pg.26 ) . You can see from the antecedently stated quotation mark that Lord Henry knows he is conceited and he does n’t care because in his eyes, that is the most of import thing to see when doing any picks.
The reader can besides mention to other pieces of literature and utilize them to happen other illustrations of the contrast of inner and outer beauty. A book one can utilize as a mention stuff is Cheever Shady Hill: A Suburban Sequence. This book talks about different battles the characters have to cover with internally while holding a normal and easy outer visual aspect. This is similar to Dorian Gray who seemed to hold an easy life as a beautiful and immature adult male but had interior devils that made him ugly on the interior. The characters in this book besides relate to Dorian Gray because they go through state of affairss that show that the consequence of a state of affairs can internal and ne’er demo externally. Just like when Dorian Gray commits the slaying of Basil Hallward, the creative person, the effects of is action are non seen externally on his face but internally through the image Basil Hallward painted of Dorian Gray.
Another mention stuff one can utilize is The Pre-raphaelite Body: Fear and Desire in Painting, Poetism, and Criticism by J.B. Bullen. Just like how Bullen is discoursing the positions of the interior universe being about you while the outer universe is more mercenary, these positions are like those of some of the people in the book The Picture of Dorian Gray. Most of the people in the art gallery are those who use positions of the outer universe which are like things refering to wealth and high societal position. Another mention available is Are and Beauty by Max Schoen in which he discusses that being concerned with outer beauty can mess up your interior beauty or at least falsify it a small. Merely like how Dorian Gray concerns himself with outer beauty so much that he messes up his interior beauty, which is displayed on the picture.
Beauty and Evolution. International Journal of Humanities and Peace by William Burke is another mention stuff. This piece brings up that interior beauty is all about the regard of yourself and other and peace to all while outer beauty can be seen as fundamentally skin deep. One is supposed to concentrate on a individual ‘s interior beauty more than their outer beauty which is what Lord Henry when he foremost saw and met Dorian Gray. Alternatively he focused on Dorian ‘s good expressions which led to Dorian ‘s ruin in the terminal.
Basil Hallward feels that creative persons should ne’er demo their interior feelings or ideas through a picture. “ An creative person should make beautiful things, but should set nil of his ain life into them. ” ( pg.29 ) . He says that fundamentally the universe ca n’t see his true feelings for Dorian Gray. They will merely see what he allows them to see. He wants all painters to non teat their pictures like an autobiography because they should maintain their personal positions to themselves. This is similar to Lord Henry believing that people should n’t demo their interior beauty to others because it does n’t count. All that affairs is the individual ‘s outer visual aspect.
Besides Lord Henry is once more comparing mind with beauty which is his manner of comparing interior beauty with outer beauty. He tells Basil that fundamentally we as people fill our caputs with cognition merely to do an feeling on people and do like a name for ourselves. “ aˆ¦there is no uncertainty that mastermind lasts longer than beauty. That accounts for the fact that we all take such strivings to over-educate ourselves. In the wild battle for being, we want to hold something that endures, and so we make full our heads with rubbish and facts, in the cockamamie hope of maintaining our topographic point. ” ( pg. 29 )
In the book, one can see how Lord Henry influences Dorian Gray. At first, he is believing for himself about things, particularly about his love for Sibyl Vane. He does n’t desire her anymore because she is non the same miss he fell in love with. She lost her passion for moving and that was something that attracted him to her. “ You have killed my love. You used to stir my imaginativeness. Now you do n’t even stir my wonder. You merely bring forth no consequence. I loved you because you were fantastic, because you had genius and intellect, because you realized the dreams of great poets and gave form and substance to the shadows of art. You have thrown it all off. You are shallow and stupid. ” ( pg.102 )
In contrast to what is antecedently stated, Dorian is now acquiring under the influence of Lord Henry because he seems to non desire Sibyl Vane any longer besides because he feels she is nil without moving. He feels she has no life any longer. He sees her as a simple low category actress seeking to do it large. “ Without your art, you are nil. I would hold made you celebrated, glorious, brilliant. The universe would hold worshipped you, and you would hold borne my name. What are you now? A third-rate actress with a pretty face. ” ( pg.102 ) He is kind of degrading her to merely because she is n’t of import any longer. Just like Lord Henry, Dorian Gray becomes concerned with outer beauty and forgets all about interior beauty.
Besides when Dorian Gray first notices the picture ‘s facial alteration, this is the first mark of a existent contrast of interior beauty and outer beauty with Dorian Gray. He merely broke Sibyl Vane ‘s bosom and even though his face does n’t hold a barbarous expression, his picture does. After he had taken the button-hole out of his coat, he seemed to waver. Finally, he came back, went over to the image, and examined it. In the dim arrested visible radiation that struggled through the cream-coloured silk blinds, the face appeared to him to be a small changed. The look looked different. One would hold said that there was a touch of inhuman treatment in the oral cavity. It was surely unusual ”
After awhile, Dorian Gray remembers the want he made in Basil Hallward ‘s studio about non desiring to acquire old, for him to stay immature. Even now he is in a manner boding the different contrasts of interior beauty and outer beauty to come. “ Yes, he remembered it absolutely. He had uttered a huffy want that he himself might stay immature, and the portrayal grow old ; that his ain beauty might be untarnished, and that the face on the canvas bear the load of his passions and his wickednesss ; that painted image might be seared with the lines of agony and though, and that he might maintain all the delicate bloom and comeliness of his so merely witting boyhood. ” ( pg.105 )
In shutting, throughout this whole book, the reader can happen illustrations of the contrast between inner and outer beauty. From the characters such as Lord Henry Wotton and Dorian Gray to the different mention stuffs that can be used to happen other material or even get down a treatment on the contrasts. One can besides see how Lord Henry ‘s influence will get down to take consequence on Dorian Gray and how he goes from really looking at a individual internally to looking as person through their outer visual aspect.
