The Picture of Dorian Gray tells the story of a man who basically sells his soul to stay forever young. Through a portrait of himself, you can see who he really is and who he has become. As time passes, and his appearance stays the same, his soul becomes more corrupt and ugly. Eventually, the people around him begin committing suicide because of his actions and he even kills the painter of the particular portrait after showing him what has become of it. At the end, only one person is spared from Dorian’s ways and that is Gladys, the niece of the painter, whom he loves. After his one good deed is done, he then stabs the painting in the heart, thus killing himself. The portrait then returns to its original state, transferring all the wickedness onto Dorian himself, showing who he really is. I believe, throughout all of this, the message of the story is to not judge a person by his looks alone. Dorian Gray was a handsome man, but he was corrupt. So little of his friends realized this before it was too late.

Perhaps my favorite scene was in the beginning when Lord Henry Wotton captures the butterfly. The painting has just been finished and Basil and Gladys have just signed the portrait at the bottom. Lord Henry begins talking about how much a shame it is that the portrait will go on staying young forever, while Dorian himself, as well as the rest of them, will age with time. They will all begin to look different. Gladys then begs him not to change until she catches up with him. I find this ironic, because indeed he does not change by the time she reaches his age. While all this is happening, Lord Henry gets slightly distracted by a butterfly and captures it with his hat. He then puts it in some solution, which I can only guess traps the poor thing forever making it a souvenir. The butterfly then will be entrapped at that stage of its life. It’s in this scene that Dorian also makes his wish to basically trade places with the portrait so that it should age, instead of himself. He doesn’t realize it then, but his wish does come true. It’s this particular scene that sets the fate of Dorian and most of the other characters in the film.

That scene, even before I saw the rest of the movie, I knew would be my favorite. I think the symbolism of the butterfly is what did it for me. This beautiful creature would eventually cease to be, but Lord Henry captures it and in so doing, keeps it at that particular moment. It will be that beautiful thing forever. I think the other great thing about the fact that it is Lord Henry who captures the butterfly is he is the one who sets it in Dorian’s mind that youth slips away even before we realize we had it. But when he actually captures the butterfly, he’s so nonchalant when he says he caught it, as if it was no big deal. But in all actuality it was so significant to what happens to Dorian. Dorian is to be like that butterfly; stuck at one age, retaining all his youth and beauty. But, unlike the butterfly, Dorian’s beauty is only an illusion.