The Pleasure of Destruction
“There were passions in him that would find their terrible outlet, dreams that would make
the shadow of the real evil” (115). Pleasure is the driving force of many characters within Oscar
Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, but this search for pleasure becomes fatal once taken into
the hands of Dorian Gray. Throughout the novel Dorian Gray changes his opinion on pleasure
based on what he requires in order to escape reality. With each death and misdeed he is
responsible for; Dorian must search harder for a more drastic form of release. His path declines
from his innocent beginnings with Sybil Vane, to the pleasure he finds in corrupt relations, and
finally his need to escape the reality of killing a former friend. Dorian’s view on pleasure
changes as his soul deteriorates and often what brings him pleasure at first is later destroyed and
he must find another form of enjoyment. He uses obsession and forced ignorance to try and
avoid the reality of his sins but eventually his only way to escape his own damnation is death.
Dorian Gray’s quest for pleasure intensifies as the novel progresses and is the cause of death and
destruction of many as Dorian seeks to find escape from himself and his deeds.
Sibyl Vane was the first causality in Dorian’s search for pleasure and while the situation
started innocently enough, it turned fatal the moment Dorian’s obsession failed to provide the
pleasure Dorian required. While in Lord Henry’s library Dorian reveals that he is in love with
Sibyl Vane after only three weeks of encountering her. “You filled me with a wild desire to
know everything about life…I had a passion for sensations” (48). Dorian has just been awakened
to his knew search for pleasure and places his expectations in Sibyl and the idea that pleasure
comes from love and adoration. He admits to Lord Henry that he goes nightly to her plays but
does not truly love Sibyl, he loves the feeling of pleasure he gets from him obsession. He
idolized her and calls her sacred but does not value her as a person. When asked by Harry,
“When is she Sibyl Vane?” Dorian replies, “Never” (54). This is the beginnings of Dorian’s
ability to place his own pleasure above others and Dorian has immediately lost himself in this
pleasure. “What there was in it of purely sensuous instinct of boyhood had been transformed by
the workings of the imagination, changed into something that seemed to the lad himself
dangerous. It was the passions about whose origin we deceived ourselves that tyrannized most
strongly over us” (58). The danger of Dorian’s blind obsession is shown with Sibyl’s suicide.
His obsession led to the death of one person as well as the first signs of his own worsening soul.
After this experience pleasure is no longer a form of love for Dorian, but rather a detachment
from reality. While talking with Basil over breakfast Dorian shows he does not place the same
value in emotions as he had done before. “A man who is the master of himself can end a sorrow
as easily as he can invent a pleasure. I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to
use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them” (105). Dorian’s own quest has brought the
demise of another and to escape from reality he must indulge in new pleasure so that he might
escape his guilt. To escape the guilt and reality of his hand in Sibyl’s death, Dorian becomes
obsessed with his beautiful portrait and a book. “To become the spectator of one’s own life, as
Harry says, is to escape the suffering of life” (107).
Dorian becomes a spectator of his own sins as he begins to obsessively keep track of his
changing portrait. His obsession with his portrait is due to the pleasure he feels that it should age
while he will remain forever beautiful and his fascination for the image of his own soul before
him. Dorian remembers kissing the portrait and becomes obsessive over it and the distraction it
offers him. “He grew more and more enamored of his own beauty, more and more interested in
the corruption of his own soul. He would examine with minute care, and sometimes with a
monstrous and terrible delight, the hideous lines that seared the wrinkling forehead or crawled
around the heavy sensual moth, wondering sometimes which were the more horrible, the signs of
sin or the signs of age” (124). This detachment from reality and need to view his life as an
outsider soon backfires on Dorian as loathing takes its place. With time Dorian soon begins to
fear the very portrait he once adored grows paranoid. He refuses to allow Basil to view his own
work and grows suspicious of his valet. “He hated to be separated from the picture that was such
a part of his life, and was also afraid that during his absence some one might gain access to the
room, in spite of the elaborate bars, that had caused to be placed on the door” (135). This
obsession turned into fear by the own image of his sins and Dorian must find a way to escape the
proof his ugly soul and the pain it was causing him.
Dorian Gray becomes obsessed with a book that parallels his own life and attempt to
indulge pleasure but like all of Dorian’s other attempts at pleasure, this book becomes poisonous
and leads only to despair. Dorian’s earlier opinion of adoration being the key to pleasure changes
after reading the book lent to him by Lord Henry. “’I didn’t say I liked it, Harry. I said it
fascinated me. There is a great difference’” (122). Dorian’s obsession no longer have innocent
intentions but instead he fully engulfs himself in whatever he wishes and doesn’t think of
consequences. “…so that they might suit his various moods and the changing fancies of a nature
over which he seemed, at times, to have almost entirely lost control” (123). He owns several
copies of the books and is fixated on the story for years. “The hero of the wonderful novel that
had so influenced his life had himself known this curious fancy” (138). He often imitates the life
of the character in the book and like the character he lives simply for pleasure now and his own
soul worsens as he goes to new measures in order to find it. “Dorian Gray had been poisoned by
a book. There were moments when he looked on evil simply as a mode through which he could
realize his conception of the beautiful.” (140)