Art has no influence upon action. . .
. The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the
world its own shame.
(See Important Quotations Explained)
Summary: Chapter Nineteen
Several weeks have passed, it seems, and Dorian visits Lord Henry.
Dorian claims that he wants to reform
himself and be virtuous. As evidence of his newfound resolve, Dorian describes
a recent trip to the country during which he passed up an opportunity
to seduce and defile an innkeeper’s innocent daughter. Lord Henry
dismisses Dorian’s intentions to reform, and he turns the conversation
to other subjects—Alan Campbell’s recent suicide and the continued
mystery of Basil Hallward’s disappearance. Dorian asks if Lord Henry
has ever considered that Basil might have been murdered. Lord Henry
dismisses the idea, noting that Basil lacked enemies. Dorian then
asks: “What would you say, Harry, if I told you that I had murdered
Basil?” Lord Henry laughs and responds that murder is too vulgar
for a man like Dorian.
The conversation drifts away from Basil. Lord
Henry then asks Dorian, “‘[W]hat does it profit a man if he gain
the whole world and lose’—how does the quotation run?—‘his own soul’?” Dorian
starts nervously; Lord Henry explains that he heard a street preacher
posing this question to a crowd. He mocks the man in his typical
fashion, but Dorian cuts him short, insisting that the soul is very
real. Lord Henry laughs at the suggestion, wondering aloud how Dorian
has managed to remain so young after all these years. He wishes
he knew Dorian’s secret and praises Dorian’s life as being “exquisite.”
He commends Dorian’s mode of living and begs him not to spoil it
by trying to be virtuous. Dorian somberly asks his friend not to
loan anyone else the “yellow book,” which has had such a corrupting
effect upon his own character, but Lord Henry discounts his “moraliz[ing]”
and remarks that “[a]rt has no influence upon action. . . . The
books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world
its own shame.” Before leaving, Lord Henry invites Dorian to visit
him the next day.
Summary: Chapter Twenty
That night, Dorian goes to the locked room to look at
his portrait. He hopes his decision to amend his life will have
changed the painting, and he considers that perhaps his decision not to
ruin the innkeeper’s daughter’s reputation will be reflected in
the painted face. But when Dorian looks at his portrait, he sees
there is no change—except that “in the eyes there was a look of
cunning, and in the mouth the curved wrinkle of the hypocrite.”
He realizes his pitiful attempt to be good was no more than hypocrisy,
an attempt to minimize the seriousness of his crimes that falls
far short of atonement. Furious, he seizes a knife—the same weapon
with which he killed Basil—and drives it into the portrait in an
attempt to destroy it.
From below, Dorian’s servants hear a cry and a clatter.
Breaking into the room, they see the portrait, unharmed, showing
Dorian Gray as a beautiful young man. On the floor is the body of
an old man, horribly wrinkled and disfigured, with a knife plunged
into his heart. It is not until the servants examine the rings on
the old man’s hands that they identify him as Dorian Gray.
Analysis: Chapters Nineteen–Twenty
The contrast between Lord Henry and Dorian in Chapter
Nineteen is instructive. When the novel begins, Lord Henry appears
as a figure of worldly wisdom who seduces the naïve Dorian with
fawning compliments and a celebration of selfishness and hedonism.
Now that Dorian has actually lived the philosophy
that Lord Henry so eloquently champions, however, he stands as proof
of the limitations—indeed, even the misguided notions—of that philosophy.
In the novel’s final pages, Dorian is world-weary and borne down
by the weight of his sins, while Lord Henry seems almost childishly naïve
as he repeats his long-held but poorly informed beliefs. When Dorian
all but confesses to Basil’s murder, Lord Henry flippantly dismisses
him, since his worldview holds that “[c]rime belongs exclusively
to the lower orders.” Only Lord Henry, who has never actually done
any of the things he has inspired Dorian to do, could have the luxury
of this thought. By keeping himself free from sin, even as he argues
the virtues of sinning, Lord Henry lacks the terrible awareness
of guilt and its debilitating effects. While the street preacher’s
rhetorical question about earthly gain at the cost of spiritual
loss (from the New Testament, Mark 8:36)
haunts Dorian, it holds no real meaning for Lord Henry.
At this stage, however, not even truthful self-awareness
is enough to save Dorian. In his final moments, he attempts to repent
the murder of Basil, the suicides of Sibyl Vane and Alan Campbell,
and his countless other sins by refraining from seducing and ruining
a naïve village girl. The discrepancy between the enormity of his
crimes and this minor act of contrition is too great. Furthermore,
he realizes that he does not want to confess his sins but rather
have them simply go away. The portrait reflects this hypocrisy and
drives him to his final, desperate act. He decides it is better
to destroy the last evidence of his sin—the painting of his soul—than
face up to his own depravity. The depravity he seeks to destroy
is, in essence, himself; therefore, by killing it, he kills himself.
