Meyer |1 Haley Meyer 09/26/2011 AP English 12 Mrs.

Yoder The Portrait of Dorian Gray At the end of the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian suddenly seems to have a change of heart. He tells himself he needs to change, and make up for all the wrong things that hes done in his life since the beginning of the story. He even tells Lord Henry that hes changed his ways and is going to be a better person, through the story of the girl he decided not to go through seducing. But in his portrait, he only sees hypocrisy, not reform. This means, Dorian did not reform as he claimed. When trying to drive the evil from his soul, he is still very absorbed with himself and not thinking about anything else than saving his sorry skin. And at the end, when he stabs the picture, he is trying to rid himself of it, rather than truly take the time to change his mistakes. First of all, when Dorian decides he is going to change, it is not because he has a spiritual awakening or is really very sorry at all for what he has done. There is no epiphany that makes him realize hes done terrible things. In fact, it takes James Vanes death for him to tell himself he should change. When James dies, he cries tears of joy. This is one of the first signs that he is truly not reformed. An honest, good person will not be joyful about the death of someone whose life they ruined, but feel at least some remorse for how things turned out. He doesnt even seem to realize that he inadvertently caused the death of all three members of the Vane family. Sybils suicide, her mothers death due to grief, and finally James being shot in the bush all tie back to Dorian somehow, but he is too absorbed in himself to even realize this. He is overjoyed when he realizes it is Jamess body in the barn and decides

Meyer |2 after that, finally, that he should change. And more because he doesnt want anyone to hunt him down with plans of killing him anymore. Hes not truly sorry for what hes done. When making a decision with a gun pointed at ones head, so to speak, one tends to make decisions they wouldnt normally make. They make whatever decision that will keep them out of trouble. That doesnt mean they have decided these things with a willing heart. This is what Dorian did when he decided he should change. It was a feeling of self-preservation rather than regret or remorse. Another reason it is clear that Dorian hasnt really changed is that it seems that he is seeking out things to do that would make it appear he has changed, when really, he has done something bad at the same time. The girl he decides not to run away with, for example. If he were really changed, he wouldnt have started to seduce the girl in the first place. He would have stayed by himself. But it seems he intentionally seduced the girl with ever intention of not following through, just so he could tell someone, like Lord Henry, that he has done something. If he were truly a reformed person, he would not have even approached the innocent girl. But he did, and one can infer that he had the plan to not follow through with it the whole time. There are a few more instances that show that Dorian is more trying to be better to keep his own self alive, rather than truly fix anything. For example, he never admits that he was indeed the one who murdered Basil, even though a truly changed person would go straight to the police. Or even if they didnt, they would have a little bit of a guilty conscience about it, rather than just brushing it away like an irritable fly. Instead, he lets other people bear the weight of this burden. A burden that ends up driving one of his former closest friends to suicide. And when Dorian hears about Alan Campbells suicide, he doesnt even blink. It doesnt even seem to occur to him that it is his own fault that Campbell has killed himself, and he has even more blood on his hands.

Meyer |3 But he sees it in the portrait. Whether the portrait is really changing, or if it is all in Dorians head, he seems to see things that other people cannot see about him. And when he looks at the portrait after his so called good deed with the girl, he sees the hypocrisy in his doppelgangers face. This truly illustrates the fact that even Dorian does not even believe he is capable of change, and that he is really just doing it to seem like hes good, rather than because he really wants to reform for the terrible past he has left behind him. When he stabs the portrait, it is either to rid himself of the guilt he feels when he looks at it, or it may be purely in a fit of rage. But either way, he has realized that he is incapable of reform and that the portrait no matter how many good deeds he tries to commit. Throughout the end of the novel, Dorians motivation for being a better person is never driven by the need to reform and take back the things he did previously in his life. It is rather egged on by an instinct of self-preservation. To the end of his life, Dorian is truly just the vain, ugly, and everything that the portrait reflects. And through his selfish means of trying to change, he ends up ruining himself even more, until he realizes there is no way to drive the evil out of his soul and that he truly is incapable of reform. The reason he destroys the portrait is because he doesnt want a reminder of how guilty he is staring at him every day, and it ends up bringing about the death of him. Even his death is selfish, and he pays for all of his wicked deeds in the end.