Synopsis of the book the picture of dorian gray

“Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray is a thought-provoking novel that vacillates between ambling, seemingly directionless conversation and a riveting narrative thread that eventually bubbles up to the surface with the intensity of a volcanic eruption. The Picture of Dorian Gray, though not much more than a century old, has already been deemed a “classic” by literature-lovers, and after reading the book, I can understand its status. Wilde’s command of the English language is almost unparalleled in recent literature.
Warning – Spoilers Follow
Here’s the gist of the book. Dorian Gray is a young man whose physical appearance is handsome and innocent. An aspiring artist paints a beautiful portrait of Dorian. Dorian wishes that he always look like his youthful appearance in the portrait. The wish comes true. Dorian remains the same – youthful and charming, but the portrait begins to transform itself into the image of his soul.
When Dorian embraces a life of hedonism, he uses his good looks and charm to obtain whatever he desires in life. His insensitivity drives a friend to suicide. The evil desires of his heart eventually cause him to murder a friend in cold blood. Over a period of twenty years, Dorian becomes a monster on the inside (reflected by the portrait of his soul) even as he remains youthful and innocent on the outside.
Oscar Wilde’s homosexuality is no secret, and the reader can easily discern certain homosexual overtones in the book (especially at the beginning). Perhaps Wilde’s subtle innuendoes of homosexuality have made his works so appealing to lovers of literature who tend to sympathize and approve of homosexual behavior.
Upon reading Dorian Gray, however, I could not help but notice how the lifestyle of hedonism is so implicitly condemned by the narrative’s outcome. If Dorian’s hedonism includes sexual relationships with men as well as with women (and Wilde does hint at this), then homosexuality comes under the same umbrella as the rest of