In Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” the use of color and color descriptors paint a clear picture of Dorian’s descent into sin. While Dorian’s surname, Gray, can link Dorian to moral ambiguity in hindsight, the colors white and red are effective signifiers of character and plot development as the story progresses. While the motif does not undergo a physical change, (i.e. white things do not stop being white), the inversion of meaning the colored objects undergo mirrors the deterioration of Dorian’s soul from the beginning to the end of the story. The motif of color is most noticeable in Wilde’s descriptions of people and flowers. Without the purposeful inclusion of rich color detail, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” loses a large part of its vibrant intricacy.
The color white often signifies purity, innocence, and youth. At the beginning of the story, Dorian’s innocent purity radiates so brightly that Basil Hallward must look away. When Basil recalls meeting Dorian for the first time he says:
When our eyes met, I [Basil] felt that I was growing pale.
A curious sensation of terror came over me. I knew that I had
come face to face with someone whose mere personality was
so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb
my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself. (8)
One can read “pale” as fear, but “growing pale” could also read as the influence of Dorian’s personality softening that with which he comes into contact. Basil’s terror in the passage is not born of fear of sin or the awareness of a dark nature lurking beneath Dorian’s surface. Instead, Dorian’s innocence overwhelms Basil. When Basil says that Dorian’s personality may “absorb his nature”(8), it is important to remember that the nature of whiteness is the reflection and presence of all other visible light. Basil’s painting of Dorian at his most pure becomes a warped reflection of Dorian as his soul turns black. The portrait grows to mirror the addition (and subsequent corruption) of color pulled forth from Dorian’s soul. Basil’s sense of terror is not unfounded, though Basil fears the power of Dorian’s purity not his darkness.
Lord Henry too picks up on Dorian’s aura of innocence when first introduced, noting Dorian’s “…candor of youth, and all of youth’s passionate purity”(15). Towards the end of Lord Henry’s famous “temptation” speech, he comments on Dorian’s “rose-white boyhood”(17) and later reflects on Dorian’s beauty, and “...white purity of boyhood…”(30). Though (or perhaps because) he is a cynic, Lord Henry does not fail to pick up on Dorian’s innocence. Dorian intrigues Lord Henry, in part because Lord Henry sees an unexplored aspect of Dorian’s nature. Leaving aside the discussion of Dorian’s status as a tragic protagonist, Lord Henry’s views on love, life, and society do impact the way Dorian conducts himself.
A major part of Dorian’s character shift is tied to his relationship with Sybil Vane. When Dorian waxes eloquent about Sybil’s charms and beauty, Lord Henry sees the passionately innocent boy bloom with “…blossoms of scarlet flame”(43). Lord Henry perceives that “Dorian Gray’s soul had turned to this white girl [the pure Sybil Vane] and bowed in worship before her”(45). Here the orange toned red or “scarlet flame” signifies a healthy, optimistic passion, full of vitality and good intentions. But the introduction of desire opens the door to a spectrum of reds, a portal that transforms earnestness to affectation and petulance to wrath later in Dorian’s life.
The crux of the Sybil Vane episode is that her whiteness, her purity, is initially what attracts Dorian to Sybil, as well as what Dorian ultimately finds disgusting. The relationship between the two parallels the relationship between Dorian and his portrait. Sybil is, at first, a mirror of Dorian’s innocence and youthful exuberance. Dorian reports that, when he kissed Sybil, “She trembled all over and shook like a white narcissus”(58). The most important takeaway from the passage is that Wilde had Dorian liken Sybil to a narcissus, named for the god who fell in love with an image of him-self. When Dorian faces a Sybil who refuses to perform false stage-love, he rails against her saying:
I wish I had never laid eyes upon you! You have spoiled the
romance of my life. How little you can know of love, if you
say it mars your art! Without your art you are nothing. (67)
Sybil changes because she believes she knows true love and believes that her art is a lie. Dorian spurns her because he has had his idealized image of her tainted by the change he himself wrought in her. Just as with the portrait of himself, Dorian loves idealized perfection until it becomes marred by the realities of the world.
Dorian’s subsequent reflection on his own portrait shows him that the manner in which he treated Sybil was harsh and cruel. While Dorian is yet unaware that Sybil has killed herself, he ruminates on his portrait, noting the inevitable corruption of his formerly pure white soul. Upon recognizing that the portrait reflects the state of his soul, Dorian pities it, saying:
It had altered already, and would alter more. Its gold would wither
into grey. Its red and white roses would die. For every sin that he
committed, a stain would fleck and wreck its fairness. But he would
not sin. The picture, changed or unchanged, would be to him the
visible emblem of conscience. He would resist temptation. He would
not see Lord Henry any more–would not, at any rate, listen to
those subtle poisonous theories that in Basil Hallward's garden
had first stirred within him the passion for impossible things.
He would go back to Sibyl Vane, make her amends, marry her, try
to love her again. Yes, it was his duty to do so. She must have
suffered more than he had. Poor child! He had been selfish and
cruel to her. The fascination that she had exercised over him
would return. They would be happy together. His life with her
would be beautiful and pure. (70).
It seems not to have escaped Dorian that his cruelty leaches the vibrancy and innocence of the painting and of his soul. By making the painting a “visual emblem of his conscience”(70), Dorian manages to detach his conscience from his person. In recognizing the separation, Dorian enables in himself a dispassionate arrogance. By ending his reflection with the pipe dream of a beautiful and pure life, it is clear that Dorian did not learn much of a lesson. His resolution to do right by Sybil comes too little too late. After learning of Sybil’s demise, and having a brief and underwhelming mourning period, Dorian says to Basil, “I suffered immensely. Then it passed away. I cannot repeat an emotion”(83). Indeed, as Dorian finds himself unable to “repeat an emotion,”(83) he is also unable to surround himself or identify with pure and beautiful things. The meanings of the motifs of white and red begin their inversion.
As previously mentioned, a door within Dorian opened, transforming earnestness to affectation and petulance to wrath in Dorian’s adult life. Basil alludes that the twenty or so years between chapters eleven and twelve are rife with sin and the putrefaction of Dorian’s character. When exposed to the horror of the painting, Basil mourns the loss of his idealized Dorian, quoting the Book of Isaiah to say, “Though your sins be as scarlet, yet I will make them white as snow”(119). Basil’s use of scarlet no longer means the youthful passion referenced earlier by Lord Henry. Now the scarlet stain of sin mares Dorian’s formerly pristine soul, and Basil is too late to counteract countless years of yielding to temptation. Where in his youth Dorian became petulant when tasked with something by Basil, he now becomes overtaken by “…an uncontrollable feeling of hatred for Basil… and he loathed the man who was seated at the table, more than in his whole life he had ever loathed anything”(119). Consumed by wrath, blinded by anger, Dorian seizes a knife. A scant few lines later Basil is dead, and Dorian notes the “red jagged tear in the neck”(120), proof positive of death and the “crimson spot of a prowling hansom”(120), both creating a predatory and sinister atmosphere. Because Dorian has already detached himself from his conscience, it is not as hard for him as it would be for another to resume the affectations of his lifestyle, putting on airs and making power plays.
Nothing pure can flourish in the toxic environment Dorian has constructed, but images must be maintained and it is only appropriate that the flowers in his house reflect that attitude. In order to ensure his valet Francis is absent while Campbell disposes of Basil’s body, Dorian sends Francis to Richmond for orchids. Dorian demands, “…have as few white ones as possible. In fact, I don’t want any white ones”(131). The days of Dorian’s innocence are over. Purity no longer has a place in his world, and representations of purity now serve only to remind Dorian of his sins. White flowers do not belong in the house of a murderer.
Dorian’s next actions are antithetical to everything white, good, and honest. Blackmailing Alan Campbell into disposing of Basil’s body further serves to paint Dorian in an unflattering light, calling attention to his familiarity with underhanded action. As Campbell sets up his equipment in the room containing Basil and the painting, Dorian catches sight of his portrait and recoils in disgust. More disturbing to Dorian than Basil’s body is the sight before him. Dorian wonders:
What was that loathsome red dew that gleamed, wet and
glistening, on one of the hands, as though the canvas had
sweated blood? How horrible it was! –more horrible, it
seemed to him for the moment, than the silent thing that
he knew was stretched across the table, the thing whose
grotesque misshapen shadow on the spotted carpet showed
him that it had not stirred, but was still there, as he had left it. (131)
Of course, the “red dew” is the representation of the blood Dorian has on his hands as a murderer. One can read the blood-like marks on Dorian’s portrait as color symbols, creating a visual surface in the text and which give the action a painted effect.
As the red blood on Dorian’s hands taints the portrait, the specters of Dorian’s sins follow him around. James Vane’s death in particular casts a shadow over Dorian’s attempts to suppress thoughts of his crimes. At a dinner party, “…a thrill of terror ran through him [Dorian] when he remembered that, pressed against the window of the conservatory, like a white handkerchief, he had seen the face of James Vane watching him”(151). The inverse whiteness of the Vane siblings ought not to go unremarked, as Sybil’s whiteness was one of innocence, and James’s is one of gaunt misery, a specter of death. The apparition of James’s face in the window spooks Dorian, causing him to swoon. No matter how he avoids the truth, and no matter how he surrounds himself with the frivolity of others, Dorian is unable to escape some of the consequences of his actions.
The last chapter is divided into self-reflection and Dorian’s ultimate struggle with his portrait. In the first part of the chapter, Dorian finally acknowledges that, while Lord Henry had once characterized him as pure and white of soul, the pleasure Dorian took from corrupting others had tarnished him forever. Yet Dorian asks himself:
Was it really true that one could never change? He felt a wild
longing for the unstained purity of his boyhood–his rose-white
boyhood, as Lord Henry had once called it. He knew that he had
tarnished himself, filled his mind with corruption and given
horror to his fancy; that he had been an evil influence to others,
and had experienced a terrible joy in being so; and that of the
lives that had crossed his own, it had been the fairest and the
most full of promise that he had brought to shame.
But was it all irretrievable? Was there no hope for him? (166)
The passage reads as shallow. Dorian is still concerned with absolution rather than appropriate punishment. Dorian grasps at straws, promising himself that, “He would be good,”(167) and wondering “…if the portrait in the locked room had changed. Surely it was not still so horrible as it had been?...Yes, he would be good, and the hideous thing that he had hidden away would no longer be a terror to him”(167). The arrogance of the thought, that the portrait would return to its innocent and youthful origins, illustrates that Dorian does not understand the magnitude of his corruption. Where there was light and charity there is now darkness and self-interest. Dorian mourns only his youth and vanity. It is not clear to him that he’s never fallen out of love with his idealized self.
Leaving behind the warm comfort of the library for the dark former schoolroom, Dorian locks himself in to face his conscience. However, the final confrontation with the painting fails to destroy Dorian’s hubris, and the honest representation of his sins is more than he can take. Instead of becoming more appealing, Dorian comes face to face with the realization that he has never acted without self-interest. It’s immediately apparent that:
“The thing was still loathsome–more loathsome, if possible,
than before–and the scarlet dew that spotted the hand seemed
brighter, and more like blood newly spilt”(167).
The scarlet blood spread over the hands and feet of the portrait completely obliterates any hope of purification. The red stain has grown and set, and darkness cannot win against darkness. Dorian’s attack on the portrait is an attempt to kill his conscience, not face it. Only once Dorian’s body is forced to bear its sins does the portrait return to its purest form.
Oscar Wilde’s use of color as a motif adds a visual dimension to the corruption of Dorian’s soul. In “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” Wilde’s shrewd observations and descriptions of characters and settings draw attention to detail. References to color seem purposeful yet open to interpretation. While most objects (the portrait excluded) do not change appearance, the meanings of their colors become inverted. By keeping the object, face, or flower white while flipping its significance, Wilde’s language mirrors Dorian’s own transformation. Though nothing changes physically, the language imposes darkness beneath the surface. Changing as Dorian does, the motifs of white and red are clear heralds of character development. The painted effect of the action enriches the entire novel, illustrating a man’s descent from innocence to impurity and creating a vibrant visual experience for readers.
Works Cited
Wilde, Oscar. "The Picture of Dorian Gray." 1891. The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Works. Comp. Fall River Press. New York: Fall River Press, 2014. 1-169. Print.