The Picture of Dorian Gray

conclusion 

The last event in the book is Dorian Gray's death. He's trying to destroy his portrait, the one realized by Basil Hallward and which permits him to be still young and beautiful. But to stay like that the prize is enormous: the good part of his soul. Indeed all his evil behaviors and malice are the portrait's food which let Dorian stay beautiful. 

But, destroying it comes out a scream and the reader doesn't know what's happened, but just what people listened to. Then, the final scene is the servants' view of an old weak and thin dead man, that is Dorian.

In this text Oscar Wilde stresses many points. First of all there's Dorian decision to use the knife which he had already used to kill the painter. In particular he focus reader's attention on the repetitive action of cleaning it after the murdering. Dorian killed Basil because he was the truth: he was telling him he had becoming a monster unable to control himself. But Dorian believed in his actions and lifestyle and wouldn't change it. So, he decided for the easier way: to delete each oppositely voice. This meant the painter who was appealing to Dorian's positive and good soul. But, in order to be beautiful, this part of Dorian personality must die, and so Basil too. And the repetitive action of cleaning the knife refers to Dorian's attitude to rein force   his dealt with the devil. 

But the turning point and the great efficient of the text, are created by the use of the same weapon. Indeed, in choosing the destruction of the portrait, Dorian decided to use the knife used previously to kill Basil. This means that now Dorian's willings are changed. He wanted to go against his dealt and to return what he had been before it. But, the portrait, as Oscar Wilde states, was his conscience. Therefore, destroying it meant destroying his conscience, that is himself. For this reason, he died. And the fact he was an old man is expressed because the portrait was no longer the container of his evil and physical changes. Therefore, they returned to the owner, Dorian himself. And Oscar Wilde puts lots of intensity in describing the scene, in particular in Dorian's degrading appearance: old, weak, thin, wrinkled. And what's more, with a loathsome visage and withered that made him unrecognizable. Indeed the only way to make the servants able to see their master was his rings. 

Remembering that the portrait owned Dorian's evil, this means that he was like a devil on Earth because of that enormous changed. Indeed, even Lord Henry become older, but not in that monstrous way, even if his kind of living was similar to Dorian's one. 

Such evil reproduced in sound too. The great scream of someone's cry is expressed as horrible and strong, because he was perceptible by the people around the house. This linguistic choice emphasizes the content: someone who's crying means that he's suffering, so it creates pain in the listener; furthermore this is horrible, so it's horror put over a previous horror.

In conclusion, it comes out that the beauty isn't eternal. You can love it, but the only way to not let it die, is to renounce your soul. That is spirit and physic cannot live together: one's prevarication respectly the other's, produces its death.