The Picture of Dorian Gray is a novel written by Oscar Wilde in 1891. It is about a man who sells his soul to maintain his own beauty.

The passage I’m going to analyse is interesting because it is about the concept of beauty. This concept agrees to the Aesthetic theories of Wilde’s time. The Aesthetes thought that art exists for beauty and a man should make his life beautiful. Dorian Gray doesn’t want to lose his beauty and wants to be forever young, but Oscar Wilde denounces this excess and the Victorian mentality too.

In this passage Lord Henry talks to the young Dorian explaining him the importance of his youth. He says that when youth is gone, beauty is gone too. The only thing that matters seems to be beauty. Lord Henry’s speech is interesting because of the persuasion: he repeats many times the same concept but in different ways to highlight his thought. Dorian doesn’t seem to take it seriously but after have looked his portrait he seems to fall in love with himself and swears he would give his soul to maintain his beauty.

The intelligent reader notices that Lord Henry  talks about youth and beauty such as a power that let you own the world: “The world belongs to you for a season…”. The ideal of beauty takes the place of the moral values given by the religion that failed after Darwin’s theories. Men need something to believe in and Aesthetes provide them that.

In conclusion this extract is an anthem to youth and beauty, it seems like they are the only ways to live a beautiful and happy life. Youth is the age of the experience, the age of airiness and absence of responsibility, but it cannot last forever. Lord Henry shares with the Aesthetes the idea that emotions given by beauty during youth  are the only things that give meaning to life.