“What a piece of work is a man”: the noblest of all God’s creatures, the very essence of grace and beauty, “infinite in faculties”, “in action how like an angel“,” in apprehension how like a god” (Hamlet Act 2, scene 2) Yes, a god, this is very likely what Basil Hallward must have seen the first time he had met Dorian Gray. And just like for gods, Basil is ready to worship and adore him, because he instinctively feels that Dorian Gray’s uncommon beauty is the mirror of the innocence and wonder of his soul. This is the real trap, as it is very arduous for anybody to conceive that a beautiful facade might hide an evil nature.This is very likely due to the archetypes we have been fed with in our early age with all the stories, fairy tales, myths. After all fairy comes from fair, that is light and consequently good, all witches are actually dark in fact. However, this is just a childish distinction, because the nature of a man is far more complicated that this. Man is a delicate balance between the world outside and the world inside. Ethics is what keeps him stable. When Dorian Gray realizes that his wish of eternal beauty has been fulfilled, that very moment his ethical world collapses and his balance is lost forever. The unmentionable desires, passions, lust, fear, freedom, that romantic chaos of his soul will slowly prevail over the classical immutable perfection of his beauty. But if Dorian wants to enjoy fully that chaos he needs to crash definitely anything that might stir any moral process. That’s why he stabs the portrait. He wants to be free from feeling any remorse. But what is a man without ethics? Could he really bear the chaos of his soul? What would become of him? When the servants find the body of Dorian Gray lying on the floor, they can hardly understand who it was.
e-Tinkerbell 