The Picture of Dorian Gray
by Oscar Wilde (1890) - Module B: Critical Study of Literature
HSC Module B critical study of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. Themes, paradox as method, examiner focus and an essay scaffold built around the novel as an aesthetic argument and its contested critical reception.
Examiner focus
Markers reward arguments that read Dorian Gray as a self-conscious aesthetic experiment rather than a simple moral fable. Strong responses analyse how Wilde's epigrammatic style, paradox and Faustian structure stage a critical inquiry into the relationship between art, ethics and surface.
Themes
- Art and morality
- Beauty and corruption
- Surface and depth
- Influence and discipleship
- Hedonism and consequence
- Performance of identity
Why this text suits Module B
Module B asks for sustained critical engagement with a single work. Dorian Gray repays that brief because it argues, through its preface and its epigrammatic dialogue, for its own aesthetic principles while staging the collapse of those principles in its plot. The contradiction is the point.
Structure at a glance
- Chapters 1 to 4 establish the triangle of Basil, Lord Henry and Dorian.
- Chapters 5 to 8 dramatise the Sibyl Vane episode and the first sign of the painting's change.
- Chapters 9 to 14 cover the long decadence and the murder of Basil.
- Chapters 15 to 20 narrate Dorian's pursuit by James Vane and the final confrontation with the portrait.
The Faustian shape is announced in chapter two and fulfilled in the closing pages.
Paradox as method
Wilde's epigrams are not decorative. They are the novel's structural principle, staging contradictions that the plot then literalises. Track three or four key paradoxes from Lord Henry across the novel and show how each is later put under pressure by an event.
Two readings to put in tension
A moralist reading treats the novel as a cautionary tale punishing aesthetic excess. An aestheticist reading, following Wilde's own preface, treats it as an inquiry into the autonomy of art. A strong essay holds both and shows how the preface and the plot remain at odds.
Common pitfalls
Avoid biographical reading that reduces the novel to Wilde's trial. Avoid treating Lord Henry as Wilde's mouthpiece. Avoid plot summary in the body of the response.
Essay scaffold
Introduction. Frame the novel as a self-aware aesthetic experiment. State your thesis on the gap between Wilde's preface and his plot.
Body 1. Paradox as structural principle in Lord Henry's dialogue.
Body 2. The portrait as a moral instrument the novel takes seriously despite its preface.
Body 3. The Faustian closing chapters and the cost of the aesthetic position.
Conclusion. Return to the novel's continuing critical contestation as evidence of its textual value.
Cited lines
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
Preface | Line 22 | canonical source
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
Chapter 2 | Line 142 | canonical source
Each man kills the thing he loves.
Chapter 19 | Line 88 | canonical source
I would give my soul for that!
Chapter 2 | Line 257 | canonical source
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
Preface | Line 18 | canonical source