Robert Renehan

4/28/14 period 2
Dorian Grays Contribution to Literature
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde is a very important novel to literature
because it challenges the traditional paradigm of good and evil. This novel suggests that people
who act altruistically are hypocrites. Also those who deny themselves pleasures to fit into
societys standards, which is everyone in the novel except Lord Henry Wotton and Dorian Gray,
are truly evil. However good people are those, like Dorian Gray, who accept their human nature
and act hedonistically.
It is very evident that Wilde believes altruists are evil. This is made very clear when
Dorian Gray tries to spare the farm girl Hetty from his poisonous influence in an attempt to
finally do something for the good of others. However Dorian believes this good deed should
alter his portrait in a positive way, but what happens is that, He could see no change...in the
mouth a curved wrinkle of a hypocrite. The mouth gains a wrinkle because Dorian committed
the sin of altruism. Wilde suggests that altruists only try to help others because they selfishly get
pleasure from doing so. He sees altruists as hypocrites because they claim to be selfless people
but in reality they are selfish. Likewise Dorian Gray gets the wrinkle of a hypocrite because he
was never acting selflessly; he only spared Hetty so his portrait would look better.
This novel also challenges the traditional sense of good and evil by proposing a new
standard of morals. Instead of avoiding what society labels as sinful behavior people should
behave or do whatever they want, even if it means committing sins, that is good. People who
deny themselves the pleasures of committing sins are evil. The most evil being that exists is
society, for it makes the bravest man amongst us afraid of himself...The self denial that mars
our lives. We are punished for our refusals. The bravest man Lord Henry refers to is the
traditional hero. The traditional hero is afraid to accept himself for who they truly are. That is evil.

Those who deny themselves because of societys unreasonable expectations are in essence
slaves of society. And those who mindlessly obey society are almost as evil as society itself.
Oscar Wilde clearly believes that those who reject society and accept their human nature are
the real heros. Wilde himself had rejected societys norms. He was arrested for being a
homosexual in London in a time period in which his sexual orientation was seen as sinful. This
is why Wilde makes Dorian Gray the hero that he is. Similar to Wilde, Dorian refuses to follow
societys norms and he does what makes him happy. He is also brave enough to not care about
what others think of him. He ignores their insults and continues doing what he feels is right
regardless of the negative labels they place upon his head.
The Picture of Dorian Gray is a novel that creates a new type of hero, which contributes
immensely to literature. The novel rejects the clich of a hero being a perfectly good human with
no flaws, fighting an extremely twisted villain. In reality no one is perfect, and neither is Dorian
Gray. Despite this, Oscar Wilde managed to create an untraditional hero who was able to battle
our monstrous society and its evil altruistic slaves by rejecting their norms and doing what he
thought was right, thus creating a new sense of right and wrong.