Basil Is An Herb, Not A Name

The preface of Oliver Wilde's story begins with the simple sentence; "the artist is the creator of beautiful things".  This idea plays more of a role in Wilde's installment than I was expecting.  It is from a piece of art that all of the main characters find their first footing in the plot.  Reading this story, I was expecting there to be fantasy and oddities not found in the real world, as the blurb on the back of the book deceived me to believe. But, to my dismay, there was no fantasy involved.  Though even with the lack of witchcraft (so far at least), Wilde manages to use his words to create a sort of magic.  I can honestly say I've never feared before that I would run out of sticky notes, but reading the first sixty pages of The Picture of Dorian Gray made me feel like I would.

Without further ado, in order of appearance, the characters:

Basil Hallward:  

Basil is a painter, who when the story opens is finishing a painting of a young man we learn later is none other than Dorian Gray himself.  Basil is fascinated by Dorian, seeing him as a muse, claiming that Dorian is "absolutely necessary" to him and his artwork.  Basil is very focused, and as Harry claims, a great artist is quite boring because they put all of their spirit and energy into their art.  Something that is interesting about this idea is that Basil believes quite the opposite, seeing art as an abstract ideal, though he himself follows in suit of Harry's ideas of a true artist.  I say that because of the fact that Basil would rather not have the portrait of Dorian shared, as so much of Basil's love for Dorian is put into the painting.  This meaning that though Basil believes art should be an abstract art, he contradicts himself with the painting of Dorian. Basil is truly the only tolerable character in my opinion, because of how soft-spoken he is, and how his ideas aren't as severe as the ideas of Harry and Dorian.  Though Basil is introduced first, once Lord Henry and Dorian meet, he seems to fade more into the background, as both of his counterparts are less interested in him. 

Lord Henry (Harry) Wotton:

Lord Henry is the most cunning character in the story, and he knows it.  He has the wisest ideas, and most of them, at least in the company of Dorian, revolve around youth, and the short amount of time that we are given.  Though Basil points out his negative influence, begging him not to corrupt Dorian, Lord Henry goes against his wishes entirely, as his first conversation with Dorian is one that awakens Dorian to the world around him more so than he'd like. Henry goes as far as to say that "he would seek to dominate [Dorian] - had already, indeed, half done so.  He would make that wonderful spirit his own."  This basically sums up Lord Henry's thoughts on his so called friends.  He seems more fascinated with the idea of ruining someone than actually knowing them.  He speaks of youth, love, and fidelity, as short term ideas, that being faithful to a single person is more shameful than loving many people for short periods of time.  I do not like Lord Henry.  He is vulgar, shameless, and he abuses his friendships for his advantage because he understands that he can easily manipulate them.

Dorian Gray:

Dorian Gray will, I'm assuming, become the main character.  Though he does not dominate the story as Lord Henry does in the opening four chapters, he is crucial.  He is described as an Adonis, with beautiful blond locks, smoldering eyes, the whole nine yards.  Though he is introduced as Basil's companion, he immediately becomes obsessed with Lord Henry after meeting him.  He also is obsessed with his own youth and beauty, which only occurs after he is influenced by Lord Henry to see youth as a necessity to cherish.  After that, the rest is history, as he makes enemies with his own portrait, as he "is jealous of the portrait...if the picture could change, and [he] could be always what [he is] now," he would be much happier. Dorian can be described as an ignorant character, as he is younger, and does not yet understand what Lord Henry is doing to him, and he follows his words almost like a dog does a bone.  Dorian also finds a love interest towards the end of the reading, Sybil Vane, though he barely knows her.  Just as I dislike Lord Henry, I do not care for Mr. Dorian Gray. His ignorance and arrogance mixed together create a man that is not appealing to me, nor to many others I would say.

Sybil Vane:

Sybil Vane is a young actress who happens to be apart of a horrid theater that Dorian happens upon one night, and from there on out he visits each night for her and her alone.  She is Juliet one night, Imogen the next, Rosalind after that.  Dorian rarely see's her as her true self, a 17 year old girl, which Lord Henry congratulates him for, as if she is more appealing as all of her many characters than as her true self.  Though she play's a minor role in this portion of the text, by the end of the last chapter, Dorian announces his engagement to her, so I assume she will soon be important.