Steven Miller
April 9, 2013
Professor Thiele
Intro to Fiction
Sexuality in The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray alludes to homosexuality throughout the entirety of the novel. While homosexual relations between the characters are not directly discussed, the context and conversations between the characters points to homosexual relations between all of the male characters. Oscar Wilde, himself, was part of the Decadents movement at the end of the Victorian period. Decadents are known for undermining the mainstream Victorian ideals. There has been a significant change in society’s morals since the publication of the novel in 1891. A person reading The Picture of Dorian Gray in today’s culture may see nothing wrong about the context of the novel or the relationships between the characters within it but, at the time of publication, it was seen by society as an immoral book and even used in the trial against Oscar Wilde that resulted in two years imprisonment and hard labor. I will argue that using the characters of Dorian Gray, Lord Henry Wotton, and Basil Hallward, Oscar Wilde supports the common Decadents belief that open sexuality in mainstream Victorian culture would make for a better, happier society. From the very beginning of the novel, homosexual relations are apparent through the conversation about Dorian Gray between Basil Hallward and Lord Henry. As Lord Henry questions Basil about the mysterious person in his painting, Basil’s odd obsession with Dorian becomes evident. He describes their meeting as being destined to happen and when asked how often he sees Dorian, Basil replies, “Every day. I couldn’t be happy if I didn’t see him every day. He is absolutely necessary to me” (Wilde 12). He then becomes protective when Lord Henry asks to meet Dorian. If the relationship between Dorian and himself were strictly friendly, then