Lord Henry begins his infection of Dorian’s mind with these words: “we are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind, and poisons us. The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification” (Wilde, ch. 2). He contrasts the moral conduct of the past, or lack thereof, with the accepted standard of morality based primarily on self-denial. Lord Henry also states that the result of this abnegation is only a stronger passion for that which has been refused. He continues with this ideal when he says, “Resist [the temptation of sin], and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and …show more content…
‘Discord is to be forced to be in harmony with others. One’s own life—that is the important thing.’” (ch.6) He tells Dorian that one’s own comfort, along with the pursuit of pleasure, should be the utmost priorities in one’s life. By doing this, he establishes that any resulting damage or loss of life is secondary to the preservation of Dorian’s hedonistic lifestyle. As Dorian takes Lord Henry and Basil to see Sibyl Vane perform, Lord Henry reprimands Dorian for forgetting, in favor of love, all of his “wrong, fascinating, poisonous, delightful theories,” saying that “Individualism has really the higher aim. Modern morality consists in accepting the standard of one’s age. I consider that for any man of culture to accept the standard of his age is a form of the grossest immorality.” (ch.6) Here, Lord Henry expands on the advantages of individualism: he believes that he and Dorian are people that require different standards than society in order to thrive. Thus, he dismisses modern morality, which governs the many, in favor of a self-determined morality that applies only to himself. In other words, he instills in Dorian an alleviation from the law and ethics alike, which later allows Dorian to commit atrocious acts with no regard to their moral significance. He essentially labels Dorian as an exception to the rules of