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date: 08 November 2024

Surface 

Source:
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Literary Theory
Author(s):
Shiamin KwaShiamin Kwa

The eponymous object in The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde is an exquisite portrait of an equally exquisite young man, which has been painted by an artist named Hallward, whose infatuation with Gray infuses the painting, to Hallward’s great shame. Having given the painting to Dorian Gray, Hallward is unaware that the reason that Gray shows no sign of age while Hallward and his other friends have moved into middle age is because the image in the painting is transformed by the ravages of time and experience. When Hallward is finally reunited with the portrait after many years, and shortly before being murdered by Gray, he only recognizes it as his own work when he sees his own signature in the bottom corner: “he seized the lighted candle, and held it to the picture. In the left-hand corner was his own name, traced in long letters of bright vermilion.”... ...

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