Basil Hallward

The novel itself begins with this relationship. They are "friends" from Oxford, but Henry constantly humiliates Basil in some way. Sometimes he calls him ugly, other times he says Basil is more than an acquaintance but less than a friend for the same reason.

Basil politely asked Henry not to spoil Dorian. But no, Henry ignored the request and immediately went on to say all sorts of nonsense to Dorian.

Then Henry, in front of Dorian, deliberately criticizes Basil, calling him boring (and in the uncensored version, he even mockingly hints at Basil’s love for Dorian).

After that, Henry sends Basil to a separate cab because Henry himself will go with Dorian.

Basil was even ready to support the marriage between Sibyl and Dorian and never criticized the girl. Henry did that, which only made the situation worse to some extent.

And after Basil's death? Henry reacts to the disappearance of his "friend" as if someone just spilled coffee—actually, even less emotionally. Of course, he called Basil stupid and decided not to think about him at all.

I feel sorry for Dorian because he is an orphan and could have found a father figure in Henry, but then he fell under his influence because he was naive, which led to terrible consequences both for Dorian and for others.

I feel sorry for Sibyl because she never got to live a normal life, and her love for Dorian ended very tragically. She was young and killed herself after her breakup with Dorian.

I feel sorry for James because he lost his sister and died in a completely absurd way.

I feel sorry for Alan, whom Dorian blackmailed and forced to destroy the body, after which Alan committed suicide.

I feel incredibly sorry for Basil. He lost the person to whom he was deeply attached. Moreover, he witnessed Dorian’s degradation with his own eyes and died at the hands of the one he loved. A terrible fate.

Almost all the main characters in the novel are dead. Dorian attacked the portrait with a knife and died. Sibyl and Alan committed suicide, James died by accident, and Basil was killed by Dorian himself.

But who remained alive? Of course, the one from whom it all began, the first to appear in the novel — Henry Wotton. And indirectly, he is responsible for every death. Indirectly, he is to blame for Dorian's desire for eternal youth and that from that day on, the portrait aged, the one Dorian would stab and die.  Indirectly, he is responsible for Dorian’s disappointment in Sibyl and for her death, since he implanted nonsense in Dorian’s mind about women and life. Indirectly, he is responsible for James’s death because Sibyl was dead. He is even indirectly responsible for the death of his friend Basil, whom he treated very cruelly, and for Alan’s death.

I'm serious, hundreds of people wrote angry comments just because of that, like "Oscar Wilde didn't mean this" or "Basil suddenly became gay," and so on.

In reality, this moment is very good. The initiative came not from Basil, but from Dorian, which shows how he has fallen morally. Paying with a kiss for a painting is strange.

Basil even looks confused, after which he takes the initiative himself. This means he stopped hiding his feelings.

What’s good about this moment? It's that Dorian doesn't see boundaries — it doesn't matter if it's someone's mother or his friend. And Basil succumbs to his desires. It may sound silly.

You can also find meaning in a couple of other moments. This is just my perception, but nevertheless.

After all this, Basil is left alone on the upper floor. This could indicate alienation or reevaluation. Meanwhile, Dorian is already "having fun." And Basil’s scarf ends up with a stranger. Maybe it's symbolic — for Dorian, this kiss wasn't something unique. He has many "Basil's."

I don't know, maybe it's silly, but this scene isn't as meaningless and foolish as one might think.

And I really like a moment when Henry sees Dorian with Basil's bloody scarf in a box. He gets scared and asks who Dorian is. To which Dorian replies, "I am what you made of me."

First of all, the events do not take place in the 19th century at all. Dorian is not a youthful figure with an angelic appearance; he’s just a blond guy in shorts lying on the rocks by the sea. Henry looks quite young and more handsome than Dorian. And Basil is a woman! Moreover, a blonde! 😭 (I hope everyone remembers that Basil has black hair).

The picture is painted not in a studio, but by the sea. Dorian barely moves his lips as he expresses that he hates the portrait and doesn't want to age, after which Basil goes to throw the portrait into the water. Madness.

Sibyl is an opera singer here, not an actress. When Dorian abandons her, it resembles a family drama more than the shattering of Dorian’s ideal. He throws things, breaks glass, and shouts his words without truly experiencing them.

Let's return to Basil. All the thematic depth has been lost. What's the point of Basil’s confession if he’s a woman? What’s shameful or dangerous for a woman to confess her love to a man? Yes, in the 19th century, even that was frowned upon, and gay people were imprisoned. But this is not the 19th century.

And then Basil marries Henry. How? It's unclear. Right before the wedding, she betrays Henry with Dorian. At the wedding, Dorian with smile tells Henry that he corrupted his fiancée.

Years later, Dorian shoots Basil. But who helped him get rid of the body? Alan? No. It was Henry himself. And they threw the body into the water.

The most famous ones for me are the adaptations from 2004, 1976, and 2009.

The 2004 adaptation is a complete nightmare. I watched it through the pain. I’ll write a full review later. But Basil as a woman?! And Basil marries Henry?!

The 1976 adaptation is the most canonical of all. The actor playing Basil is not bad, but I would swap him with the actor playing Alan. I'm not talking about acting skills—they are great—I mean just looks. Overall, it’s a great adaptation.

The 2009 adaptation is quite controversial. The actress playing Sibyl doesn't quite fit visually, nor does the actor playing Dorian. However, the director apparently told Ben Barnes to keep his hair and everything as it was. Of course, this is not the actors’ fault!

Colin Firth and Ben Chaplin, in my opinion, fit in perfectly. I can feel the contrast between them.

People from The Picture of Dorian Gray fandom are going crazy.

Some think the best pairing is Basil/Alan. Although apparently they’re both reserved and not very sociable? I can’t imagine them as a couple. But okay? This is not bad.

He also thinks Basil/Dorian is a “crime against humanity.” What? Personally, I ship them provided Dorian’s personality is more like it was at the beginning of the novel. I don’t think many people ship them from the moment Dorian completely degenerated. But even if they do, so what?

They told him there’s a Basil/Henry pairing AND HE RESPONDED THAT HENRY AT LEAST DIDN’T KILL HIM 😭😭😭

Doesn’t it bother you that Henry simply ignored his death and said that maybe Basil fell from the omnibus into the water? And he said all sorts of nonsense about Basil? I’m not condemning that pairing, but it’s not any better than Basil/Dorian. They’re equal to me.

And of course they say there’s no chemistry between Dorian and Basil, that it’s hyperfixation and paternal care. Basil became a father at about 10 years old 😭/joke

Okay, I understand that both books have the theme of decadence and therefore they are similar. At the same time, the name Sibyl is rather rare, but it appears in both novels, although the girls with that name are different.

Lucio is very similar to Henry. They say almost the same things.

Geoffrey is almost the same to me both at the beginning and in the middle. And Dorian at least changed more noticeably.

And in Corelli's novel it seems like there is a lack of relatively positive characters. It seems everyone is bad there, except for one woman. As if there is no balance?

It seemed to me that Geoffrey shows traits of selfishness and the like from the start. And Dorian experienced an inner conflict, which I don't see in Geoffrey. Maybe I haven't read far enough to reach that point?

Also people say that Oscar was inspired by Corelli, although his novel was published 4 years earlier. And Wilde himself noted the similarity, albeit with some admiration.

Yes, I read only 226 pages and I can't read anymore 😭

In the very first chapter of this novel one can notice a comparison of Dorian Gray with Antinous, Narcissus, and Adonis. The name Dorian, translated from English, means "Doric." This word is an art-historical term used to designate ancient monuments of classical antiquity. Therefore it is quite natural that the image of the protagonist contains traits of many heroes of ancient literature and mythology.

The comparison with these heroes at the very beginning of the novel says a lot. As is known, The Picture of Dorian Gray was subjected to censorship because of the presence of a homoerotic element. And by analyzing the figures with which Dorian is compared, one can notice that very forbidden element.

Antinous was a Greek youth, the beloved of the Roman emperor Hadrian. It is about him that the artist Basil Hallward mentions:

"What the invention of oil-painting was to the Venetians, the face of Antinous was to late Greek sculpture, and the face of Dorian Gray will some day be to me."

A number of scholars point out that in the late 19th — early 20th centuries certain images (Antinous, Adonis, Narcissus) were markers of belonging to a worldwide decadent (including homosexual) culture. It was in this period that The Picture of Dorian Gray was written. Images of Antinous, Adonis, and Narcissus repeatedly appear in descriptions of the main character.

Lord Henry, upon hearing of Dorian Gray, calls him by the names of Greek heroes:

"Upon my word, Basil, I didn’t know you were so vain; and I really can’t see any resemblance between you, with your rugged strong face and your coal-black hair, and this young Adonis, who looks as if he was made out of ivory and rose-leaves. Why, my dear Basil, he is a Narcissus, and you—well, of course you have an intellectual expression and all that."

Turning to mythology, the name Adonis has Semitic origins and translates as "lord" or "master," and is also linked to the Greek word ἁδονά, meaning "pleasure," "sensual delight."

In ancient Greek mythology the youth is considered the son of the beautiful Myrrha and her father, one of the kings of Cyprus, with whom she was madly in love. Unable to cope with pangs of conscience, she prayed to the gods to be changed into a myrrh tree, which became the source of aromatic resin. Time passed, and the trunk of the tree split; from it appeared the infant Adonis, who was cared for, fed, and raised by nymphs and by his mother's maid Lucina. Adonis, beloved of the goddess Aphrodite, met a tragic death while hunting. Hearing his dying cry, Aphrodite descended from the heavens and found him bleeding. His blood dyed the white petals of her sacred flower — the rose — forever changing their color to red. The image of the beautiful and prematurely slain Adonis became a symbol of beauty and the transience of life. The myth of Adonis and Aphrodite vividly depicts the tragedy of love and death, and also explains the origin of the red rose, linking it to the blood of the slain youth and the goddess’s grief. The red rose became a visible reminder of Adonis’s beauty and Aphrodite’s sorrow for him. It is precisely the widespread recognition and strong emotional charge of this myth that explains why Lord Henry Wotton refers to it.

However, since a homoerotic context is being considered, it is worth mentioning that Adonis is sometimes named as a lover of Dionysus.

Next we should turn to the myth of Narcissus, which also has two variants. The myth of Narcissus is an ancient Greek story about a beautiful youth who fell in love with his own reflection in water and died of unrequited love for himself. There are several versions of the myth, but they usually include the nymph Echo, who was also in love with Narcissus but was rejected. As punishment for pride and inability to love others, the youth was doomed to fall in love with himself and perish; a flower that bears his name sprang up at the place of his death. Another version has a youth named Ameinias (Aminius) in love with Narcissus instead of the nymph.

The parallel with the classical hero appears again in chapter eight. Dorian himself begins to mimic Narcissus by kissing his portrait:

"A feeling of pain crept over him as he thought of the desecration that was in store for the fair face on the canvas. Once, in boyish mockery of Narcissus, he had kissed, or feigned to kiss, those painted lips that now smiled so cruelly at him. Morning after morning he had sat before the portrait wondering at its beauty, almost enamoured of it, as it seemed to him at times. Was it to alter now with every mood to which he yielded? Was it to become a monstrous and loathsome thing, to be hidden away in a locked room, to be shut out from the sunlight that had so often touched to brighter gold the waving wonder of its hair? The pity of it! the pity of it!"

In his confession Basil Hallward also lists the guises in which he painted the youth:

"I had drawn you as Paris in dainty armour, and as Adonis with huntsman’s cloak and polished boar-spear. Crowned with heavy lotus-blossoms you had sat on the prow of Adrian’s barge, gazing across the green turbid Nile. You had leaned over the still pool of some Greek woodland and seen in the water’s silent silver the marvel of your own face"

In that context Paris likely stands for the famously beautiful Greek prince; Adonis is explicit. The one who sat on the emperor Hadrian’s galley wearing a wreath of heavy lotus-flowers and looked upon the turbid green Nile is Antinous. The youth bending over a lake admiring his own beauty is Narcissus.

All those “divine youths” die young: Paris is killed by Philoctetes’ poisoned arrow, Adonis by Ares (in the form of a boar), Antinous drowns in the river, Narcissus perishes for love of himself.

Note the floral transformations: Adonis and Narcissus both become flowers, and a plant is named after Antinous. The motif of flowers recurs throughout the novel in landscape descriptions and hero-comparisons:

"The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn", 'Dorian Gray burying his face in the great cool lilac-blossoms", "The laburnum will be as yellow next June as it is now. In a month there will be purple stars on the clematis, and year after year the green night of its leaves will hold its purple stars", "She trembled all over and shook like a white narcissus".

At the end of the novel Lord Henry calls Dorian Apollo and himself Marsyas:

“I want music to-night. It seems to me that you are the young Apollo and that I am Marsyas listening to you.”

In myth Marsyas challenged Apollo to a musical contest and lost; Apollo’s victorious lyre-playing humbled Marsyas. Early in the novel Lord Henry is Dorian’s mentor and prophet of the art of life—his rapturous speeches described as “brilliant improvisations.” Later the roles appear inverted: the once-inspirational speaker, who admired Dorian’s art of living, asks music of his pupil who has surpassed him.

Yes, they were a pretty couple: a handsome young man and an actress. But he did not even love her. Why? Because he loved her roles, the characters she embodied on stage, but not her herself. There is a dialogue between Dorian and Henry, where Gray says that she is never Sibyl Vane, but she is Juliet, Rosalind, etc.

He wanted to return to her not out of love, but because his conscience, embodied by the portrait, tormented him. And he accepted her death fairly easily. Yes, he grieved at first, but not for long. The next day he no longer cared.

Moreover, Dorian and Sibyl are similar. They are young, naive and suggestible (this refers to Dorian at the beginning of the novel). And he romanticized her death. Their relationship would have resembled a teenage fling.

There are some chances that Enid and Wednesday will become canon and fans are waiting for it. AND THEY'RE MAKING BASIL AND DORIAN BROTHERS. HOW DOES THAT WORK?

Netflix, I'll start a fire.