Today as a society we seem to stress the importance of beauty. Beautiful people are everywhere, on TV, magazines, billboards, and even on some cereal boxes. We put more emphasis on physical beauty than inner beauty. This reminded me of the ideas put in Dorain Gray's head by Lord Henry in The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.
When Dorian meets Lord Henry he is impressionable and Henry takes full advantage of the situation. He convinces Dorian that beauty is the most important thing. Dorian takes to heart what Lord Henry says and becomes terribly frightened of becoming old and ugly. That's when he asks to trade his soul for eternal beauty. Dorian never ages, but a painting of him not only ages but shows just how wicked he has been. Dorian becomes obssessed with other beautiful things and starts collecting them. Although Dorian is only worried with his outside beauty, he does like to see how his actions affect the painting.
The extreme way with which Dorian Gray attempts to preserve his beauty are just as extreme as the way people today try to stay ageless. People today get botox, plastic surgery, and other procedures done do get rid of signs of aging. Dorian preserves his body by giving up his soul. People of today and Dorian Gray have social pressures to keep themselves physcially beautiful. Today between all the movie stars and adds for this that and the other thing, there seems to be alot of pressure for people to be beautiful. Dorian Gray had the influence of Lord Henry which led to the idea rooting and then taking over his mind. These pressures ended up being detrimental to everyones health. Dorain went crazy and killed himself, while people today get addicted to these treatments.
If only more emphasis was put on inner beauty.
"If it were only the other way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that - for that - I would give everything!"
