The Picture of Dorian Grey – Oscar Wilde

‘Combining elements of the Gothic horror novel and decadent French fiction, the book focuses on a striking premise: As Dorian Gray sinks into a life of crime and gross sensuality, his body retains perfect youth and vigour while his recently painted portrait grows day by day into a hideous record of evil, which he must keep hidden from the world.’

At the beginning of the book, Dorian Gray exists as something of an ideal and is the character of youth and beauty.

Dorian is extremely vain and becomes certain that his youth and physical attractiveness is his own attributes and that he is nothing without them which worries him as he feels that he is nothing without them.

Also after a brief conversation with Lord Henry, Dorian curses his fate and pledges his soul as he can't bare to be without these attributes and would rather the painting to age and sin instead of him as he cant imagine the burden of ageing or sinning.

An important part of the book is when he falls for a girl called Sibyl which tests his commitment to his philosophy: his love of the young girl nearly leads him to dispense with Lord Henry's teaching's.

However his love turns out to be as shallow as he is as he breaks her heart which results in her taking her own life.

After he finds out about Sibyl's death he realizes the first change in the painting while he stays youthful.

This Dorian's sin's grow over the years and his likeness in Basil's portrait grows more hideous.

Sibyl Vane - A poor, beautiful young girl who falls for Dorian. 

My original idea was to use Dorian Gray as my character as I found the different sides to him intriguing as the painting shows quite a dark side to Dorian which I would like to portray as well as the youthful and innocent side to him. I wasn't quite sure how I would do that but it just seemed like an interesting route to follow.

However after some thought I feel that although it would be good to push myself further and explore newer things I'm not sure id be able to pull off this idea as it would include prosthetic's which is something I haven't ever really tried or explored. As this timed assessment would be about continuity I need to ensure I am able to pull it off both time which I'm not sure I would be able to do if I kept with Dorian being my character.

After looking at the other main character in this novel I felt that Dorian's first love Sibyl could be an interesting archetype to explore as she killed herself after getting her heart broken by Dorian. She drowned herself and in the film Dorian finds out about her death as someone brings him the dress Dorian gave her covered in dirt as if she'd drowned herself. 

I felt that this would be a good part of the film to use as it s quite significant as he realise's the first changes to the painting done by Basil and also goes into a downhill spiral.