Dorian Gray
Dorian Gray is a character from Oscar Wilde's 1890 novel whose portrait ages while he remains young.
The name has become shorthand for someone who appears unnaturally youthful, or more broadly, for hidden corruption behind a beautiful facade: He's the Dorian Gray of Hollywood—sixty years old and not a wrinkle.
A Dorian Gray effect describes any situation where decay is concealed or displaced.
- portraitArtistic depiction of someone
- mirrorReflective viewing surface
- dark secretConcealed shameful knowledge
- Faustian bargainRuinous exchange for power
- aestheticismValuing beauty above ethics
Oscar Wilde · yellow book · self-destruction · guilt · corruption · moral decay · Salome · fear · Victorian literature · soul · hedonism · dandy · moral relativism · decadence · eternal youth · aging gracefully · narcissism · fin de siècle
- Fictional CharactersAlice, Oliver Twist, Hermione Granger, Harry Potter, Bilbo Baggins
- British LiteratureShakespeare, Dickens, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Austen
- cautionary talesIcarus, Prometheus, Faust, Dr. Faustus, Pandora
- immortalityimmortality, eternal life, immortals, everlasting life, deathlessness
- literary charactersSherlock Holmes, Scout Finch, Elizabeth Bennet, Macbeth, Huck Finn
- 1890s LiteratureDracula, Invisible Man, War of the Worlds, Heart of Darkness, Three Sisters
Dorian GrayEbenezer Scrooge
Jean Valjean · Raskolnikov · Darth Vader · Anakin Skywalker · Saint Augustine
Dorian GrayQuasimodo
Fictional deformed cathedral bellringer
Shrek · Cyrano de Bergerac · the Beast · Phantom of the Opera · Elephant Man
Dorian GrayJob
Biblical patience exemplar
Hester Prynne · Oedipus · Christ figure · martyr · Prometheus