The Picture of Dorian Gray

"The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde is a book from the 1800s that explores ideas about beauty, doing what's right and wrong, and what art really means, using the life of Dorian Gray as an example; Dorian Gray is a young, good-looking man whose painted picture shows the bad things that happen because of his selfish and pleasure-seeking life, while he stays young and handsome on the outside. The story begins in an artist's workplace, where Basil Hallward is creating a painting of Dorian Gray, who is very good-looking, but he doesn’t understand how much he affects people. Basil’s friend, Lord Henry Wotton, talks about the painting and says he is interested in Dorian. Lord Henry implies that he will try to change Dorian, even if it's not in a good way. As the book starts, Dorian starts to really like his own looks, which leads to problems as he tries to balance how he looks with the bad choices he makes.