Morality in Oscar Wilde‘s The Picture of Dorian Gray

Abstract

The Picture of Dorian Gray is the only novel written by Oscar Wilde that made a
strong impression as much in the Victorian times as the contemporary age. This essay aims
at analysing the morality behind the story of Dorian Gray through a close philosophical
approach; mainly, through Nietzsche‘s criticism on morality. Furthermore, the objectives of
this paper are: to understand the social background in which works such as Wilde‘s The
Picture of Dorian Gray and Nietzsche‘s On the Genealogy of Morality existed, to come to
some conclusions about the intention of Wilde when he defended the purpose of aestheticism
considering that many of his works dealt with morality and to reflect on the role of morality
in art.