Introduction: Wilde's Paradox and Contemporary Relevance

Oscar Wilde’s declaration that "all art is useless" contrasts sharply with The Picture of Dorian Gray's moral indictment of Victorian society. This tension reveals the novel’s modern core: it exposes the spiritual crisis of our age through the fissures between beauty and decay, freedom and responsibility

I. Youth Worship: The Existential Panic Behind Appearance Anxiety

Dorian’s plea—“I would give everything for reversed fate!”—echoes in today’s anti-aging industry and filter dependency. When agelessness becomes commodified, do we, like Dorian, reduce life to biological existence? Wilde mocks this: “Beauty is the wonder of wonders,” yet when beauty divorces humanity, it becomes a gilded cage for the soul

II. Moral Relativism: Ethical Fog in the Post-Truth Era

Lord Henry’s sophistry—“Influencing others is immoral”—masks hedonism. Modernity amplifies this ambiguity: online violence under the guise of justice, consumerism branded as freedom. Through Basil, Wilde warns: “Losing the sense of sin means losing the sense of justice.” Freedom without moral grounding is an abyss

III. The Collapsing Boundary Between Art and Life

Sybil Vane’s tragedy lies in Dorian’s love for her “as Juliet,” not herself. This foreshadows contemporary role-playing traps: professional personas, social masks, digital avatars. When life becomes performance, the true self is locked away like the portrait. Wilde notes: “The actor’s craft epitomizes feeling,” but if existence is mere acting, the soul becomes homeless

Conclusion: Rebuilding the Soul in a Shattered Mirror

Dorian’s stabbing of the portrait is a paradoxical redemption. Wilde implies: only by acknowledging the soul’s shadows can integration occur. For modern people, the “portrait” is the curated social media image, the flawless resume—confronting its decay allows us, like the novel’s end, to “restore purity in brokenness” and touch authenticity