Gazing with satisfaction into his own perfidious portrait, Dorian Gray fatally falls in love with his amoral self. The title character of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, through a demonic bargain, surrenders his soul in order to maintain forever the youthful and seemingly innocent beauty that all of society adores. Because of his ravenous pride and absorption with personal pleasure, however, he exchanges his innocence for the dark sins of debauchery and murder. Under the influence of his terrible soul, which haunts his dreams and drives his actions, he places his own interests before all else, abandoning loyalty and love for violence and hatred. The story of Dorian Gray essentially illustrates that the unbridled narcissist ineluctably corrupts his own soul and destroys the lives of the people whom he influences.

Dorian and his good looks first exert a significant influence on his artist-friend Basil Hallward, who develops the potential for vanity in Dorian. Basil seeks Dorian’s friendship and derives inspiration for his painting from his presence, creating through his admiration the infamous portrait that will bear the physical burdens of age and sin for Dorian. At Lord Henry’s encouragement, Dorian abandons the quest for goodness and seeks only pleasure, exulting in the pleasures of beauty and youth, which “is the one thing worth having” (Wilde 17). The eternity of Dorian’s youthful appearance, along with his quest to make himself “perfect by the worship of beauty,” creates the enduring damnation that Dorian brings upon himself through self-worship (Wilde 106). He often spends hours looking at his own terrible image in the painting, delighting in the perfect beauty of his face that he sees reflected in a mirror alongside the portrait. As he continues to gaze, he becomes “more and more enamoured of his own beauty, more and more interested in the corruption of his own soul” (Wilde 105). The parallel structure of this line emphasizes the link between Dorian’s beauty and his soul’s corruption. Just as Narcissus cannot tear himself away from the reflecting water for love of his own image, Dorian cannot linger far from his portrait for long without returning to it, whereupon he again admires himself and takes dark satisfaction in his physical immunity from the consequences of the profligate life he leads (Wilde 115). His fascination with the increasing evil of his soul’s image augments his pride and only inspires him to continue on the path of amorality that corrupts his soul. This cycle of perpetually worsening sin derives essentially from Dorian’s narcissistic adoration of himself and his devotion to self-worship through pleasure and debauchery.

The degenerate state of Dorian’s soul does not, however, remain isolated only in him, as Dorian holds much influence over people attracted to his charming and youthful appearance. Lord Henry aphoristically describes the connection between soul and influence when he says that “to influence a person is to give him one’s own soul” (Wilde 14). Dorian, with his blackened and gnarled soul, thus has a powerfully malevolent effect upon the people with whom he associates. He drives Sibyl Vane to commit suicide out of grief resulting from his vain superficiality and complete devotion to his own whims (Wilde 80). After associating with Dorian for a while, many of his closest friends leave him in disgust at his ways or with their reputations disgraced through affiliation with him. Lord Stavely shuns Dorian and sneeringly alludes to his lechery, despite their onetime friendship. Other members of London’s high society, such as the Duke of Berwick, refuse to remain in a room when Dorian enters it. Basil cites Sir Henry Ashton and the Duke of Perth as examples of people who have suffered because of Dorian’s influence, having to leave England in shame because of the actions that he inspired (Wilde 123). Unable to return to respectable society, Adrian Singleton turns to narcotics to escape his depression and compensate for his lack of companions, living his days in the darkness of an awful opium den (Wilde 154). Even Lord Henry’s sister has suffered the loss of her reputation at the hands of Dorian’s association and influence (Wilde 124). When Dorian brings Basil to see the wicked portrait of his soul, his friend decries the devilish look in its eyes and cannot believe the extent of evil that Dorian must have committed to craft such a corrupted soul. Dorian, suddenly filled with loathing for Basil, then feels driven by the foul painting to murder his innocent friend (Wilde 129). He thus destroys his friend’s life because of the influence that the image of his own, terrible soul exerts upon him. Its corruption has gained independence and Dorian now falls under the influence of his dark creation, for he has looked with delight too long upon its awful sins while his fair image gleams in the mirror.

Dorian’s narcissistic love for his own image leads to the corruption of his soul and the ruination of the people whom he influences. He gazes with delight upon his perfect beauty while taking dark satisfaction in the growing sins that appear on the portrait of his soul. The more he looks upon the portrait, the farther he falls into the sin of pride, causing the continuation of the egoistic cycle of sin. This darkness that arises in his soul from his self-worship contaminates the people with whom he associates, tarnishing many reputations and driving people to suicide and narcotics for escape. Eventually, Dorian’s dark soul causes him to kill his own friend, as it has gained enough power to control even its owner. This sin grows in Dorian because of his narcissistic adoration for youthful beauty, and his demonic wish to keep that beauty forever eventually consumes him completely. His vain soul grown dark and malignant, Dorian inflicts his maleficent will on the very people who adore him for his seeming boyish innocence.