BOOK CLUB Academiae Obscuriae – “The Portrait of Dorian Gray”

The Academiae Obscuriae Book Club invites you once again to step into the depths of Dark Academia — where literature meets the strange, the intellectual, and the unknown.

In our next meeting, we’ll dive into The Portrait of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde.

The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde, tells the story of Dorian Gray, a beautiful and naïve young man who becomes the object of fascination for the painter Basil Hallward. Basil paints his portrait, capturing his youth and beauty almost perfectly.

When he meets Lord Henry Wotton, Dorian is seduced by a hedonistic view of life: the idea that pleasure, beauty and youth are the only things that truly matter. Disturbed by the fear of growing old, Dorian wishes that the portrait would age in his place, while he remains young forever.

His wish comes true. From then on, Dorian gives himself over to a life of excess, vanity and moral cruelty. Outwardly, he remains beautiful and untouched, but the portrait begins to reveal the degradation of his soul, becoming increasingly monstrous.

The novel is a critique of superficiality, the obsession with beauty, moral corruption and the attempt to separate appearance from conscience. In the end, Dorian tries to destroy the portrait in order to free himself from guilt, but ends up destroying himself instead.