The word “music” appears all through the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. Although Oscar Wilde is the leader of the Aesthetic Movement and states “all art is quite useless” in the preface of this novel, he sets music as an exception of the famous aesthetic slogan “art for art’s sake”: music is not just for music’s sake. Wilde utilizes “music” as symbol and carrier of immorality: music highlights the errant thoughts of Henry Wotton, content of the yellow book and behavior of Dorian Gray, and music carries around the immoral hedonic ideas, transmitting the ideas from Henry and the yellow book to Dorian. Music is selected for its particular physical property.

Music characterizes the wickedness of Henry Wotton and his theories in the beginning of the novel. It first appears when Lord Henry explains why all influence is immoral by nature. He uses the analogy “[When someone is influenced,] he becomes the echo of someone else’s music” (Wilde 20). Here, “music” represents the violence that exploits the originality of other music, and forces it to become “echo”. That is to say, influence manipulates the nature of its target audience. This interpretation of “music” also works when Dorian subconsciously uses “musical” (Wilde 21) to describe Henry’s voice, and compares the impact of Henry’s words to the impact of music: “Music had stirred him like that. Music had troubled him many times. …Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel!  One could not escape from them!” (Wilde 22). The repetition of “music”, “words” and “how” emphasizes the similarity of music and Henry’s words due to their common properties: we can see that Henry’s speech and music are comparable because they both agitated Dorian, and left him in bemusement and excitement. The four consecutive exclamatory sentences, together with their growing length, indicate the strong command within Lord Henry’s words, that is to say, another common property of music and Henry’s words is their dictatorial irresistibility. Lord Henry tells Dorian “The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it” (Wilde 21), and “Nothing can cure soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the sense but the soul” (Wilde 23). Using the words “only” and “nothing”, Wotton makes absolute conclusions that leave no space for Dorian to debate. The phrases “yield to it” and “cure the soul” sound really attractive to a fresh lad who just arrives in the sophisticated and appealing high society. As Dorian realizes his own fascination with senses, under Henry’s influence, he feels so ashamed that his unaware temptation is revealed by this stranger that even the hands of Henry “moved, as he spoke, like music” (Wilde 23) – everything about Henry seems to have the sinful power of music and soon deprives Dorian’s purity.

After Lord Henry instills his own hedonic view about beauty, youth, pleasure and life into Dorian, and changes Dorian’s mind and behavior, he uses the analogy of music again, this time, to describe Dorian’s response: “[to observe the change in Dorian is] to hear one’s own intellectual views echoed back to one with all the added music of passion and youth” (Wilde 37). “Passion” and “youth” can be interpreted as fever and naivety, respectively. So “the added music of passion and youth” refers to the young lad Dorian’s precipitate eagerness of beauty and pleasure – he suddenly realizes his own pulchritude and makes a Faustian wish to preserve his beauty on impulse: “If it were only the other way! If it were I who was to be young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that – for that – I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!” (Wilde 28). The repetition of “if it were”, “for that” and “would give” highlights Dorian’s fervent will for eternal youth. In specific, the epimone in the last three sentences stresses that Dorian is so obsessed by the idea of perpetual beauty Henry introduced to him that he would readily give up his ego. As Dorian absorbs Henry’s hedonic idea, and even unconsciously practices them, the word “music” starts to be linked to Dorian, which foreshadows that Dorian would bring Henry’s profligate ideas into reality.

The yellow book is also associated with music to allude the fascination and vices it contains. On the night after Sibyl Vane’s death, Dorian reads the yellow book for the first time. He mentions: “The mere cadence of the sentences, the subtle monotony of their music, so full as it was of complex refrains and movements elaborately repeated, produced in the mind of the lad, as he passed from chapter to chapter, a form of reverie, a malady of dreaming…” (Wilde 121). This sentence is so long that it develops a sense of tension, which suggests that the yellow book nonetheless stirs Dorian and captures him, though Wilde portrays it as dreamlike and surreal. Here, “music” not only describes the tumult that the yellow book brought to Dorian at that moment, but also foreshadows the detrimental effect of the book afterwards. The outrageous content – “those natural rebellions that wise men still call sin” and “the life of sense” – offers Dorian hints about how to practice hedonism. And according to the next chapter: “For years, Dorian Gray could not free himself from the influence of this book. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he never sought to free himself from it” (Wilde 123). The second sentence uses “or” to revise the claim of the first sentence and replaces “could not” with “never sought to”, which shows Dorian is so addicted to the yellow book that he cannot help himself. This fact agrees with the omen “music” which suggests the yellow book’s control over Dorian.

“Music” is then transferred to Dorian, together with its contagious immorality. Affected by the yellow book, Dorian starts to pursue sensory contentment, and once in a while “devoted himself entirely to [barbaric] music”. This implies that the aberrant thoughts of the book were conveyed to Dorian. It was a period that “the harsh intervals and shrill discords of barbaric music stirred him at times when Schubert’s grace, and Chopin’s beautiful sorrows, and the mighty harmonies of Beethoven himself, fell unheeded to his ear” (Wilde 129). The adjectives “harsh” and “shrill” suggest that the music is chaotic: it probably offers fresh sensuous experience for Dorian, but, more importantly, it prevents quiet moments that allow Dorian to reflect on his own sins. Music not just symbolizes the immorality – it actually plays a role in the transfer of evil by blocking Dorian’s chance to regret and confess to himself.

Though there is a time when “Schubert’s grace, and Chopin’s beautiful sorrows, and the mighty harmonies of Beethoven himself, fell unheeded to his [Dorian’s] ear”, years later, on the day after James Vane is confirmed to be dead, Dorian plays Chopin, the music that he once abandons (Wilde 202－203), and Henry remarks “How lovely that thing you are playing is!” (p. 206). The desertion and retrieval of classical music suggest that the classics are related to the trouble of Dorian’s past – the death of the actress, Sibyl Vane. When Dorian tries to avoid classical music and listens to “barbaric music” instead, he means to ignore his previous romance, which is closely related to plays and classical music, so that his sense of guilty might vanish. When Sibyl’s brother, James Vane, is finally dead, the burden of Dorian’s past evaporates: no one else would wish to send him to jail or to death. Hence “a cry of joy broke from his lips” (Wilde 199). The outbreak of Chopin actually climaxes change of Dorian’s attitude and reaction upon tragedies. The fact that Dorian feels delighted and plays ethereal music after James’ death reflects the dissolution of Dorian’s regret and conscience, and thus suggests Dorian’s loss of soul and emotional feelings: Dorian is conquered by music, the evil messenger.

In the penultimate chapter, when Dorian and Henry are both aged, Lord Henry remarks “What an exquisite life you [Dorian] have had! … Nothing has been hidden from you. And it has all been to you no more than the sound of music. It has not marred you. You are still the same!” (Wilde 206). Time is compared to music not only because it left no physical trace on Dorian, but also because it witnessed the corruption of Dorian. Lord Henry also commented that “You [Dorian] have set yourself to music” (Wilde 207). Henry associated Dorian with music, because Dorian had such a gorgeous exterior, just like the pleasant sound of music, and his life was full of fanciful sensory pleasures, like the acoustical pleasure music offers. Yet the link between Dorian and music also allude the irreality of Dorian’s dazzling physiognomy. The word “music”, originally used to describe Lord Henry and latter related to the yellow book, is eventually used to depict Dorian. Dorian committed that “he had been an evil influence to others” (Wilde 209) at the end, just like Basil Hallward said that “your [Henry Wotton’s] influence would be bad” in the beginning of the novel. Saying that Dorian is “set to music” is actually saying that Dorian Gray is transferred into another Henry Wotton. Here, the use of “music” essentially shows Dorian’s complete assimilation of Henry’s pernicious hedonistic theories and the yellow book’s insidious suggestions on the practice of hedonism, and, thus, shows Dorian’s irrevocable decadence.

Music is quite different from other forms of arts because of its invisibility, which makes it the best representation of influence and transition. For instance, though Henry initially introduces hedonism to Dorian, he then gives Dorian the yellow book, which helps Henry to maintain his influence upon Dorian without contacting him too often that the public might suspect his role in Dorian’s degeneracy. Thus it is not surprising that the public scarcely blame Henry for Dorian’s corruption because Henry’s effect is “invisible” to them, just like music. In the case of the yellow book, because the book is barely presented to the public, people would hardly take it into consideration when they think of Dorian’s sins, which means the yellow book is also “invisible”. Due to Dorian’s constant beauty, the transition of Dorian’s character is not reflected in his appearance; that is to say, the change in Dorian’s soul is unobvious to the public. Wilde chooses music instead of other forms of art on purpose: he chooses music for its invisibility.

Throughout the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wilde uses “music” as a metaphoric device to shed light on the trend of evil and immorality from Lord Henry and the yellow book to Dorian Gray, and on the shift of Dorian’s personality. While the picture only reflects the sins Dorian commits, music not only shows the source of Dorian’s hedonic beliefs, but also shows the transition in Dorian’s self-conscience. Hence, music is a supplement to the picture. Without music, the novel would have been incomplete. This is probably why Oscar Wilde, though a promoter of aestheticism, utilizes music regardless of the viewpoint of the Aesthetic Movement which claims that real art takes no part in molding moral identity.

Work Cited：

Wilde, Oscar. (2003). The Picture of Dorian Gray. New York, NY: Penguin Putnam Inc.