Throughout Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray the novel is slowly deconstructing all of the alleged values in which it is originally supposed to support. Although the novel begins with ideals about the importance and power that art can have on the artist's and the viewer's soul, that motif is quickly evaporated. Once the reader reaches the final pages they realize that the novel is merely a facade for beauty and dedication to art while in reality it is a story full of deception and the cruelties that can exists within one's soul and how they are portrayed to the world, completely independent of art. Essentially the novel tells the corruption of one, Dorian Gray, and the implications that deception can have on ones soul, all under the guise of aestheticism.

In the beginning of the novel Dorian's soul is pure and innocent and the painting...