Wilde, Oscar- Dorian's lifestyle

Wilde, Oscar - Dorian's lifestyle

In chapter 11 the protagonist’s life as a dandy is described. Dorian's lifestyle is based on the cult of beauty. As a matter of fact, Dorian Gray has been taught the principles of Hedonism by Lord Henry Wotton and devotes himself to the search for pleasure and new experiences to satisfy the five senses. In Dorian's opinion, life is the greatest ofthe arts. However, his lifestyle disregards moral conventions and even human feelings.
The reader is also informed about Dorian Gray’s double life: on the one hand, his beauty seems to be everlasting; on the other hand, the marks of age and moral corruption appears on his portrait, which gets more and more horrid. When he return home from one of his long and mysterious absences, he goes upstairs to the locked room in which he keeps his picture; he stands in front of it with a mirror, looking now at the horrible face on the canvas, and now at the beautiful young face in the mirror, and laughs.
Dorian loves to be surrounded by exotic and elegant things. As a matter of fact, one or twice in the winter Dorian’s beautiful house hosts dinner and parties and he chooses the best music, food and decorations. A lot of his guests, especially the youngest men, think that Dorian embodies the perfect gentleman, as he has all that is required to be one: culture and manners.