The Picture of Dorian Gray - PODG #6 - Distancing from the Murder

In Chapter 13 of The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian Gray murders Basil Hallward, the painter who painted the portrait of Dorian that collects Dorian's sins. The murder takes place in the room upstairs where Dorian keeps the cursed portrait. It is explained that "an uncontrollable feeling of hatred for Basil Hallward" took over Dorian "as though it had been suggested to him by the image on the canvas" (115). The painting influences Dorian to do bad things, since Dorian himself understands that he will never take on any of the repercussions in his own looks. Dorian feels loathing for Basil, an intense dislike of him, described as "the mad passions of a hunted animal" (115). Calling Dorian "a hunted animal" beings to light his fears of being sought out for doing the horrible things that he has done.

While committing the murder, Dorian tries to distance himself from what he is doing. During the struggle there is "the horrible sound of someone choking with blood" (116). Using the pronoun "someone" distances Dorian from the fact that it is Basil making this sound, and that he is killing his friend. The painter's "outstretched arms" and "grotesque stiff-fingered hands" are focused on during the murder, bringing to light how Dorian is not viewing the person being killed as an entire being, let alone a friend (116).

After the murder, Dorian admits that he is distancing himself from the murder when he states that "he felt that the secret of the whole thing was not to realize the situation" (116). The corpse of Basil Hallward is never referred to as being his, but is instead labeled as "the thing", "the murdered man", and "it" (116-117). Dorian views the body as peaceful, stating that if not for the wound and the blood, "one would have said that the man was simply asleep" (116). The idea that the body looks like it is sleeping conveys how Dorian is still trying to process that he killed Basil and yet is avoiding associating death with the body. He remarks to himself that Basil has simply "gone out of his life," also referring to a sense of leaving that is not death (116). Both sleep and leaving are not permanent and can therefore be reversed, while death cannot be. The body of Basil Hallward is also described as looking "like a dreadful wax image," which reduces the reality of the body being flesh and blood (117). Wax, like a dead body, is a substance that is first warm, but then cools and holds it's shape until heated again.