My Opinion On The Book The Picture of Dorian Gray and its Story Line

I recently finished the book The Picture of Dorian Gray, which at parts had excellent story telling. The storyline of the book is a very complex subject that deals with the dilemma of growing old, and I believe that Oscar Wilde, its author, does indeed use great storytelling techniques to help make the complex topic more understandable. For example, when Basil finishes the portrait of Gray and then shows him, Dorian speaks about his sadness concerning growing old. The passage, “How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June... If it were only the other way! If it were I who was to be always 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,” contributes a lot of emotion to the story, thus making it easy for the reader to see that Dorian does indeed wish to trade his soul for eternal youth. Although the book was written in the in the late 19^th century, Wilde does a grand job at really explaining how indeed Gray does become young forever, and emphasizes how by including this commentary. Something that I personally believe separates the good books from the bad ones is the authors’ ability to convey complex ideas using simple and understandable language. Wilde does not do this often in his text as many of his chapters, especially one in particular are quite confusing; however, in this particular passage, Gray’s wishes are expressed quite simply, which helps the reader follow the storyline. At the beginning of the book, I regretted choosing the text because I thought it would be a very dry read, but by the time I finished, I really did enjoy the story and how it ended.