The Victorian Gothic

 halloween costume 

The religeous and scientific uphealvals agreed a fascination with ghost stories and tales of horror. EG. Allan Poe (1809-49). Gothic tradition was from the previous century, often set in the remote past, with mysteriies, ghosts, exotic castles, forests and dreams, with extreme language and erotic elements. It allowed a world free from restraints but also containing characters with psycological obsessions.

(This will be further studied in link with Angela Carter- The Bloody Chamber, Wuthering Heights and Macbeth. 

Mirrors in the gothic are used for a similar purpose as the function given to Basil´s painting in Dorian Gray. In 1891 William James described a number of real life cases of "alternating personality" suggesting the human mind was capable of fragmentation.  The painting reflects "the real Dorian" while Dorian´s young, beautiful face remains intact with the passing of time. Dorian turns out to destroy his initial innocence into vanity and cruelty.
This theme clearly withholds the obsession of the 19th century about the relationship between image and reality.

This is still a current debate as can be seen for example with apperance and reality within the world of the media and it´s effect on society. Beauty of models is valued above the concequences involved in reaching such canons for young girls. Devoting their lifes to such canons can involve developing life costing psychological obsessions for some, such as anorexia and bulimia. (Can a slight correlation be drawn between such cases and Dorian?)

Beauty and asthetics is a concern of the human being that will always remain a constant. Having a relevant theme is one of the many, many reasons why Dorian Gray has overcome the test of time (one of the proofs for a classic).