Victorianism to Modernity: Case of Sherlock Holmes and The Picture of Dorian Gray

Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the late nineteenth century, the protagonist of novels and short stories belonging to the literary genre of the yellow deductive, whose founder was Edgar Allan Poe with his Auguste Dupin. The Picture of Dorian Gray is the only novel of Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), published in 1890. Dorian Gray has his portrait painted as a young man, then keeps the picture in his attic. Gray stays young, while, the hidden portrait changes to show his advancing age and increasing depravity.

The most sensational thing about the sherlock holmes is not the cases which he solves but the personality of Holmes is the most sensational aspect of the novel. Sherlock Holmes, a consulting detective famous for his detecting genius, a bachelor wholly dedicated to his profession. Dr. John H. Watson, a physician friend of Holmes, who customarily assists him on his cases and is Holmes's admiring historian. The most interesting relationship in the novel is that of Dorian and Lord Henry. The latter has often been identified with the author — understandably so, since Wilde, like his fictional character, filled every conversation with brilliant epigrams and delighted in shocking Victorian sensibilities. This identification has tempted some, therefore, to identify Dorian with Lord Alfred Douglas, the young man whose friendship with Wilde would eventually bring about the writer's ruin. However, the men did not become acquainted until 1891, so Douglas could scarcely have been Wilde's model in the initial publication one year earlier. In 1895, Lord Douglas's father, the marquess of Queensberry, publicly called Wilde a sodomite, a charge that led to three trials and culminated in Wilde's conviction for homosexuality and his sentence of two years in prison. The first trial, occasioned by Wilde's unwise suit against Queensberry for libel, is of literary interest because of the way The Picture of Dorian Gray importantly and ironically figures in the testimony. Alan Moore did something unique in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. He took pop culture characters from the turn of the century culture such as the Invisible Man, Allan Quartermain, Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde and incorporated them into a story arch where these characters provide service for the British Government. When the 2003 movie came out I realized that it was an original story that featured Dorian Gray, who was never present in the comic series. Seeing his complex character on the silver screen gravitated me towards Oscar Wilde's classic The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Queensberry's defense attorney, Edward Carson, used The Picture of Dorian Gray extensively in his cross-examination of Wilde. He forced Wilde to admit that the book Dorian receives in one passage is Huysmans's novel À rebours (1884; Against the Grain, 1922), considered by many at the time to be scandalous. Interestingly, the name of the Mephistophelean character who gives Dorian the book, Lord Henry, had not been raised in the questioning. Instead, Carson had read aloud three long passages from the text, all spoken by Hallward. The first describes Dorian to ...