Is this 'good' or natural one might ask, if Basil is one of the moral characters of the book and defying nature and wishing for eternal youth is immoral? Henry's counsel to Dorian that Dorian yield to his every natural temptation and not bow down to societal morality could be seen as an endorsement of the natural, but Henry also celebrates youth to an unnatural, unchanging degree and he too falls in love with Dorian's image before Dorian. Also, Henry, like Basil, is clearly amoral and self-interested himself, as seen in his disapproval that Dorian's impulses do not conform to Henry's own when Dorian is attracted to a pretty young actress. Henry is a tempting figure, like Mephistopheles, but Dorian easily outdoes him in 'evil' or transgressions and unnaturalness. Dorian's love of youth, spawned by Henry, takes on a life of...
The plots suggest defying nature and wishing for eternal life and youth is evil, but there also, as suggested by the journeys of both texts, seems to be an additional, natural, or innate tendency to degeneration and evil in the souls both main protagonists that exceeds even the expectations of their tempters. And for all of their unnaturalness and evil, the protagonists remain the most 'naturally' compelling characters of their respective dramas, given the unrealistic and 'unnatural' one-dimensionality and weakness of those individuals who are unfortunate enough to encounter Dorian and Faustus.
This literary parallel also underlined in the final description of the portrait of what Dorian Gray has become at the end of the book, Chapter 20: "The thing was still loathsome -- more loathsome, if possible, than before -- and the scarlet dew that spotted the hand seemed brighter, and more like blood newly spilled. Then he trembled. Had it been merely vanity that had made him do his
Indeed, Dorian Gray does end up doing much wrong to Miss Vane which induces her to commit suicide. However, her brother, a worldly seaman, does not get the opportunity to fulfill his promise, for he too ends up dead through the machinations of the evil Dorian Gray. Dorian's third mistake occurs at the conclusion of the story when he decides to destroy the painting which after many years has become
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