.

             But what caused this change in Dorian Gray? What made him mutate from the innocent and pure Adonis to the cruel and cold murderer that ".dug the knife into the great vein that is behind the ear, crushing the man's head down on the table."? By selling his soul to the devil, he invited evil into his life - an evil which took the form of Lord Henry, whose radical influence on Dorian was the onset of a chain reaction that was to end only by Dorian's own hand, some 20 years later. Of the two opposing forces in his life, good and bad, Basil Hallward and Lord Henry, the latter always seemed to have a stronger grip on Dorian, and a definite and final grip after Dorian eliminated the creator of his misery, the one person that urged him to pray in repentance. .

             Certainly, Dorian becomes greatly disturbed by the portrait, by its mere presence in the same room. Not only knowing what he has done, what sins or crimes he has committed, he has to face them in his portrait each day. When he sees the alterations on the portrait and decides to hide it in his childhood study room, is he repentant? Does he wish he could withdraw his prayer for perpetual beauty, like he does later in the novel: "There is no one with whom I would not change places."? In essence, when he wraps the portrait in the purple satin coverlet, that ".had perhaps served often as a pall for the dead," he is wrapping the physical manifestation of his conscience and soul, to bury it in the dusty past of the old study room. At least now he is free to live in ignorance of both the past and the portrait, and continue leading a double life. "And yet the thing would still live on. It would always be alive." .

             To be able to continually ignore the portrait, to live in a state of denial, Dorian has several different methods. The novel goes to great lengths describing Dorian's sudden obsession with art, music, perfumes, jewels, embroideries etc.