Picture of Dorian Gray II: Ch. 1-2

The characters in The Picture of Dorian Gray are representations of the personified concepts they refer to. For instance, Lord Henry relates Dorian Gray to Beauty and Basil to Genius when they are first discussing him. Later, he says "Beauty is a form of Genius - is higher, indeed, than Genius, as it needs no explanation" (16). This is illustrative of the reason why Dorian Gray is worshipped by Basil: Basil is Genius and Gray is Beauty, so Gray is higher than Basil. Furthermore, Basil frequently needs to explain himself (for instance, when he states that he has put too much of himself into his work), whereas Lord Henry recognizes Dorian Gray's beauty as soon as they see each other; thus, Beauty, Dorian Gray, requires no explanation, whereas Genius, Basil, does. Lord Henry then mentions a third capitalized personification, Thought, that can be considered to be representative of Lord Henry himself. It is likely that as the book continues more personified capitalized Concepts will arise as more characters do.