Hedonism hedonism hedonism!

Dorian Grey often falls into philosophical and what’s called ‘decadent literature’. Decadence, broadly, refers literally to decay and so in that sense, The Picture of Dorian Grey is a perfectly decadent book.
The decadence movement boasted the superiority of aesthetics over logic and naturalism. Decadence, as a term, referring to the decay of societies as a result of the loss of cultural standard–Case in point, the over expansion of the Roman Empire. French writers such as Baudelaire exalted in being decadent writers, romanticizing the decline of Rome and scoffing at progressive cultural agendas. This is where that slipperly slope to Ayn Rand makes itself available.
In the Picture of Dorian Grey, Oscar Wilde challenges and stylizes decadence.
Oscar Wilde is of course extremely famous as a satirist, my favorite of Wilde’s is actually The Importance of Being Earnest, and I feel he can’t help but be silly with Lord Henry’s character. Lord Henry can, in fact, only make me think of Graham Chapman’s Oscar Wilde sketch. But I digress.
Dorian listens to Lord Henry’s hedonistic philosophy and determines that the only important quality in life is beauty, priding beauty over all things. Wilde tells us just what he really thinks of this in what he has happen to Dorian, the lives Dorian destroys, and the hideousness of Dorian’s aging portrait. Beauty is a mask and fleeting, and the hideousness of your actions will always catch up to you.