The Main Symbol

    The main symbol of The Picture of Dorian Gray is obviously the flowers.  They are repeatedly

mentioned.  The flowers represent Dorian Gray's charm, cuteness, or whatever one calls it.  Youth

and innocence are Gray's strongest asset.  He eventually smolders it by killing his fiancé, 

by killing his friend, and by smoking opium, which are extracted seeds from a type of flower.  As

Gray starts killing people, the mention of flowers, the representative of beauty, slowly fades away.

Gray's corruptive life represents a withering flower.  Like a flower that had been snipped during its

time of blossom was Gray's wish for his beauty to remain constant and for the portrait to bear his

sins.  The portrait did bear his sins.  As a consequence, his soul was dead long before he had

been killed.