The Pixels of Dorian Gray: Wilde, Video Games, and the Aesthetics of Change

Abstract: This paper compares Oscar Wilde's 1891 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray to the 2023 indie game The Secret Life of Dorian Pink , considering the capacity of ludic mechanics to expose, assess, and challenge Victorian themes. Focusing on intersecting themes of change, aestheticism, and performance, we argue that the game uses Wilde's text to examine the limitations of change within the present-oriented world view of aestheticism. We read the game as interrogating the playful moral dichotomies of Wilde's text with the game's conception of moral change as non-linear and often ephemeral.