So I was just thinking about the ending of The Picture of Dorian Gray and I feel like there could be more to the stabbing of the painting. I know most people interpret the end as he stabbed the painting and in magic parallel also stabbed himself at the same time, so that the painting turned young and the knife appeared in him.
But what if the cry and the crash heard was Dorian stabbing the painting and nothing happening? Stabbing a visual representation of his sins and corruption would not absolve him of those sins and corruption, and it wouldn’t make his knowledge of them disappear, and it wouldn’t magic their consequences away. By stabbing the painting, he tried to kill the painter’s work, but really it was his own (and Henry’s) doing that made him what he is, not Hallward’s.
So what if he stabbed the painting and nothing happened, so he turned the knife on himself? The only true way to get rid of his sins and conscience would be to get rid of the self that houses it, not the visual reminder of it. And when he does that, the painting is then purified back to its original state, not because he tried to destroy the painting, but because he turned the knife on himself and destroyed the soul to which the painting was attached and therefore representing.
