I just don’t understand why people criticise the Picture of Dorian Gray for being “immoral”. I certainly understand that the critics of the time probably were against the homosexual undertone in the text, but people of today still call the book “immoral” (though often not meant as a criticism anymore), and I just don’t get why it is considered a valid adjective for it.

Isn’t the book, at its core, almost a “moral tale”? Sure, it explores the moral degradation of the protagonist, but I don’t see it necessarily depicted as a good thing. He suffers all throughout the novel for his decisions (his triumphs are only described on a surface level and almost skimmed through, while the story slows down to narrate his suffering) and at the end Dorian is punished for wanting to get rid of his own conscience. He kills himself while meaning to kill his soul. I can’t imagine a more straightforward moral than this.

Am I missing something? I have felt like I was all throughout the book because I feel so differently about it than all the other people I have heard talking about it (I don’t mean it in a like-dislike sense)

Tl;Dr : Dorian is immoral, “The picture of Dorian Gray” I don’t feel is. Thoughts?