The mirror is a glass or metal object with one of the faces opaque. One of the properties is the reflection of light, of the objects placed in front of it. The resulted image is the witness to the present, without memory, without past, witch reveals only the appearance and not the essence. It is an invulnerable place, free of time and death.

The world of the mirror is virtual, independent and inviolable. The person who watches himself in the mirror seems to live in two identical universes. Between this universes there is a connection: without the existence of the real world, the virtual world would not exist.

In "The portrait of Dorian Gray" the correspondent for the mirror is the painting of the main character. But the portrait is a magic mirror: it exposes the soul, the essence, not the face, the appearance. The portrait reveals two "faces" of the character:

a) the body and b) the soul of Dorian

a) the body: in the first case, the painting is a mirror - it reveals the visible in a moment of the present, the necessary and only the appearance, but it has memory because it maintains the face at a certain present moment and it is a part of Dorian ("it's a part of me").

b) the soul: unlike the mirror, which doesn't keep the reflected image, the portrait has its one life. Dorian's soul and body were separated when he articulated his wish to be forever young.

His wish led him to his death because hi was ashamed of his soul portrait, which was his own tortured conciseness.

Nicolae Lavinia Georgiana, X F1

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