After Basil Hallward paints a beautiful, young man's portrait, his subject's frivolous wish that the picture change and he remain the same comes true. Dorian Gray's picture grows aged and corrupt while he continues to appear fresh and innocent. After he kills a young woman, "as surely as if I had cut her little throat with a knife," Dorian Gray is surprised to find no difference in his vision or surroundings. "The roses are not less lovely for all that. The birds sing just as happily in my garden." Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights. Today he is remembered for his epigrams and plays.