The conclusion of “The Oval Portrait” is suffused with a macabre situational irony: art that truly captures life, the story suggests, must come at the expense of life itself. The narrator is fascinated by a shockingly lifelike painting that he finds in the ruined chateau. Hoping to learn more about the painting, he reads a book which describes the subject of the portrait: a young woman who allowed her husband, an obsessive artist, to paint her at the cost of her own health, and ultimately, her life. The book describes the painting process:
And when many weeks had passed, and but little remained to do, save one brush upon the mouth and one tint upon the eye, the spirit of the lady again flickered up as the flame within the socket of the lamp. And then the brush was given, and then the tint was placed; and, for one moment, the painter stood entranced before the work which he had wrought; but in the next, while he yet gazed, he grew tremulous and very pallid, and aghast, and crying with a loud voice, ‘This is indeed Life itself!’ turned suddenly to regard his beloved: —She was dead!
The artist has spent several weeks completing a painting of his young bride. He is so invested in his work that he has failed to notice that her health has declined considerably as a result of the many long hours that she has spent sitting in the dark. As he nears completion, he sees “the spirit of the lady” flicker “as the flame within the socket of a lamp.” This simile compares her sudden liveliness to the final, dying sparks of a lamp. Gazing upon his completed portrait, the artist has a horrifying realization: the painting is “Life itself,” but the subject of the painting has died. “The Oval Portrait,” then, examines the steep cost of prioritizing art over life. He has finally managed to create a truly lifelike painting, but only by turning away from his own actual life.
