In June of 1775 an eleven year old girl named Sarah had to learn how to take care of her home while her older brother Jeffrey and her father Dan went to war. Sarah's mother Abigail had died of an severe illness two years ago. She knew there was only one outcome of going to war. Either you come back alive or you don't come back at all. Sarah started counting down the days till the two's departure.
After explaining to Dorian how important these feelings are, Lord Henry uses his ability to exploit others' emotions and makes Dorian agree with this philosophy, as Dorian had something that he never had, youth. After Lord Henry’s initial influence, this began to grow on Dorian. The feeling of having so much beauty in his life satisfied his pleasure. Opening an opportunity for Dorian to fulfill his satisfaction of pleasure through all the materialistic and events within his control. Wilde writes, “Between two of the windows stood a large Florentine cabinet, made out of ebony and inlaid with ivory and blue lapis.”
Take ownership of your actions and man up and deal with the consequences. Lord Henry was partially responsible for Dorian’s corruption but Dorian cannot lay all the blame on him. Dorian’s the one who confused love with lust; lead a girl on, then broke her heart. He was the cause of her suicide and he was delusional to think that her life was just a fiction of his imagination. He never knew what love was because the only thing he ever knew was art.
Cruelty plays a vital role in developing the plot and characters in “The Picture of Dorian Gray”. Throughout the piece, many acts of cruelty are displayed from Dorian Gray and others that show truly who they are how they've developed from it. Dorian takes on a huge change in his morals and standards because of the influence taken in from others. This influence causes him to only care about his own youth and vanity, resulting in a huge change of personality. The more Dorian becomes influenced by Lord Henry and the painting, the crueler he becomes
The researcher decides Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray and Fitzgerald’s The Beautiful and Damned to be the objects of the study on inferiority and superiority complex causing hedonistic lifestyle in main character. The first reason, both of literary works cover the changing of each life of the main character, society and ultimately the individual. Second, they both share the same social background of the main character in The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian, displays a well-respected young man. He doesn’t recognize his own beauty until he sees it reflected in Basil’s portrait, and, once he does, it’s all too late. While Anthony in The Beautiful and Damned is illustrates reaching pleasure as the lifestyle and it becomes a habit.
It is rather a trap that leads to the power of selfishness and the will to gain immortality, which took over Dorian Gray and created an evil and ugly side to him. In the novel, Basil Hallward, a painter believes that aesthetic beauty should be “unconscious, ideal and remote,” however, it all changes the night he meets Dorian. Dorian also comes under influence of Lord Henry, a poisonous influence, who believes that life is all about aestheticism and decadence. This path to eternal youth and Lord Henry’s guidance leads to Dorian’s dark side/debauchery and ultimately, his own destruction. As stated by Oscar Wilde, “Life imitates art more than art imitates life,” human beings should focus more on their ethics and mortality than living the life of pleasure where art should merely be an art, and not have any other goals.
Dorian represents who Wilde perceives himself to be (as he is the protagonist) - the evolution from pure naiveté. Lord Henry represents Wilde’s inner cynic — he constantly rants about anything and seems to care more about the actual act of arguing than he does about the validity of his arguments (). Basil represents Wilde’s conscience, his inner romantic, the person he aspires to be (2-7, 70-71); however, Basil’s violent death symbolizes the impossibility of ever becoming this ideal person
As soon as Dorian enters in Chapter 2 of The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wildes’ one and only novel, its is evident that there will be a battle between who will have the most influence on his pure, untouched soul. Basil Hallward, a painter and worshipper of art is an optimist and sees only the good in even the wickedest of people, such as Lord Henry. Lord Henry is a charming, self-indulgent aristocrat that shapes and molds Dorian to lead a life devoted to pleasure. Both Basil and Lord Henry represent two important opposing forces in the novel, good and evil. The greatest struggle in The Picture of Dorian Gray is inside Dorian; he himself embodies both pure good and pure evil.
His idolization of Dorian causes him to let Dorian dominate him. Small as it is, it shows Dorian for the first time what his beauty can do to people. The fact that people are willing to believe and do anything for him because of his beauty. This realization causes a lot of problems later on in the storyline. Lord Henry Wotton is another influencer on Dorian Gray.
Dorian Gray is a handsome, narcissistic young man enthralled by Lord Henry 's new enjoyment. He satisfies in every pleasure of moral and immoral life ultimately heads to death. Henry tells
Lord Henry’s painting showed Dorian the reality of life and all the sins he had committed. With the picture, Dorian destroyed it plus his own life because he could not bear the fact that his beauty was going to fade. In addition, Henry influences Dorian by manipulating him because; he carries on with his idea of remaining youthful. This is evident when he says, "To get back to my youth, I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable" (Liebman 300). Lord Henry had everything to do with Dorian’s obsession of wanting to remain young especially with the picture and his philosophy.
Dorian sinned through this murder and through the covering of this murder. After a few days though, his conscience reappeared and he grew nervous. His nervousness culminated after encountering Sibyl Vane’s angry brother, James, who wanted to kill Dorian. When James was shot in a hunting
The Picture Of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin,Ireland on October 16, 1854. He was educated in Trinity College in Dublin and Magdalen College. He married in 1884 with Constance Lloyd. Wilde published his only novel which is The Picture Of Dorian Gray ‘s 1st edition in 1890.Critics found that novel scandalous and immoral after that critic Oscar Wilde revised the novel in 1891 and he add six new chapter into novel . Wilde represent his philosophic and artistic ideas on the second edition of book and also that edition includes some part of Wilde’s real life such as Basil Hallwar’s emotinal feelings for Dorian Gray .Oscar
Basil has come to ask Dorian about all the horrible rumors surrounding him, and hopes they turn out false. Basil also asks about the portrait and why Dorian hides it, so Dorian decides to show him his “to see your soul. But only God can do that—you shall see it yourself to-night!”. Dorian then takes Basil to see his picture, which at first cannot be recognized by Basil, but soon he realizes the true horror of the situation, “an exclamation of horror broke out from the painter’s lips as he saw in the dim light the hideous face on the canvas grinning at him” (Wilde 113). Dorians soul has become rotten to the core with selfishness and pleasure, mainly because of Lord Henry’s poisonous words.
Not one blossom of his loveliness would ever fade. Not one pulse of his life would ever weaken. Like the gods of the Greeks, he would be strong, and fleet, and joyous.” (Wilde 98). Through this scene, Wilde makes it clear to the reader how corrupt Dorian’s world perspective is.
