Narcissus was the son of Cephissus, a river god and Liriope, a nymph. He was born with great beauty and was loved by all who came across him. However, Narcissus was also incredibly egotistic and became obsessed with his appearance, constantly admiring himself. The story of Narcissus takes a deadly turn when he comes across his own reflection in a pool of spring water and becomes so in love with his own beauty that he cannot pull himself away. Narcissus becomes captivated by his own reflection and falls in love with himself.
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.
Is The Picture of Dorian Gray a gothic novel? In the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray gothic literature is shown in many instances. Although not filled with mazes, dark corridors or winding stairs filled with cobwebs, Dorian’s mansion does include an old schoolroom that has cobwebs and gives off a spooky feel. Also in the mansion there is a hidden compartment in which Dorian hides all of his disguises.
The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Garden Party, and The Red Badge of Courage each incorporate the complex relationship between the ideal and the real. The Picture of Dorian Gray is concerned with art and life, The Garden Party with a single coming-of-age moment, and The Red Badge of Courage incorporates the coming of age of its protagonist with an emphasis of art as a realistic portrayal of life. In both The Picture of Dorian Gray and in The Garden Party the primary characters are very young. Idealism is often associated with youth and inexperience, and so it makes sense that the authors would choose to tell their stories with young characters. Stephen Crane's young man starts off to war with lofty ideals, but then confronts the much less sublime
Primarily the myth of Narcissus takes the theme of evanescence of beauty as well as the dilemma of narcissism and death. The dilemma of narcissism is summarized in what is doomed to remain a prisoner of the shadow world, your love for yourself or free yourself through self-knowledge and the ability to meet others, but the price is the symbolic death of the ego. Ovid makes it clear that Narcissus was alone and truly did not know who was
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
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.
Influence in The Picture of Dorian Gray And The Book of Job The Picture of Dorian gray is a book written by Oscar Wilde and it was published in 1880. The book was later revised by addition of more chapters and reprinted in April 1891. Dorian Gray is the main character in this book that is described as a beautiful and unspoiled male who changes his life completely by sinning and pleasure after meeting Lord Henry. Basil Hallward who is a painter develops obsession for Dorian because of his beauty whereas Lord Henry Wotton Basil’s friend influences Dorian with his theories about life, pleasure and women even though he had no intention of changing Dorian’s personality. Lord Henry’s influence in Dorian leads to his downfall.
Morality and The Picture of Dorian Gray “The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.” C.G. Jung The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde, was first published in 1890, right in the middle of the Victorian Era, an era that was characterized by its conservatism. Ever since, and due to the content of the book, it has been condemned as immoral. Furthermore, on 1891, Wilde published a preface protecting his book from public punishment in which he said “There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.
All actions have an inverse action that can be acquired. The novel, The Picture of Dorian Grey, significantly portrays the inverse options in life. Superficial happiness is the leading cause for double standards. The main character preservers through an abundance of difficult situations, while retaining his beauty. This is all due to his double life that he has come accustomed to living.
Once he realized it was only a reflection he became depressed and committed suicide. Both Dorian Gray and Narcissus destroy themselves with narcissistic tendencies through both novels. They destroy not only who they were before, but they destroy sibyl vane and echo also. Once Dorian basically makes sibyl kill herself, he sees himself as a monster which only makes the plot of the novel go farther, this is what makes him obsessed with the portrait. Narcissus with rejecting echo gets what he deserves as he falls madly in love with himself and slowly realizes he could not actually have himself as a partner which destroy him mentally and
The Picture of Dorian Gray, one of Oscar Wilde’s masterpieces, portrays one of the most important values and principles for him: aestheticism. As a criticism to the life lived during the Victorian era in England, Wilde exposed a world of beauty a freedom in contradiction to the lack of tolerance a limitation of that era; of course inspired due to Wilde’s personal life. All the restrictions of the Victorian England lead him to a sort of anarchism against what he found to be incoherent rules, and he expressed all this to his art. His literature is a strong, political and social criticism. He gave a different point of view to controversial topics such as life, morality, values, art, sexuality, marriage, and many others, and epigrams, for what he is very well known, where the main source to the exposure of his interpretations of this topic.
Relatively all authors are very fond of creating an underlying message to criticize society. Authors do this through social commentary. The book “The Picture of Dorian Gray” is no exception. The author, Oscar Wilde, criticizes the upper class through the consistent underlying idea that people are often deceived by one's beauty and are unable to understand the poison that fills the world is corrupting it. From the beginning of this book, the social commentary towards the upper class begins with the structure of the novel.
The theme of appearance extends further in Dorian’s life. Dorian’s outer beauty allows him to get away with almost anything, due to the fact that people equals his outer beauty to him being a good person. In reality, Wilde makes it very clear that Dorian Gray is not a good person. The theme of appearance is illustrated through underlying criticism within Wilde’s use of motifs and symbols. A main motif used by Wilde is the painting done by Basil Hallward.
