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.
The relationships focused on in the novel are very unstable and based on almost no connection other than money. Although there are many different views about different romances. One type of romance that has long been under fire are LGBTQ romances. While many live happily being who they are, others face the scrutiny of others throwing what they believe to be true onto them. That is the case with Oscar Wilde himself.
Later that year, Douglas’ father found out and left a calling card for Wilde addressed to “Oscar Wilde: Posing Somdomite”- a misspelling of sodomite. Although Wilde’s homosexuality was something of an open secret, he was so outraged that he sued him for libel, a decision that would ruin Wilde’s life. The trial came to a quick close when Douglas’ father, the Marquis of Queensberry, presented evidence of Wilde’s homosexuality including passages from his literary works, as well as his letters to Douglas. Wilde’s case was dismissed and he was arrested for charges of “gross indecency.” On May 25th, 1895 Wilde was sentenced to two years in prison, and once he emerged in 1897, he was physically depleted, emotionally exhausted, and flat broke.
Contextualizing Dorian Gray The social climate and criminalization of homosexuality in 19th century England give insight on the intent of Oscar Wilde, a gay man himself, to aestheticize intimate relationships between men in The Picture of Dorian Gray. The laws which made sodomy illegal in England primarily “sought to preserve the face of British youth”, and the idea of the “gross indecency” which they condemned was an elaboration on a 1857 act that condemned “obscenity… [and its] ‘filthy’ and ‘corrupt’ nature” (Bristow). The idea of corruption and saving face is pervasive in Dorian Gray, displayed when Dorian himself claims that “Youth is the only thing worth having” and wishes for his portrait to bear his own aging and corruption (Wilde 29). The fixation on reputation present in both the novel and in legislation that predated its publication by only a few decades indicates a strong correlation between the two, further highlighting
arch 2018 The Importance of Being Earnest: Oscar Wilde’s Criticism on the Upper Class Using humor, cleverness, and style, Oscar Wilde illustrates the lives of the Victorian upper class in The Importance of Being Earnest. More specifically, the “Trivial Comedy for Serious People” reveals in a satirical manner the insignificant concerns of Great Britain’s aristocracy. In the introduction of The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Writings, editor Richard Ellmann creates an overview of Wilde’s best known work.
“Do not be misled: ‘Bad company corrupts good character.’” (1 Corinthians 15:33). The protagonist in "The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde suffers from bad company. The sway of people and objects causes impressionable Dorian to descend into corruption. Little by little, he makes choices influenced by the thoughts put in his head.
The Picture of Dorian Gray written by Oscar Wilde. The Picture of Dorian Gray shocked the moral judgments of British book critics. Some of them said Oscar Wilde deserved to be pursuance for breaking the laws guarding the common morality because the uses of homosexuality were in that time banned. This book was for that time unusual because it had a pretty serious criticism on the society from that time. The novel is about a young and extraordinarily beautiful youngster, named Dorian Gray that have promised to his soul in order to live a life of eternal youth, he must try to adapt himself to the bodily decay and dissipation that are shown in his portrait.
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.
Wilde is greatly influenced by the societal movements in the Victorian Era, therefore the theme of hedonism is prominent displaying the influence of Aestheticism in The Picture of Dorian Gray and further explaining the consequences of selfishness and self-pleasure. The Aestheticism movement shockingly challenged all past standards of love, pleasure, and sexuality. Specifically this Victorian movement “promotes sexual… experimentation. ”(Burdett)
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.
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 Paper of Dorian Gray Throughout Oscar Wilde’s novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, we view the horrible actions of the main character, Dorian Gray. These actions, however, never seem to affect Dorian. We soon come to realize that this self-portrait reflects Dorian’s actions and aging process instead of Dorian and allow him to live a secret life of horrible acts. In the novel, Dorian takes full advantage of the portraits power, calling the portrait a reflection of his soul, and makes no effort to preserve his soul due to the poisonous influence from Lord Henry and his own selfishness.
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.
