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Oscar Wilde Research Paper

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I. Background of the Author Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1854 to Sir William Wilde and Lady Jane Francesca Wilde. William was a valuable ear and eye surgeon, who wrote books on medicine, history, and poetry, while Oscar’s mother was known as “Sperenza,” and was a poet as well as a proponent for women’s rights and the independence of the Irish. Wilde attended Trinity College in Dublin, and later went to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he studied the classics and took an interest in Ancient Greek. He met many other authors and philosophers like John Ruskin, who presented new ideas to Wilde, such as the practice of aestheticism, praising the savage human instinct, and defying society’s norms, which Wilde …show more content…

As a result of this union, as well as Oscar gaining confidence from the support he was met with after publishing his most acclaimed novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wilde began to have a long-term affair with Lord Alfred Douglas. As a result of this, Douglas’s father was prompted to legally accuse Wilde, and the author was soon convicted on charges of sodomy. During his years in prison, he continued to write, and his observations of the poor conditions in prisons helped to pass laws stopping child imprisonment. After Oscar left prison, he fled to France, shunned by those who had previously admired him. His flamboyant life ended friendless and lonely, and Wilde died in Paris by himself (“The …show more content…

Inside the fortress, one can find suits of medieval armor, large paintings of long dead family members, and dark hallways with quiet whispers to be heard. The ghost inhabiting this place has killed his wife and is now taking out his anger with his own killers on unsuspecting bystanders. There is a bloodstain on the floor that cannot disappear, no matter how it is cleaned. The housekeeper herself often faints from fear. In Oscar Wilde’s “The Canterville Ghost,” all of this is true, but the literary elements of dialogue and perspective convey the theme of how appearances are not always to be

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2. The bulk of Chapter 11 lists, page after page, the various pursuits of Dorian's adult life. In these lists, Wilde shows the result of Dorian's chosen path. The reader sees the peculiar kind of hell that Dorian inhabits because of his pact; Wilde delivers a strong judgement against the dangers of decadence. The lengthy passages describing Dorian's study of perfumes, music, jewels, and embroideries border on being tedious.

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The United States is the country where most immigrants reside in the world. In fact, economic dispossession, lack of access to education and employment, violence, and other personal factors have motivated people from all over the world to seek a new life in America. Despite this, it is also the country that leads in high consumption and is thus the main enemy of the environment. There is a similarity between environmental damage and economic development: both grow simultaneously. But why are human beings not aware of both growths?

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A portrait of Mark Twain Samuel Clemens or as many people know for his pseudonym Mark Twain was known for his work of literacy. His biggest achievements in literacy were the work of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Mark Twain’s first achievement happened in 1865, in literacy when he wrote The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County (“Mark Twain” 23). He was considered one of the best authors of his time and his stories became a huge part of the literature world. Before Twain became a well known author his life was a difficult but throughout his journey many factors influenced him to be the person he was.

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Nathaniel England Nikki Cruse English III 9 March 2017 Nathaniel Hawthorne Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American author who lived from 1804 to 1864. Nathaniel lived a fulfilling life, writing many books and reading many more. Hawthorne was given life on July 4, 1804. “Born in Salem, Massachusetts, the son of Nathaniel Hathorne and Elizabeth Clarke (Manning) Hathorne. Both his father and his mother came from a line of lean-jawed Puritans” (Kunitz 347) Hawthorne’s father was the captain of a ship, who set sail on a voyage in 1808.

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Many of his critics accused him of breaking public morality laws and called for his arrest. The Picture of Dorian Gray was an incredibly controversial book and when Wilde was eventually put on trial in 1895 for committing homosexual acts, many passages of the book were entered as evidence for the prosecution. Wilde put much of himself into the novel, even saying in an 1894 letter, “[The Picture of Dorian Gray] contains much of me in it — Basil Hallward is what I think I am; Lord Henry, what the world thinks me; Dorian is what I would like to be — in other ages, perhaps” (Wilde). The book was not only a reflection on the moral conundrum occurring in London society, but also the one happening inside Wilde himself. Not many cities have the same long-standing religious roots that London does and, despite the rise of the Decadents movement, London was still very much a predominantly Christian city.

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In the 1800’s, America was the subject of many romantic visions and musings. The British and East Coasters alike saw everything west of Appalachia as a wild wonderland: home to cowboys, adventure, and opportunity. Oscar Wilde, a renowned British author and satirist, voyaged across America to test the truth of these claims. Afterwards, he published his findings and opinions in a piece known as Impressions of America. In the piece, he makes it clear that America did not live up to his expectations, and would disappoint his readers as well.

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When the name Oscar Wilde is mentioned, most think of his great novel The Picture of Dorian Gray or his play The Importance of Being Earnest. Not everyone is aware of his scandalous personal life and the influence it had on his works. When he was alive, people were not able to look past his homosexuality to see his talent. Although the last years of his life were spent in shame, he has left a legacy in the literary world. Oscar Fingal O’ Flahertie Wills Wilde was born on the sixteenth of October in 1854 (Biography).

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Oscar Wilde was alive from 1854-1900. He wrote in the Victorian era. The Victorian era is when Queen Victoria reigned. During this era, a vast amount of literature was written and read by those who were educated. In the later years of this era, aestheticism rose and Oscar Wilde focused on aestheticism in all types of writings.

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‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’, by Oscar Wilde, is a novel that revolves around a core theme, beauty. Depicted in many forms throughout the novel, one of the most prevalent symbols of beauty proves to be the very portrait of Dorian Gray. Specifically, one thing that can be concluded from the portrait was that Dorian sees beauty as beyond skin deep, and believes that true beauty is only achieved through the character and morals of a person. Events in the novel that support this claim occur during Dorian’s reaction when he discovers the secret of his portrait, and his resolve to fix his behavior that caused such changes. When Dorian discovers the truth about his portrait, his reaction was not that of a man who primarily values looks in beauty.

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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.

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Another theme illustrated through Wilde’s use of motifs and symbols is the theme of superficiality. The theme of superficiality can be understood as a sense of the superficial view of outer beauty that is shown in the work. It relates to the concept of remaining young, which is an important factor of what is shown in the novel. This is an important part of the novel because outer beauty plays a bigger role for Dorian, than inner beauty does. In the beginning of the novel, Lord Henry and Dorian have a conversation that focuses on the topic of youth and Dorian 's outer beauty – Lord Henry mentions the fact that Dorian has a beautiful face, and later during this conversation, Lord Henry states that: “youth is the only thing worth having…”

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As a writer one is greatly influenced by their personal experiences with social, historical, and cultural context within their specific time period. Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray was shaped by the aspects of the world around him. The themes of the text are are influenced by morality in the Victorian Era. Throughout the Victorian Era a deeper movement was also prominent in London called Aestheticism. Aestheticism is the worship of beauty and self-fulfillment.

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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.

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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.

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