More handpicked essays just for you.
Literary criticism of the picture of dorian grey
The negative consequences of influence in the picture of dorian gray
Essay on the picture of dorian grey
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Literary criticism of the picture of dorian grey
Henry’s influence, which Basil had foreshadowed, altered the purities of Dorian into an egotistical monster. Dorian Gray’s story is a “conventionally moralistic one, preaching for the power of conscience and against vanity” (Ruddick). The vanity sparked in Dorian Gray aspires Lord Henry’s personal psychological curiosities, and he encourages Gray to follow Henry’s lead without realizing how infamously his experiment had developed. Initially, when Basil had known Dorian Gray the innocent, Basil knew the effects Lord Henry could potentially have on his artistic idol; the artwork of Gray foreshadowed the monster in Gray after Lord Henry’s speech including “The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist is, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful” alongside how beauty surpasses any other value in life-- the combination of these two speeches acts as the seed implanted to create the monstrous Dorian Gray (Wilde 13-14).
In his Victorian gothic novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, author Oscar Wilde utilizes graphic diction and stream of consciousness to illustrate Dorian’s descent into maddening hedonism. When Dorian travels to an opium den in chapter 16, his desires and what he sees are described with sinister word choice; Dorian experiences “the hideous hunger for opium began to gnaw at him… [shadows] moved like monstrous marionettes… the loathsome den, the crude violence of disordered life,” (Wilde 178) a stark visual contrast with his external beauty. Wilde’s diction conveys the depraved nature of the setting and contributes to a sense of fragmentation which accompanies Dorian’s moral decay. The effect of this diction is supplemented by a stream of consciousness
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.
Although The Picture of Dorian Gray is considered to be a short novel , it contains some commonly found elements in a fairy tale. In the following essay I am going to present the similitudes that Wilde’s novel shares with fairy tales and give my opinion on whether the novel can be considered a prolonged fairy tale or not. One thing that needs to be taken into consideration is the fact that in this novel not all the elaments of a fairy tale are present. For example , in Oscar Wilde’s novel the time and the space is defined -the action takes place in England in the nineteenth century-, which is uncharacteristic of the usual fairy tale. But despite the fact that Wilde offers the reader many details regarding the setting where the action takes
Despite leading a lifestyle that in his day was considered deviant at best, Oscar Wilde showed a strong interest in the Christian Scripture from early on in his literary career. Working as an editor for Pall Mall magazine let him read many pieces of traditional poetry and prose inspired by the Bible, while trips to Paris exposed him to authors like Gustave Flaubert, Catulle Mendès, and Anatole France and their experiments with secularized Biblical tales. Wilde’s goal was loftier, though; he wanted to write a Fifth Gospel, a demystified follow-up to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John’s classical tellings of Christ’s life. He wrote or shared with friends several smaller works retelling typical evangels in a more secular, accessible light, but passed away before he got a chance to publish and market a Fifth Gospel - the full story of Christ’s birth, life, death, and resurrection - as such. However, he did successfully write and release it to the public in another form, The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Throughout the picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde depicts Dorian Gray as being greatly influenced by Lord Henry Wotton. Henry shapes Dorian and initially stirs the conflict that bring both Dorian and Basil Hallward to their untimely deaths. Their relationship is toxic and negatively affects other character’s lives as well as their own. However, as individuals, though they grow to have a similar outlook on life, Dorian is the only one who truly carries out this way of living.
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.
As we can tell the author views art as very big way of showing your feelings and emotion while also showing how you feel about certain things and what you did could be conveyed on a canvas or any other form of art. This inference is shown in both texts, the first text of this being shown is in “The Picture of Dorian Gray: Preface” by Oscar Wilde we see this example being shown when he tells us this “ The artist can express everything. Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art. Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art.” We can see from this piece of evidence how clear the author is being about telling how artist can express everything but in any form.
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
From the beginning of the novel we get to see a model of poor and unconventional morality, Lord Henry Wotton, a man who is moved by an ethic current called “New Hedonism” which taking into account society’s ethics (specially the ones from the Victorian Era) is quite immoral. The New Hedonism basically consists in looking for the individual’s best comfort, pleasure and happiness (based on beauty), leaving aside the other’s comfort and what should be morally done. This character with poor morality is who guides the book’s main character Dorian Gray along his adventure. However, it is vital to take into account the fact that Dorian Gray is never forced to follow New Hedonism and that Wilde never influences or invites the reader to follow New Hedonist
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…”
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.
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.
In the early 18th century a new genre of fiction prose, named "Gothic Novel" was introduced. The term ”Gothic” used to refer to the German tribe of the Goths. The Gothic novel spread over the 19th century and had the popular theme of haunted places such as castles, crypts, gloomy monasteries; supernatural elements having the role to intensify the atmosphere. The characteristic motifs of the gothic genre were the strange places, the supernatural, magic objects, monsters, demons, science used for bad purposes. And many of them appear also in "The Picture of Dorian Gray".
