Characters in stories sometimes follow a theme when it comes to their traits. These traits are called archetypes. Archetypes can be as simple as a villain or hero. They can also be used to portray unfathomable human characteristics that exists in everyone. Characteristics such as greed, lust, envy, pride, sloth, and gluttony are examples.
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.
Foil: The contrast between Basil Hallward’s sincere care for Dorian and Lord Henry’s ill-motivated friendship with Dorian emphasizes Basil’s kind nature and Lord Henry’s slyness. This is clearly revealed in their differing reactions to news that Dorian has been engaged to a Sibyl Vane, a young actress. Basil expresses his concerns of the quickness of this engagement and the effect it may have on Dorian’s reputation while Lord Henry is merely amused as, to him, Dorian is a “subject made to his hand that…seemed to promise rich and fruitful results” (58). 23.
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 term Gothic is expressed in various ways throughout chapters nineteen and twenty of The Picture of Dorian Gray. One example used in the novel is hysteria as Dorian asks “What would you say, Harry, if I told you that I had murdered Basil?” (203). Lord Henry laughs and responds with a statement that murder is too vulgar for a man like Dorian. Dorian seems to be having a nervous breakdown in this scene, almost like he wants to be told that he is not responsible for Basil’s death and Lord Henry is catering to his want to be complemented.
These three main characters had different personality that made the story more interesting. Dorian Gray was full of himself wishing to remain in youth, in return, he was willing to sacrifice his own soul and unfortunately his wish came true. Thus, this makes Dorian Gray commit all the sins he wants and only the portrait got affected as he become immortal and not aging, not a single wrinkle in his face. Second character is Lord Henry which was Basil’s friend when Dorian Gray first met him. Lord Henry enthralled Dorian Gray with his world view, which was an extreme hedonism form as he assumed that the only worthwhile life of a person spent was by pursuing beauty and satisfaction for the senses.
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
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
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.
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE: The pride I experienced when a paper I authored on “Cloud Computing for Higher Education: A New Dawn” was published as a conference paper at the 3rd annual conference Issues and Trends in Advance Computing, knew no bounds. The work I did for making this possible is what gave clear understanding that “Most people have no idea of the giant capacity we can immediately command when we focus all of our resources on mastering a single area of our lives”- Anthony Robbins I understood this and thus had taken the decision to follow my heart and ability in computers as I took up Computer Engineering towards my bachelors degree pursuits. But, an initial hiccup got to me and while I worked, a doubt in my capacity lingered which became a shackle on achieving my real potential.
He thinks that live is a succession of pleasures and beautiful moments, things, and people. For him, the beauty of something is more important than inner values, which is for example the reason why he suggests that Sibyl Vane 's suicide was her own little tragedy with which she wanted to get attention. Although Dorian basically admits that he is the reason for Sibyl 's death, Lord Henry doesn 't want to see the truth because it wouldn 't be as glamorous and beautiful. Because life only consists of pleasures, Dorian simply can 't be the reason for Sibyl 's suicide and therefore her death has to be her way of getting the attention she desired; at least that 's why Lord Henry thinks Dorian isn 't
He even further proves his evil soul when he murders Basil without even thinking minutes later. Dorian had turned from harsh and selfish to a murder. Dorian Gray starts off as a harsh person who thinks about repairing his mistakes, but transitions to a selfish murderer who seeks pleasure, all because of Lord Henrys poisonous words. Dorian Gray ruined countless lives throughout the book and goes from breaking hearts and causing suicides, to killing his good friend Basil Hallward. As a result of Lord Henry’s influence, he begins to think only about himself and for his own benefit and pleasure and nothing of anyone else.
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.
