Essays on Dorian Gray

1. Basil’s handsome model Dorian Gray is the main character in the novel. At the beginning of the novel is portrayed as a man with sincere feelings and conscious mind. As soon as the artist had depicted the young man, with the help of innovative technique on canvas, Dorian transformed into a soulless Narcissus, who was ready to sell his soul in order to become immoral. Basically, Dorian says: “If the picture could change, and I could be always what I am now!” ( Wilde, 43). Dorian’s worldview had split apart, as the concept of “beauty” was raised ...

Sibyl Vane is a talented actress and singer, who is at the same time a poor girl falling in love with Dorian Gray. This love destroys her talent of acting, since she can no longer find pleasure in creating fictional love, when real love has entered her life. After learning that Dorian doesn’t love her anymore and trying to escape the world of illusions, she kills herself. Sibyl Vane is a very important and interesting character of the novel. First of all, Dorian Gray falls in love with her, because she resembles himself with one significant difference – she ...

The Picture of Dorian Gray is a contradiction of people who are authentic such as Sybil and Henry and those who are hiding their true selves behind deceptions, like Dorian and Basil. This paper will look at the use of “smoke and mirrors” in The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. “Smoke and Mirrors” is a metaphor that refers to the hiding of truth behind a veil of deception. This is a concept that is popular in Victorian Literature and helps to drive the plot as the conflict is often times essential to the advancement of the storyline. ...

Influence in The Picture of Dorian Gray And The Book of Job

The Picture of Dorian gray is a novel written by Oscar Wilde. Dorian Gray is the main character in this book and it revolves around his life and how the characters in the novel influence the protagonist’s life. Dorian Gray is depicted as a wealthy, beautiful, and unspoiled male who changes his life completely by sinning and pleasure after meeting Lord Henry who totally influenced his life. Wilde writes a story whereby the main character Dorian Gray is influenced to embark on a hedonistic life; a life he had feared for a very long time. Dorian was an innocent man who was forced to ...

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is an exceptional book by James Joyce, a renowned Irish writer. Arguably, one of the key aspects of the story is the depiction of a character, Stephen Dedalus, who aspires to be an artist. The story explores his transformation from the good and religious boy he is to a man who ends up running away from his hometown, denouncing his religion and social constraints looking for a world of freedom to express his artistic self. The story navigates the transformation of the boy from an immature believer to a mature college student who can decide what ...

In Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray and Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold, the protagonists Dorian Gray and Santiago Nazar are the central characters in these literary works. The protagonists make the stories develop as their ideology or value system are the central part of the conflict (Literary Devices). The protagonist are the main but not necessarily ideal characters. Despite the protagonists’ being unbiased and honorable or not, the changes in their characters, their suffering in the face of psychological and moral dilemmas highlighted by the author lead to the climax of the story ...

Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray” is similar to Joyce novel, “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” in regards to the evil of that exists in the society. One can see how people deteriorate slowly based on the evil that is within. Similar to the actions of Stephen with the prostitute, the evil present in “The Picture of Dorian Gray” shows how individuals create their personal evil. In addition, both writers employ different stylistic approach to writing. The dialogue is in simple language in the “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” The reader clearly sees where each ...

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The world that we live in has evolved over centuries. The way people used to think a couple of hundred years ago is nowhere near the way people think now. The culture and the traditions vary from one country to another and every place is unique in its style. Movements in the eighteenth and nineteenth century were to remove the philosophies which were appreciated by people in sixteenth and seventeenth century. Time goes by and brings new things in front of us. Similarly world also brings new philosophies ...

Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man has a multipart publication history. It comes from short stories Dubliners and a draft novel Stephen Hero. The very title reminds us Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. Though novels obviously are quite different, but they share some concerns for style, plot, content, and aesthetics. There was a copy of Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray in Joyce’s library. The novels consider aesthetics theory, while first critics thought them to be immoral. Both novels refer to Irish struggle against British colonization. Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a ...

Discussion on James Joyce: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Joyce had a copy of Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray” with him. Joyce had a deep respect for Wilde, and felt a relationship with him, due to the fact that both of them were Irish. After reading The Picture of Dorian Gray, Joyce had an objection over suppressed sexual references in the novel, and wished Wilde had developed a better approach, as he stated in his letters. Keeping that in mind, when he wrote his novel, “The Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man”, he used a more modern and open approach, in order to make sure his novel did not have ...

[Subject/Course] [Submission Date] The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde is widely acknowledged as an alluring and horrendous novel. The majority of reading publics in America and Britain in the eighteenth century considered it as an immoral work of art due to the explicit sexual content of the novel (Gillespie 13). However, the readers in the contemporary times do not worry over the issue of sex as doesn’t discuss and/or mention sex by itself. The primary reason people thought The Picture of Dorian Gray as an immoral narrative is that Dorian Gray, the central character, ...

30-Sep-13

An essay comparing the book "The picture of Dorian Gray" to “Stavrogin's Confession” by Fyodor Dostoevsky excerpt in "The Evil and the Guilty". An essay comparing the book "The picture of Dorian Gray" to “Stavrogin's Confession” by Fyodor Dostoevsky excerpt in "The Evil and the Guilty" (Sackett, GreatBooksAll.htm). The two novels ‘The picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde and “Stavrogin's Confession "(Woolf-Stavrogin) by Fyodor Dostoevsky are the remarkable pieces of literature. However, the prime difference between the two is that of structure and style. The novel "The picture of Dorian Gray" is the only published novel ...

The book, the Picture of Dorian Gray by is an interesting piece of innovation in the literary field. The story dwells around the protagonist who is Dorian Gray in London. The usage of descriptive images reveals Gray as an ambitious, wealthy, and handsome young man with the ability to capture a woman’s attention. He unconsciously does so to Lady Brandon who is an artist of great reputation. The different attempts to portray Gray in many mythological aspects disappoint him. The claim of the young man is that the portrait displays a variance of the artist’s feelings as subjective to ...

Abstract

The works of Oscar Wilde are both entertaining and humanizing. The stories are usually critiques of the rich or wealthy in society. They also seem to a reflection of Wilde’s own life and circle. A prevalent theme in Oscar Wilde’s works is the hypocrisy of the rich which result in the abuse of themselves and others, especially the poor or less privileged. This theme is particularly apparent in many of works. Analyzed in this paper are Oscar Wilde’s novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray; short stories, The Devoted Friend and The Model Millionnaire; and the poem, ...

1) Oscar Wilde Oscar Wilde's many poems, plays and novels poke subtle fun at the Victorian mainstream, addressing the faults and the problems inherent within that society. Many of his works deal with the decadence and beauty of the Victorian upper class, as well as how empty and duplicitous that society is. By painting detailed portraits of flawed and overly vain characters, he shows the Victorian aristocrat as someone nearly inhuman, and far from sympathetic. In many ways, it transcends the nature of the Victorian mainstream by holding a mirror up to it and pointing out its flaws, whether ...

In Oscar Wilde’s classic novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray” the Victorian sensibility regarding materialism and aestheticism is quite apparent. By looking at examples of materialism and its consequences in “The Portrait of Dorian Gray” we can gain a better understand of how art and material objects was valued during the Victorian Age. Materialism and aestheticism both have a place in society yet Dorian’s gradual dissension into obsession, serves as a warning that unequal social classes and the pursuit above pleasure and power above all else is indeed a dangerous path. Dorian Gray’s relationship to objects illustrates his need to ...

The Picture of Dorian Gray is an iconic novel by Oscar Wilde that tells the story of a highly cultured and refined young man, Dorian Gray, who inadvertently catches the attention of a local painter, Basil Howard. Basil approaches the young Dorian as a front man for a new kind of art he considers as an elemental turning point of his career. He essentially uses his mastery of art to showcase his feelings towards the young Dorian: feelings that he later deems a likely point of weakness on his part that should be checked. He then introduces Dorian to a close friend by the name ...

Symbolist literature often discusses the abstract - the essence of symbolism is to discuss the truth through indirect means. Symbolism is full of metaphors, often discussing the nature of reality. It can be argued that it is difficult or not as interesting to get across the author's ideas about life and reality in a realist or naturalist way; simply stating the obvious message of the book through realistic actions that the characters or the plot takes is but one way to get across a message. Symbolism seeks to hide those messages in metaphors and objects that are different from the explicit ...

Symbolist literature often discusses the abstract - the essence of symbolism is to discuss the truth through indirect means. Symbolism is full of metaphors, often discussing the nature of reality. Since it is either difficult or not as interesting to get across the author's ideas about life and reality in a realist or naturalist way, Symbolism looks to hide those messages in metaphors and objects that are different from the explicit message the author wishes to convey. Two prominent examples of the ways Symbolist authors deal with the subject of reality are Huysman's A Rebours (Against Nature) and Oscar Wilde's ...

Oliver Parker’s version of ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ is a witty horror movie that captures subtlety of Oscar Wilde’s writing. The movie is somewhat different from previous attempts of screening the story about a young and handsome Dorian Gray.

The setting of the movie takes place in 19th century London. Dorian Gray (Ben Barnes), an extraordinarily beautiful and pleasant man, moves to this big city after the death of his grandfather. Dorian starts to enjoy a life of wealthy London Victorian society, as he inherited great deal of money from his relative. Soon he meets two of the people, ...

"Uncanny is what one calls everything that was meant to remain secret and hidden and has come into the open" (Schilling).

The uncanny, a concept coined by Freud, postulates that something can be both familiar and foreign to someone - if something is uncanny, it is recognizable, yet alien. When someone looks at something they find uncanny, they are paradoxically attracted to and drawn away from that thing simultaneously. It is one of the more interesting aspects of cognitive dissonance, and one which is present in a lot of fiction. The uncanny is used in many instances to create a subtle sense ...