Mann And Wilde's The Picture Of Dorian Gray

“There were passions in him that would find their terrible outlet, dreams that would make the shadow of the real evil” (Wilde,115). The author reveals pleasure as the driving force of many characters within Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, but this search for pleasure becomes fatal once taken into the hands of Dorian Gray. Throughout the novel Dorian Gray changes his opinion on pleasure based on what he requires in order to escape reality. With each death and misdeed he is responsible for; Dorian must search harder for a more drastic form of release. His path declines from his innocent beginnings with Sybil Vane, to the pleasure he finds in corrupt relations, and finally his need to escape the reality of killing a former

Wilde also was famous for his leading of the aesthetic movement and his imprisonment for propagating homosexuality. The Picture of Dorian Gray tells a story about a degradation of a young man Dorian Gray. At the beginning, an artist Basil Hallward paints a portrait of the kind and innocent Dorian Gray and, after seeing the artwork, Lord Henry Wotton - a vain and snobbish class man - requests to meet him. Influenced by eccentric Henry Wotton’s philosophy, Dorian begins to become vain and cruel but while his external appearance remains unchanged, his appearance on the painting alters every time he commits a sin. The novel explores many issues, one of them is aestheticism - exaltation of art and beauty, leading to the eternal question - can a beautiful person be moral and a moral person be beautiful, which always have and will stir society’s curiosity. Oscar Wilde once said that "All art is quite useless" and in The Picture of Dorian Gray, he tends to juxtapose various expressions of art with the routine of Dorian Gray and a shallow life in the nineteenth century. As a tool to reveal the concept of a life at the end of the 19th century Wilde uses art of pretty - but meaningless - things used to please one’s vanity and create a mundane environment. This raises the question: what did Oscar Wilde want to imply by and how does he use art to develop the theme of morality in The Picture of Dorian Gray? It was impossible to avoid art in any of its expressions (parties, theatre, clothes, etc.) in even the most regular lives in the 19th century and of course it influenced the way of thinking, created the social status and the image of oneself, so, after all, art had a huge impact on the individuals of the 19th century. And, as often beauty does, art encourages greed and vanity, which Oscar Wilde demonstrates through the usage of art in the novel.

Most people are taught from a young age what is right, and what is wrong. These teachings set up the basis for later discovering one’s personal values. In Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, these same principles are applied and challenged by Wilde. Not only does he question morality and human nature, but also the ideas of the Aesthetic movement- which influenced the ideals and behavior of Dorian Gray. Through Dorian’s morally ambiguous character, Wilde asserts that one is not purely good or evil, but a mixture of the two; Wilde establishes this theme when Dorian breaks up with Sibyl Vane, murders Basil Hallward, and stabs his decaying portrait.

The Picture of Dorian Gray, a novel laced with sin, treachery, and raging battles of inner conflict, is Oscar Wilde’s sole novel. Considered immoral and scandalous upon publication, the book centers around a young man named Dorian Gray, who does not age or reflect the darkness of his heart outwardly, and instead a portrait of him bears the damage his destructive life wreaks on his soul. However, the meaning of the story extends past the simple fact that Dorian lives a life of immorality—he walks the path that takes him there with his two friends, Basil Hallward and Lord Henry Wotten. The two attempt to guide and influence Dorian throughout the novel in their own ways, and are a vital piece of Dorian’s tale. Basil and Henry act as character foils as well as a symbolic angel and devil for Dorian Gray’s character, and also contribute themes of choosing one’s own fate.

The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde, is a novel about greed and ruin. Dorian Gray, received infinite youth from a portrait of him, which portrays all his sins and wrongdoings on itself, rather than his body. This freedom from morality leads Dorian Gray down a road of destruction until his sins are returned to him and he meets his end. Through a psychoanalytic Freudian lens, it is clear that Dorian Gray exhibits many of Sigmund Freud’s theories, including his theory of personality, the Oedipus complex, and the defense mechanisms.

Much of the criticism regarding The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde has dealt with Dorian Gray’s relation to his own portrait (Raby 392). While some may argue that the portrait represents a reflection of Dorian Gray’s character, this is only a superficial analysis of the novel and Dorian’s character. While Dorian Gray’s true character never changes, it is his own perception of his character (his conscience) that is reflected in the changing face of his portrait. In essence Dorian’s picture becomes a mirror through which the "true Dorian" judges his own metamorphasis as the superficial "Lord Henry Dorian" attempts to embrace Lord Henry’s teachings. Dorian’s

In this novel, beauty and youth reign over everything. In Victorian period, The Picture of Dorian Gray was characterized as scandalous and immoral. Typical idealistic image of behavior and modesty inherent to old time Victorian England was discredited in the novel. The Picture of Dorian Gray contained radical ideals for the period of time it was written. Dorian represents all what was disgraceful and forbidden condemned in Victorian

Oscar Wilde’s The picture of Dorian Grey’s novel is about a young man named Dorian Gray, the subject of a painting by artist Basil Hallward. Basil is impressed by Dorian's beauty and believes his beauty should not be wasted and it is responsible for a new mode in his art. Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton, a friend of Basil's, and becomes enslaved by Lord Henry's world view. He shows him a new hedonism, and suggests the only things worth following in life are beauty and fulfillment of the senses. When he realizes that one day his beauty will fade, Dorian feels a desire to sell his soul to ensure the portrait that Basil has painted would age instead of him. Dorian's wish

This becomes starkly contrasted with his ageing portrait at the end of the novel, the eyes described as having: ‘a look of cunning’ (Ch. 20.221.) While Dorian’s soul blackens he becomes more like a monster, his monstrous qualities lying internally. Thus the novel presents there can be an obscure truth lying beneath, something which the Aesthetic movement denied, only seeing art for its external appearance and not the iconology beneath. Wilde demonstrates the conflict between aesthetics and ethics in exploring how beauty can be powerful to the extent which it can be corruptive. Similar to Frankenstein’s monster, Dorian has creator’s.

The narrative of the novel displays the fallibility of art as a closet by means of this portrait. When the artist imbues their sins and virtues into the very foundation of their work, they become visible for all audiences. Dorian may not paint the portrait, but he shares a similar relationship with it; it is him it reflects. The portrait mirrors Dorian and paints his longings on a canvas for all to see: “the face on the canvas bear the burden of his passions and his sins; that the painted image might be seared with the lines of suffering and thought, and that he might keep all the delicate bloom […] Eternal youth, infinite passion, passions subtle and secret, wild joys and wilder sins—he was to have all these things. The portrait was to bear the burden of his shame” (Wilde 77, 88). The portrait embodies Dorian, everything he does, everything he wants, and everything he feels, the portrait projects. This further perpetuates the closet analogy; however, it also circumvents the metaphor itself, art does not conceal, it reveals. When Basil Hallward perceives the fruit of his labor after Dorian infuses it with himself, his response shows the portrait’s failure to conceal: “There was something in its expression that filled him with disgust and loathing […] it was from within, apparently, that the foulness and horror had come. Through some strange quickening of inner life the leprosies of sin were slowly eating the thing away” (Wilde 130-2). Art in this scenario fails as a closet and lays bare the sins of Dorian Gray, it is unable to hide that which he desires. Wilde states that “Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. / Those who read the symbol do so at their peril” (Wilde 3) but here, there is no beneath. The hidden intentions the work professes are visible from a brief

In chapters 11 and 12 of Oscar Wilde’s, ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’, the element of gothicism, hedonism, characterisation, and several literary devices are explored through the use of narrative style and conventions. Through these aspects of the text, it allows for Wilde to shape the reader's’ perception and response, effectively enabling them to engage with the novel. The narrator of the novel plays a major role in portraying the current psychological state of Dorian, which then constructs the audience’s judgement of Dorian and his morally incorrect actions. The narrator implies that the yellow book is the one of the primary causes of Dorian’s behaviour, “For years, Dorian could not free himself from the influence of the book.”

Throughout the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde tells a tale about a young man named Dorian whose entire life changes after he meets Basil Hallward, who paints a portrait of Gray that ultimately leads to Gray’s demise. At the same time, Dorian also meets Lord Henry, who eventually plays a bad influence over Dorian. The portrait shows the man Dorian has become

According to the Aesthetic movement in the late nineteenth-century, art justifies its existence by expressing and embodying beauty. Oscar Wilde’s novel, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” demonstrates that true beauty comes from within by creating the character of Dorian Gray, whose portrait becomes uglier with every crime he commits. Oscar Wilde used the themes of homoerotic love and the indulgence of the senses, his style of epigrams, and the historical context referring to what happened during the nineteenth century, to emphasize the relationship of art and mortality. The theme of homoerotic love was implied in the relationship between Dorian and Basil.

The novel focuses on the story of one man to hold a mirror up to all people who are superficial, selfish and narcissistic. “And beauty is a form of genius --is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation. It is of the great facts of the world.” uses exaggeration to show that superficial qualities are so highly valued in this society. Wilde holds a mirror up to the Victorian society he lived in, where people focused on public image and social standing more than finding real meaning in life. Like Orwell, Wilde wants to show readers the dangers of his society, but he does this through the symbol of the portrait. “This portrait would be to him the most magical of mirrors. As it had revealed to him his own body, so it would reveal to him his own soul” shows the irony of the fact that while Dorian remained beautiful and youthful, this mirror reveals his own flaws and corrupt, sinful soul. Wilde is able to use a literal mirror image in his novel to create a wider, more general truth about human flaws, which are that vanity and selfishness leads to

The first sign of Dorian’s new development is when he first lays eyes on the portrait after hearing Lord Henry’s panegyric of youth. As Dorian gazes upon himself on the portrait, he comes to a shocking realisation. Wilde writes it as, “The sense of his own beauty came upon him like a revelation… Basil Hallward’s compliments had seemed to him to be merely the charming exaggerations of friendship… They had not influenced his nature. Then had come Lord Henry Wotton with his strange panegyric on youth, his terrible warning of its brevity. That had stirred him at the time, and now, as he stood gazing at the shadow of his own loveliness, the full reality of the description flashed across him… He would become dreadful, hideous, and uncouth. As he thought of it, a sharp pang of pain struck through him like a knife, and made each delicate fibre of his nature quiver” (Wilde 18-19). His beauty would not last forever, and he would become old and withered just like everyone else will. Dorian, who once didn’t care about his looks, had now become obsessed with the ideals and ideas fed to him from Henry. He makes his wish for the portrait to take on the burden of time and sin, instead of him. He says, “I know, now, that when one loses one’s good