Oscar Wilde Essay

This year, TJ’s One Question was as follows: “How can we strive to discover and pursue our own passions despite societal norms and external pressures that would compromise our aspirations and dissuade us from pursuing them?” Well, if one listens to The Picture of Dorian Gray, the answer is to do the opposite of what the titular character, Dorian Gray, does, which is ignore societal norms and live a life as a work of art, free of pesky morals and humanity. Dorian starts out as a young and innocent

tenacious pleasure-seeker. Lord Henry convinces Dorian that his youth and beauty is waning and resultantly, Dorian curses his painting saying “If it were I who was to be always young and the picture was to grow old… I would give my soul for that!” (Wilde 28) This curse starts the five stages of moral regression within Dorian Gray that ultimately leads to his demise. In the beginning of the novel, Lord Wotton introduces Gray to the philosophy of “the new Hedonism,” where only good thing to do is seek

soul), the reality that you choose to experience is totally different from the reality you choose to experience when you’re being animated by your ego, from your fears and insecurities. I believe this battle between ego and soul is demonstrated in Oscar Wilde’s 1945 film, Picture of Dorian Gray. Lord Henry, who plays devil’s advocate, plants his own fears into the protagonist, Dorian Gray’s mind when he told him, "You have the most marvelous youth...time is jealous of you” after seeing the portrait

portrait of Dorian Gray, the character is presented as an innocent and beautiful guy. However, as the novel progresses, Dorian’s soul, reflected in the portrait, is corrupted mainly because of Lord Henry’s ideas and influence. In the last chapter of Oscar Wilde’s book, the protagonist, in a stressful situation, stabs his portrait and consequently dies. The message behind the ending

engagement.” (Wilde 69) Not but mere moments later, Basil surrenders himself to Dorian to appease the situation. “He would never bring misery upon anyone. His nature is too fine for that.” (Wilde 70) This is an abrupt statement to make taken consideration that Basil was just disappointed by Dorian. Basil has characterized Dorian based merely on his

Rembrandt Harmenszoon Van Rijn was one of a greatest painters and printmakers in seventeen century European art, also the most significant in Dutch history. He was born on July 15, 1606 in Leiden, Holland, in the Netherlands and died in October 4, 1669, at the age of 63. He attended Latin school and enrolled at the University of Leiden then learning painting from a Leiden history painter, Jacob van Swanenburgh with three years. He had his own workshop during 1624 to1625 and began to accept students

Dorian Gray and Rodney Skinner/Griffin were leading characters in their respective books. They were both were villainous, unique, and mysterious. While Dorian did not start out as a villainous character in the beginning of his book, he changed and turned out to be a man with a terrible reputation; even murdering a friend of his. Griffin hurt anybody that annoyed him, and used the fact that he was invisible to steal whatever he wanted. While the novels The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Invisible

Three: 1) Dorian Gray becomes the disciple to the mastership of Lord Henry in chapter three. Early in the chapter, Lord Henry emphasizes Dorian’s “old money” background: “Credit is the capital of a younger son, and one lives charmingly upon it” (Wilde 34). As Wilde goes deeper into the chapter, he talks about influence and how it is something “terribly enthralling”. Furthermore, just as Basil uses Dorian as in inspiration for his artwork, Lord Henry uses him as evidence of his intellect and youthfulness

Oscar's high school life was pretty much one of pure loneliness and self-defeat. Oscar did not put a pure focus on anything, even his writing to an extent. If he put more of his heart into his writing instead of how people viewed him, he might have written something of substance. I was really rooting for him when he spent his summer writing at his grandmother's house. He just needed to stop writing escapes from his life, even fictional tales need a hit of realism and humanity to work. It was sad

Lord Henry was a strong influence in Dorian’s wishing for eternal youth in exchange for the portrait aging instead. The picture seems to be Dorian's conscience and with each of his falters the painting deteriorates. After Dorian breaks up with Sibyl he travels home and discovers “had the portrait really changed? Or had it been simply his own imagination that had made him see a look of evil where there had been a look of joy” (109). It can be gather that due to Dorian’s abrupt ending to their relationship