The supposed hero’s actions seem a challenge to the Victorian society and its norms. The Picture tells the tale of the protagonist, Dorian, who ventures into moral decay and hedonism. The strict code of conduct and moral obligation is broken by Dorian’s egoistic pursuit of pleasures and new sensations. Once Dorian discovers he can practically get away with everything, he carries out various heinous acts, including murder. He thought that his respectable appearance protects him from being accused of debauchery. In this way, Dorian has long managed to satisfy his dark desires and forbidden pleasures saving his image of a pious man in society. The Victorian period may have been near to the end but the traditional values and ethics of the society
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Gothic was always the archaic, the pagan, which refused to yield to the establishment of a civilized and well-regulated society. Motifs such as the devil, magical objects, monsters, witchcraft and science used for twisted purposes can be found on this genre. Works like the Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, Dracula by Bram Stoker and etc. fall under this genre. When Wilde wrote The Picture in the late-Victorian period, the golden times of the Gothic Fiction had already passed (Academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu). Interestingly, Wilde composed the novel to go about aesthetics in the context of Gothic fiction. There is a constant contrast being offered to both further what he is saying about aesthetics as well as to make the line between good and evil, ugly and beautiful, ethical and unethical hard to see. It tests the readers mind, forces them to come to some conclusion and pick the side that represents their views of life. It even toys with the line between love and friendship, and it was that aspect that most outraged people back in the 19th century. The outrage that it evoked in its prime will never be fully repeated, but the message of the story could still serve as a reminder to the people of today, showing them how unnatural beauty can come to its end. The everlasting youth and beauty that Dorian Gray was granted unawares through supernatural means is now possible to achieve, for some time at least, with beauty therapies and cosmetic
Gothic was always the archaic, the pagan, which refused to yield to the establishment of a civilized and well-regulated society. Motifs such as the devil, magical objects, monsters, witchcraft and science used for twisted purposes can be found on this genre. Works like the Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, Dracula by Bram Stoker and etc. fall under this genre. When Wilde wrote The Picture in the late-Victorian period, the golden times of the Gothic Fiction had already passed (Academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu). Interestingly, Wilde composed the novel to go about aesthetics in the context of Gothic fiction. There is a constant contrast being offered to both further what he is saying about aesthetics as well as to make the line between good and evil, ugly and beautiful, ethical and unethical hard to see. It tests the readers mind, forces them to come to some conclusion and pick the side that represents their views of life. It even toys with the line between love and friendship, and it was that aspect that most outraged people back in the 19th century. The outrage that it evoked in its prime will never be fully repeated, but the message of the story could still serve as a reminder to the people of today, showing them how unnatural beauty can come to its end. The everlasting youth and beauty that Dorian Gray was granted unawares through supernatural means is now possible to achieve, for some time at least, with beauty therapies and cosmetic