In the book, A picture of Dorian gray, we see Oscar Wilde use a lot of references to flowers intentionally to try to convey a hidden message. During the victorian era flowers had defined meaning to the world. Flowers were a form of communication, on there own, that gave meaning and emotions to specific flowers constructing a hidden message. Just like today flowers still uphold the symbols they represent. We see that a rose is a representation of love, beauty, and compassion while the thorns are a reminder to the pain that it can cause, just like a tulips is a symbol of perfect love and are the flower for an 11th wedding anniversary, We see that Oscar Wilde uses this form of language to speak out to the reader trying to reveals the
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Whenever a character is mentioned or described in the novel a flower/flora like term is used in the same or surrounding sentence. In the first page when Wilde introduces us to two of the main characters, Basil and Lord Henry, we see the usage of “flora” as a means of communication. He introduces us to Basil first, when describing his art studio, and in the sentence around him we see that he insinuate Basil to be not just a “rose”, but a “pink-flowering thorn”. Roses as we know are a symbol of love and affection, and by implying that Basil is pink rose he reveals his passionate essence of love without the reader knowing. We also see that within the same chapter he does the same with Lord Henry. As Henry is introduced he is synonymous with the flower of a laburnum. At first the reader see the laburnum as “honey-sweet and honey-coloured blossom”;however, we see that this isn’t the real mean of this sentence. A laburnum is a poisonous plant that he uses to reveal the poisonous nature of Henry and giving him a negative connotation. We also see that the lack of a flower also has meaning in the book as well. Two characters in the book were described as “flower” like, but never a flower for sure. We see this with Dorian Gray and Sybil Vane because of their aesthetic beauty . Sybil is a character who never really knew her true self due to the fact of being so immersed in her acting that she would take on the emotions of the character she was portraying and wasn’t really herself until, she was able to experience love and wasn’t able to act. In Dorians case, he was only known as “flower-like” in the beginning to represent his “school boy” innocence and childlike purity; however, the more divided and tainted Dorian became the more he starts to get a flower of his own which is the “orchid”(pg 142). An orchid is a beautiful delicate flower that symbolizes wealth, but the way it is
Whenever a character is mentioned or described in the novel a flower/flora like term is used in the same or surrounding sentence. In the first page when Wilde introduces us to two of the main characters, Basil and Lord Henry, we see the usage of “flora” as a means of communication. He introduces us to Basil first, when describing his art studio, and in the sentence around him we see that he insinuate Basil to be not just a “rose”, but a “pink-flowering thorn”. Roses as we know are a symbol of love and affection, and by implying that Basil is pink rose he reveals his passionate essence of love without the reader knowing. We also see that within the same chapter he does the same with Lord Henry. As Henry is introduced he is synonymous with the flower of a laburnum. At first the reader see the laburnum as “honey-sweet and honey-coloured blossom”;however, we see that this isn’t the real mean of this sentence. A laburnum is a poisonous plant that he uses to reveal the poisonous nature of Henry and giving him a negative connotation. We also see that the lack of a flower also has meaning in the book as well. Two characters in the book were described as “flower” like, but never a flower for sure. We see this with Dorian Gray and Sybil Vane because of their aesthetic beauty . Sybil is a character who never really knew her true self due to the fact of being so immersed in her acting that she would take on the emotions of the character she was portraying and wasn’t really herself until, she was able to experience love and wasn’t able to act. In Dorians case, he was only known as “flower-like” in the beginning to represent his “school boy” innocence and childlike purity; however, the more divided and tainted Dorian became the more he starts to get a flower of his own which is the “orchid”(pg 142). An orchid is a beautiful delicate flower that symbolizes wealth, but the way it is