À rebours

The Garden of Gatsby Flower imagery is a popular trend in literature. The symbolism and imagery of flowers are greatly important to the themes and characters of The Great Gatsby. Elements of wealth, secrecy, and dying dreams are all represented by flower imagery in this novel. Symbolism of a rose majorly defines Nick Carraway. Daisy says, “I love to see you at my table, Nick. You remind me of a – of a rose, an absolute rose. Doesn't he?” She turned to Miss Baker for confirmation: “An absolute rose?” (Fitzgerald 14) The rose represents secrecy and confidentiality, which Nick possesses in many instances. Nick keeps the secret of Tom and Myrtle’s affair from Daisy, even though he watched it happen right in front of him. He also stays quiet about Gatsby and Daisy’s affair, which he quite literally made happen. Furthermore, Daisy calling him a rose foreshadows his future actions regarding future events with these people. The rose may also represent love, which is highlighted in chapter 8. Nick says this about Gatsby after his death, “I have an idea that Gatsby himself didn't believe it would come, and perhaps he no longer cared. If that was true that he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream. He must have looked up at the unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass,” (Fitzgerald 161) Nick…

In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and Machiavelli’s The Prince, deception is a tool that one uses to gain a personal advantage. Despite the negative connotation that is typically associated with deception, Twelfth Night and The Prince demonstrate how deception can bring a positive outcome. If one employs a deceptive appearance under necessary circumstances, the end result must be justifiable, even when a majority of people are willingly deceived. Characterized by her beauty and resourcefulness,…

According to the online dictionary of Merriam Webster, vanity is described as: “The Quality of people who have too much pride in their own appearance, abilities, achievements (…) The Quality of being vain” and “Something (such a belief or a way of behaving) which shows that you have too much pride in yourself, your social status, etc.” In my opinion, these descriptions fit the corrupted Dorian Gray perfectly. Dorian was a pure, innocent boy, until he was corrupted by Lord Henry, which made him…

In the book Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde, an artist by the name of Basil Hallward becomes obsessed with a man named Dorian Gray, whom he meets at a party they both attend. Basil intrigued with Dorian and his looks, decides to paint a portrait of the charming, wealthy, young man. Dorian ends up loving the portrait painted of him, and starts to in-vision himself as the man Basil has depicted of him in the picture. A picture that at the time promises eternal youth and beauty. A friend of…

Miss Julie is naturalistic play written by August Strindberg in 1888. A naturalistic piece is a more extreme form of realism that is defined as “An avant-garde movement, which flourished between 1880 and 1914, that portrayed heredity and environmental factors as the primary causes of human behavior through the accurate rendition of external realities,” explains editor Tobin Nellhaus. Miss Julie contains these naturalistic elements as it takes place in real time and focuses heavily on survival of…

Known as the ‘Russian Byron’, Mikhail Lermontov is revered for his radical interpretation of the Romantic antihero in A Hero of Our Time. He sought to fashion “a portrait built up from the vices of our whole generation” (Lermontov, preface), to create a character who would embody the spirit of the contemporary Russian man. In what would be his only prose work, Lermontov employs traits commonly associated with the Byronic hero as the basis for the character of his protagonist, Pechorin, such as…

In the book Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, there are four types of genius and beauty that affected character’s lives: reputational beauty, superficial beauty, scientific genius, and psychological genius. Sibyl killed herself after abandoning her acting career for the beauty of Dorian Gray, who met her only a few days before. Even Basil the painter is stabbed by Dorian, after trying to help Dorian regain the purity of youth, the reputational and superficial beauty of whom Basil had for himself (in…

In The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde it is apparent that Lord Henry’s influence drastically changes Dorian’s view of himself and the world around him. Dorian’s character began as a blank slate, but deep within Dorian’s character there was the temptation for the forbidden. Lord Henry saw this as an opportunity to introduce his philosophy and indulge his desire to manipulate him for his own pleasure. Lord Henry’s philosophy of Aestheticism is not inherently bad, it simply allows an…

The novel The Picture of Dorian Gray written by Oscar Wilde is about the life of the character Dorian Gray. Dorian is a young and beautiful man who makes a Faustian pact that his self-portrait, drawn by painter Basil Hallward, would grow older as time past instead of Dorian. Throughout the story, Dorian commits many sins, for example, using his influence to ruin others’ lives and the murdering of Basil Hallward. However, Dorian’s appearance is still young and beautiful because the portrait…

Furthermore, Oscar Wilde projects himself in addition to the Id, Ego, and Superego through Dorian Gray, based on how Wilde lived a “Double Life”(Schmidt 3). Dorian was thought to be pure and innocent when really his inner self reflected the complete opposite. Dorian “desperately wanted to find his true identity”(Schmidt 4) and longed to be known for more than just his appearance. Dorian’s desperation resulted in an unhealthy intrigue with Henry Wotton. Henry’s fascination with Dorian resulted…