Dorians

Oscar Wilde 's The Picture of Dorian Gray, is a story almost solely infused with the Victorian era 's obsession with appearances. Epigrams pierce through this shallow pool of perfection and offer slight glimmers of the harsh reality behind this vanity. Lord Henry, the main source of epigrams, acts as a magnifying glass for the Victorian culture 's deep and dark problems lying just below the calm, mellow surface. Many of Wilde 's epigrams concentrate on the morality of how one deals with one 's…

of Dorian Grey written by Oscar Wilde, the most obvious symbol being the picture itself. However, some other important symbols are the book Lord Henry gives Dorian, the dagger Dorian uses, and the Chinese opium houses. These symbols are used to help readers better understand the situation or characters and also provide foreshadowing throughout the story. Symbols allow readers to relate to the various characters in the novel. In the beginning of Oscar Wilde’s book, his main character Dorian…

Kim Thang ENG 1012 3/7/16 The Picture of Dorian Gray: Depiction of Women When one talks about women, there are a lot of perspectives, opinions, and perceptions toward them. A woman is centrally inborn with her strength, including her body, attitude and behavior. In The Picture of Dorian Gray, Lord Henry views women as "decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly" (Wilde 47). They are depicted as inferior to men and influence men in negative ways. It…

Dorian Gray and Narcissus Several times through The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde compares the titular character to Narcissus. These comparisons are the most obvious in a set of hints that imply that Dorian Gray was written to be a modern Narcissus. Their similarities go beyond simple vanity, although both characters have a considerable share. Dorian is more able to demonstrate all the various facets of narcissism with an entire novel than Narcissus was able to with his one legend. Dorian…

The Picture of Dorian Gray: A Professor’s Analysis “There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.” (Wilde 3). There are many debates about the greatest book that ever existed, and this debate will continue to rage on but what is undeniable is that The Picture of Dorian Gray is definitely a well written book. The morality of this book however is a different issue altogether as this book discusses many different themes from youth…

seen in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson and The Picture of Dorian Gray…

Dorian Gray At the beginning of the book, Dorian Gray is a very sweet and innocent boy, as described by his friends Basil Hallward and Lord Henry. He has a very naive outlook on the world and is easily influenced by Lord Henry and his assertions about life, beauty and pleasure. I will get back to this conversation, because I do believe it has something - if not a lot - to do with Dorian’s future development. Upon meeting and falling in love with Sibyl Vane, Dorian becomes rather obsessed…

think. In The Picture of Dorian Grey the main character Dorian, for example, was born with the ability to commit evil, but because of his circumstances, the crimes he commits are untethered by the sense that most people have that that he is doing is wrong and should be avoided. Dorian was not influenced as a child and because of this is easily influenced by Lord Henry to do immoral things and find pleasure in doing so. By acting immorally and being evil in his actions, Dorian shows that he is…

In the preface to his novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wilde states that ‘there is no such thing as a moral or immoral book’ which implies that the aestheticism of a piece of writing is more vital to its success than the skill of the author. This view is reflected in Victorian society where ingrained aestheticism was simply used as a facade to hide the truth, however, Wilde is actually making a deep societal criticism of this. Paradoxically, as an author he has a prerequisite to please his…

Vanity is the root of all evil. To what extent is this true of American Psycho and Dorian Gray? Compare and contrast how the protagonist are presented in both novels. Both Bret Easton Ellis and Oscar Wilde use protagonists Patrick Bateman and Dorian Gray to explore whether an excessive amount of love towards one's self can lead to an inevitable decline in mental stability. Gray and Bateman, although from different eras, are presented as men who have been placed above others in society because of…