Fox Searchlight Pictures

Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray follows the life of a young man, Dorian Gray, in the Victorian Society. The main character is Dorian Gray, a young man who attempts to be young forever. At the beginning of the book, Dorian has many interactions with Lord Henry, a sarcastic, influential, and intelligent man. Lord Henry uses many epigrams, witty sayings that reveal deep truths about Victorian society. Wilde uses blunt epigrams to reveal the hidden truths of high society during the…

The Picture of Dorian Gray is a reminder to today’s society that we should not base the idea of beauty by ones superficial appearance and materialistic belongings but by a person’s ability to find light in darkness and choose what is right from wrong, without the opinions of others distracting them. This novel also explores the idea that when a person can make a mistake and learn from it is when they are a truly a beautiful person, it employs that one can be a destructive force to themselves if…

Now that he’s put away the picture, he figures he can go one with his life now. Years later, Dorian ceases to throw parties and gatherings at his house and he starts spending money on more hands on items such as jewelry, perfume, musical instruments etc. The only reason Dorian had a strong reputation was because he hosted social functions at his house for everyone to come to. Ever since he became self-conscious about the portrait, his reputation began to go down because he became obsessed with…

that we were ever young; / It is to add, immured/ In the hot prison of the present, month/ To month with weary pain” (Arnold 21-25). Similar to Dorian Gray, the speaker would do anything to stay young and beautiful, aware of the better life one can live in society. During the late Victorian Era, there was an immense pressure put upon people to maintain their beauty. Aestheticism was an ongoing movement where individuals only had a value in society if they had a youthful appearance. Pressure to…

The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde, is a cautionary tale that demonstrates the risks of critical reflection on art, culture, and the nature of humans when clouded by the ideals of beauty and eternal youth. Through the story focused on hedonistic moral values and chaos, Wilde is able to establish a world, much different from the one known today, in which language, ritual, and morals have no profound effects on the characters, instead fabricating a setting in which men who are ordered to…

Mary Shelley and Oscar Wilde truly portray Dr.Frankenstein in Frankenstein and Lord Henry in The Picture of Dorian Gray as monsters as opposed to the monster and Dorian Gray. Not only do each of these Romantic literary writings provide themes of imagination, intuition, inspiration ,and idealism, but they also present flaws in society which are exhibited in the creators and in turn are found in each of their creations. Dr.Frankenstein and Lord Henry lack the moral responsibility for their…

classic is defined as a book that has stood the test of time. The classic book that I have chosen to read is The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. It was first published as a serial story in the July 1980 issue of Lippincott 's Monthly Magazine. It was in 1891 that The Picture of Dorian Gray was published as a book. It was published by Ward, Lock and Company editorial house. The Picture of Dorian Gray is Oscar Wilde 's only novel. Although he was a well-known writer, he was best known for…

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…

Introduction Morality is one who conforms and follows the moral standards. The main protagonist named Jean-Batiste Grenouille in the novel Patrick Süskind, Perfume: the story of a murderer, defies such standards. The character is a man obsessed with scent and strives to acquire what he identifies as the “master scent”. In order to obtain such scent Grenouille commences murderous behavior upon young victims, specifically virgin girls as he is lured by the purity in their aroma. Set in 18th…