Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

themes such as, “The world's a stage, but the play is badly cast,” a spin off from Hamlet, and uses metaphors for life such as, “days break in beauty and set in storm,” found in “The Sphinx Without a Secret and Lord Savile’s Crime”. His prose, setting, characters, and themes, show his style of writing when comparing closely to each of the short story works. Oscar Wilde lived and published many of his works late into the 1800’s. During this time period, America was just beginning to become a fully developed nation, and Europe was a very large, respectable country. His stories take place at the present time that he was writing them, and he used what was considered modern day terms and references between Europe and America at the time to tell each story. Lord Arthur, in “Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime”, states the allusion that “Liberty was created during the French Revolution” to put into perspective the time period of the story. Every story has a European country setting. “Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime” takes place in France, “The Sphinx Without a Secret” takes place in London, and “The Canterville Ghost” takes place in small towns…

the title “Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime” eschews the genitive possessivity of the apostrophe – i.e. the crime being possessed by Savile – in favor of the grammar that sees Savile himself becoming the crime and/or being possessed by it. In other words, instead of viewing this eponymous crime as being something effectuated by Savile, this interpretation has Savile the man assume the role of the crime itself. This conceptualization does, in the end, arrive at many of the same conclusions vis-à-vis…

Symbolism allowed him to indirectly substitute actual figures for their literary ideas. In “Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime,” Sybil represents an art that is untouched by the outside, corrupt world. Podgers, on the other hand, is to symbolize the complete opposite. This character has everything to do with the world that is affected by humans and corrupt. He is on the side of the spectrum that cannot run away from his past, for the damage has already been done. This is a prime example of symbolism…

paint a clear picture of what a monster actually is. Frankenstein and Lord Henry are used to show that a true monster is someone that ruins the lives others either through negligence or subtle manipulations. At first glance, Frankenstein seems to be a simple book about a man that creates a monster and regrets his decision for the rest of his life, but this is not the case: Frankenstein is a novel about…