Oscar Hammerstein II

Is Machiavelli’s The Prince an amoral book, an immoral book, or neither? Fully discuss, illustrating your answer with ideas from the book. Machiavelli has gained a reputation of a cold-hearted, ruthless and cynical man mainly based on his famous book: “The prince”. The book itself is generally considered either immoral or amoral. May my audacious affirmation be excused, but I think that these statements have been made by a superficial approach. I strongly insist that this book is neither…

Wild Rejection of Aristocratic Ideals Although there have been a countless number of people in history that defied the expectations society thrust upon them, only a small portion of them were viewed as celebrities. In Victorian London, playwright Oscar Wilde was a prominent social figure, and he was recognized as one of the most unorthodox people of his time. During this period, the upper class established a very rigid code of conduct concerning appearance and behavior to promote the idea that…

Superfluous man is a concept, a group of people that appeared frequently mid-nineteenth century Russian literature, further they symbolizes Russian culture at that time. This group of people can from different social classes, but they are all well educated, arrogant and delicate. In the meantime of having their great ambitions, they failed to really fulfill their dream and contribute to the society. And in the meantime of wishing being loved by others, they are marginalized by the society. In…

A Man of No Importance is a play dedicated to showing that while we are of no importance to society as a whole, we are important to those who are closest to us. One should never keep their true selves from the truth. The book written by Terrence McNally shows the audience a very real struggle of those that are a bit peculiar in today’s society as well as the past. They lyrics by Lynn Ahrens will captivate the listener. No matter which scene you sit in you can relate in some fashion to the…

literary characters often develop a new worldly perspective resulting from their own experiences; scholars classify these works that focus on a single event defining a character’s life philosophy as bildungsromans. Set in nineteenth-century England, Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray recounts Dorian Gray’s growth from a young man to an adult in the midst of the growing aesthetic movement, with his friend Lord Henry Wotton introducing him to its morality. After their first encounter, Lord…

that are ugly. Even though people say they are not judgmental, subconsciously people are more likely to trust the faces they like. However, the attractiveness of the physical appearance does not represent one’s soul. In The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, the protagonist Dorian Gray’s excess obsession with beauty, easily influenced nature, and irresponsibility for himself ultimately trigger his downfall in the end of the novel. The superficial and excessive desire for beauty of Dorian…

Extreme fascination, passion, lust and beauty can be tempting, but admitting to them was a struggle facing people in 19th century or Victorian Era and this is evident in the novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” When Oscar Wilde wrote, “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, he was critiquing a cultural moment in time. He was attempting to make his Victorian audience think about their inability to admit to their true desires and fear of temptation. A British journalist by the name W. T. Stead committed the…

In the story “The Picture of Dorian Gray” has many interpretation of the meaning of art and responsibility of an artist. For Basil Hallward art should only represent beauty and the artist should only be the bridge allowing people to see the beauty of the world. “An artist should create beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them. We live in an age when men treat art as if it were meant to be a form of autobiography. We have lost the abstract sense of beauty.” (Page 68) Yet…

The Fatal Book Both Dorian and Des Esseintes also explore the fineries of clothing, and décor, but more so they strongly draw upon the study of jewels. Dorian wears a dress coated in over five hundred pearls. He could spend an entire day going through his collection of stones of silver, topaz, amethyst, ruby, opal and sapphire. He then explores more exotic jewels and silks that he procures from all over the world. He fills his home with these wonderful treasures and uses them to distract himself…

Oscar Wilde and Mary Shelley both agree upon that a monster originates from a contaminated soul. When one's soul begins to rot, a monster within emerges, for both of their monsters began as pure souls who were unaware of the evils of the world. When the soul gets contaminated by evil, it begins to transform into a monster. Dorian Gray’s inner monster begins to arise when Lord Henry inserts a fear in him (that if he sins too much it will start to show on his beautiful face and he cannot afford…