Oscar Wilde

of Being Earnest” by Oscar Wilde, witticism is used in characterization and in the satire of the Victorian Aristocracy. Characterization is used to describe characters and their personalities. Witticism, a literary tone, is used as a cleverly witty and often biting or ironic remark. Satire, a literary tone, is used to ridicule or make fun of human vice or weakness, often with the intent of correcting or changing, the subject. When you read the title of the literary work Wilde wrote, “The…

Development Outline – The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde I. Dorian Gray’s moral decay begins with painter Basil Hallward’s discovery of him and the subsequent collision of influences Dorian faces. A. When Basil first meets Dorian, Dorian’s purity and untainted youth capture the imagination of Basil to an almost dangerous extent that eventually harms Dorian. 1. When Basil confesses he “couldn’t be happy if [he] didn’t see [Dorian] every day” (Wilde 7), Wilde suggests the precariousness of…

To illustrate my point, regarding the key theme Wilde uses symbols and literary devices in order to highlight authority of one leading to negative consequences. Dorian was innocent in the beginning of the book and changed into a criminal by the middle. The influence behind the cruel man was Lord Henry; Dorian’s manipulative “friend”. Henry’s lectures and cynical attitude reeled Dorian in and soon led to his negative behavior. For example, the portrait, a key symbol in the novel is a mirror image…

Art and the pursuit of beauty are two of the primary driving forces of Oscar Wilde’s famous novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. Art is aesthetically pleasing because it is essentially anything created predominantly for the purpose of being beautiful. Whether a painter, an actress, an orator, or even an opera singer, each artist in the novel is depicted as most beautiful when observed through their art. Reality, the shared apparently physical space in which all individual universes seem to be…

before you say them aloud), Alfie does not go on to confess the sin that he is committing. At the end of the play, Alfie comes out as his complete authentic self. He was living his authentic self through his play productions and his reading of Oscar Wilde on the bus every day, yet something that was obviously hindering him was able to be out in the open at the end of this play. The other character, Robbie, stuck out to me specifically as well. He seems to be just the average bus driver—…

“The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim” (Wilde 1). However, on occasion art begins beautiful and then alters negatively. This is the case in both Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray and Percival Everett’s Erasure. Although the stories within each are very different in nature, they are interconnected in the way that the work of art within each alters and changes. Plato stated in Phaedrus, “writing has one grave fault in common with…

Gray. After seeing a portrait of himself, painted by his friend Basil Hallward, he wishes for eternal youth and beauty, something which most people would vouch for. He was happy “If the picture could change, and [he] could be always what [he was]” (Wilde 29). He got his wish, and the portrait served as an outward manifestation of his flaws and it also “revealed to him his own body, [as well as] his own soul” (110). Because of this extrinsic manifestation, he eventually realized that as time…

society the idea of everlasting beauty is very prominent. This is seem through the many creams that can be used to help conceal wrinkles and make the skin smoother, however, those do not stop aging forever. In “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” by Oscar Wilde, everlasting beauty is an important aspect that leads to ultimate demise. During the Victorian era, beauty was extremely imperative. When an individual shows beauty they were considered to be very wealthy and influential people. Though not only…

principles, good and evil. This conflict is portrayed largely through literature. The Picture of Dorian Gray and Frankenstein, for example, both depict for the reader, themes associated with morality. In The Picture of Dorian Gray, the author, Oscar Wilde, presents morality as the physical traits of beauty and ugliness. The effects of morality are also depicted on his main character, Dorian Gray. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the reader is introduced to this conflict in a more conventional…

For the Wages of Sin is Death: The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray tells the tale of a beautiful young man with a disturbing curse. The novel follows the moral corruption of the protagonist Dorian Gray, who is introduced to us as someone innocent and unspoiled. It is only after he gets his portrait painted by an artist named Basil Hallward, that his death begins its countdown. Basil reluctantly introduces him to Lord Henry, a rather interesting character…