Overland Monthly

In Frankenstein and The Picture of Dorian Gray, Victor Frankenstein and Dorian Gray both want to achieve beauty. Frankenstein wants to create beauty in the form of another creature. Dorian wants to maintain his beauty, like in his portrait. It seems that both Victor and Dorian show us their view on the importance of beauty through their monsters, but it seems to show us two different consequences that occur for the pursuit of beauty. A theme that seems to run through both novels is obsession.…

The Picture of Dorian Gray Writing Assignment 1. Analysis of an Important Character Lord Henry Wotton plays a major role in the development of Dorian Gray’s character. Even before the two main characters’ first meeting, Lord Henry is already known for having a “very bad influence over all of his friends...”, in the words of Basil Hallward (pg 19). Lord Henry opens a door to a new, dark world for Dorian, causing him to become obsessed with youthfulness and appearance. Dorian becomes enchanted…

The Monster Within When one hears the word “monster,” the stereotypical horror, the hair-raising cliché is often pictured. While the commonplace image is found to an extent in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Oscar Wilde defies the custom in his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. Both novels, however, stress that it is not one’s outward appearance that makes a monster, it is the lack of responsibility for their actions that creates a monstrosity, whether it be a man or beast. The authors emphasize…

Taking place in England during the 1890s, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde tells the tragic story of a young and beautiful man named Dorian Gray. Artist Basil Hallward becomes infatuated with Dorian and his beauty after capturing a glimpse of him at a party. Basil invites Dorian over to paint a portrait of him, but Dorian is soon swept under the influence of Basil 's friend, Lord Henry Wotton. He tells Dorian that beauty and youth are the essence of humans ' existence, and because of…

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…

In growing from youth to maturity, 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.…

“If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for the Creator, there is no poverty.” This is German-born poet Rainer Maria Riike, quote on society’s lack of appreciation for nature. Nobel Prize winner V.S. Naipaul is a Trinidadian author who won the award for literature in the year 2001, he was born Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul in Chaguanas in the year 1932. As a teenager he attended the Queen’s Royal College in Port…

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…

Dorian Gray Master Theme Paper The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde is about three men--Lord Henry, Basil Hallward, and a younger man named Dorian--who all have either hedonistic views or depleasuristic views on life. Lord Henry influences Dorian to be hedonistic and only care about beauty and aesthetic pleasure, buthowever Dorian takes it to the extreme and becomes completely enveloped in beauty. Throughout the novel, these two hedonistic men idolize beauty, but as they idolize it, they…

Dorian is the central figure of the story, everyone else lives their lives around him. Both men and women wish to be in his presence. The women fall in love with him and the men want to be in his company. Dorian eventually fulfills the stereotypical female role in the novel. Despite there being other women in the story Dorian is the one who receives all the attention and it is Dorian who ruins the hopes and dreams of men, not the women in the story. The women in the story are only there to…