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At the start of the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian Gray is a face that is both literally and figuratively untouched by external forces. His own ideas about society, morality, youth, beauty are barely formed. They exist as soft and malleable globs of clay that do not yet have any tangible substance or definitive shape. Consequently, throughout the entirety of Wilde’s novel, Gray is molded by the myriad of internal and external forces that bombard a person throughout their lives. By the…

“There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all” (Wilde 0). These are the words of Oscar Wilde, the author of the 1890 philosophical fiction novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, who is prefacing said novel with the notion that art, be it books, paintings, music, or anything similar, should only serve one purpose: to be admired. Throughout this novel, he presents the argument of aestheticism: that art should not hold an inherent moral…

Madeline Barbier Video Essay PSY 340- Adolescences Adolescences Through the Eyes of Little Miss Sunshine In the years of adolescences, adolescents often times are experiencing a crisis of identity. They are trying to understand what roles they fall into and a lot of times their families and their self-esteem influences this “self-understanding”. In Little Miss Sunshine, many key concepts to adolescence are seen in the 7-year old character, Olive Hoover. She is going through the fifth…

Moral 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…

What is the importance of Lord Henry’s introduction in the novel Dorian Gray? Lord Henry Wotton is the first character introduced in Oscar Wilde’s novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. From the start of the novel it is evident that Lord Henry lives an extremely lavish lifestyle and has an eye for beautiful things and their aesthetic. His eye could “just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured blossom of a laburnum” as he is lying on a “divan of Persian saddle bags.” Wilde portrays…

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…

that art served as a reinforcement of ethics. As religion and morality pursued to restrict art to stand on its own, a group of artists revolted against Victorian beliefs; among them was Oscar Wilde. He composed a philosophical fictional novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, that serves as a contradictory model against Victorianism for the sake of art. It directs on Wilde’s uprise against morality and the embrace of a hedonistic lifestyle. An…

other women because there is no art to them, but an actress lives her art when she performs and is thus worthy of his love. When Dorian sees Sibyl acting, he sees her through her art, and thus at her most beautiful. Wilde states in the preface of The Picture of Dorian Gray that "all art is quite useless" and must be "[admired] intensely" because…

comprehensive growth is possible only if its people are aware of maintaining the balance between the good and the evil. If everyone is inclined towards immoral values, the structure of society tears apart like a house of cards. The novel of “The Picture of Dorian Gray” invites us to take a look into our own lives and to weigh against the human values so that we can decide where we stand and improve…

Ranking of Monstrosity in Frankenstein and The Picture of Dorian Gray Frankenstein written by Mary Shelley in 1818 is a Romantic novel recounting Victor Frankenstein’s creation of a grotesque monster and the unintended consequences that follow. While The Picture of Dorian Gray written by Oscar Wilde is a Victorian novel recounting the creation of Dorian Gray’s portrait. Although Shelley’s Frankenstein and Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray were were written during different literary eras, both…