Today’s culture sells the lifestyle of pleasure to people around the world. Society says that the way to live life to the fullest and to achieve happiness is to do whatever makes the individual feel good, no matter what the action may be. This way of life was also sold earlier within the history of the world, and has gone by many names including Epicureanism in Greece and Aestheticism in the 19th century. Even though it has gone by many different names, it simply means living only based on emotions, usually pleasure. As many people have at least some type of moral foundation, it is sometimes difficult to see how a purely hedonistic life would play out and what consequences it would bring. In his novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde brings the light that breaks through the shadows surrounding aestheticism. He makes his argument against a purely hedonistic lifestyle through his use of figurative language, such as diction, symbols, and characterization.
Wilde uses rather strong diction to express his distaste for the hedonistic lifestyle, which the protagonist, Dorian Gray, as well as his friend, Lord Henry Wotton, chooses to live. For example, Lord Henry said, “and the one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties” to which Basil Hallward responds, “‘I hate the way you talk about your married life, Harry [also known as Lord Henry]’” (Wilde 109). Wilde further reveals his revilement for their lifestyle as he explains what their lifestyle is truly like. They enjoy “loving for their mere artificiality those renunciations that men have unwisely called virtue, as much as those natural rebellions that wise men still call sin” (190). In other words, they love both sin a...
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...oday. It is unfortunate that this is not a book that is widely read around the world, so many people still do not understand completely all that is evil about a purely hedonistic lifestyle.
Works Cited
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Duggan, Patrick. "The Conflict Between Aestheticism and Morality in Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray." Boston University Arts and Sciences Writing Program. Boston University, 2008-2009. Web. 23 May 2014. http://www.bu.edu/writingprogram/journal/past-issues/issue-1/duggan/
Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. The Works of Oscar Wilde: Including the Poems, Novels, Plays, Essays, Fairy Tales and Dialogues. Comp. William Dendy. Rosyln, New York: Black's Reader Service, 1927. 107-256. Print.
Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. Michael Patrick Gillespie, Editor. Norton Critical Edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2007.
Ruddick, Nicholas. "'The Peculiar Quality of My Genius': Degeneration, Decadence, and Dorian Gray in 1890-91." Oscar Wilde: The Man, His Writings, and His World. New York: AMS, 2003. 125-37. Rpt. in Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism. Ed. Jessica Bomarito and Russel Whitaker. Vol. 164. Detroit: Gale, 2006. Artemis Literary Sources. Web. 27 Apr. 2014.
The Supremacy of Youth and Beauty - The first principle of aestheticism, the philosophy of art by which Oscar Wilde lived, is that art serves no other purpose than beauty. Throughout The Picture of Dorian Gray, beauty reigns. It is a means to revitalize the wearied senses as indicated by the effect that Hallward's painting has on the cynical Lord Henry. It is also as a means of escaping the brutalities of the world, as Dorian distances himself from the horrors of his actions (not to mention his consciousness) by devoting himself to the study of beautiful things: music, jewels, rare tapestries. In a society that prizes beauty so highly, youth and physical attractiveness become great commodities. Lord Henry reminds Dorian of as much upon their first meeting, when he laments that the young...
"The Picture of Dorian Gray." Novels for Students. Ed. Ira Mark Milne and Timothy Sisler. Vol. 20. Detroit: Gale, 2005. 146-165. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 5 Sep. 2013.
Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray; For Love of the King. London: Routledge/Thoemmes Press, 1993.
The Picture of Dorian Gray is a rich story which can be viewed through many literary and cultural lenses. Oscar Wilde himself purposefully filled his novel with a great many direct and indirect allusions to the literary culture of his times, so it seems appropriate to look back at his story - both the novel and the 1945 film version - in this way.
In "The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde, we see a beautiful young man who makes tremendous efforts to transform the actual world into the idealistic world of art, dreams and sensations. Dorian's quest, however, culminates in his ultimate tragic destruction. Given that Dorian lives a corrupt life, one is likely to focus on the negative aspects of his character. In spite of his significant character flaws, Dorian Gray may still be considered a hero. This essay will examine Dorian's degradation from the innocent world to the vicious, sensation-oriented world. The elements contributing to Dorian’s status of tragic hero will then be discussed.
Oscar Wilde`s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray is written primarily out of the aesthetic movement of the Nineteenth Century. Therefore, the text contains a profuse amount of imagery which reflects the concepts of beauty and sensory experiences. By taking the aesthetic approach, Wilde was able to revive the gothic style through grotesque imagery of the portrait and the character whose soul it represents. Wilde is not using gothic elements to shock his audiences; rather he uses the gothic to capture the hideousness of Gray`s corruptness which leaks out of the painting and into the tone of the entire text.
Wilde, Oscar, and Michael Patrick. Gillespie. The Picture of Dorian Gray: Authoritative Texts, Backgrounds, Reviews and Reactions, Criticism. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2007. Print.
Wilde, Oscar. The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays. Ed. Richard Allen Cave. New York: Penguin, 2000.
In Oscar Wilde's novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, beauty is depicted as the driving force in the lives of the three main characters, Dorian, Basil and Lord Henry. Dorian, the main character, believes in seizing the day. Basil, the artist, admires all that is beautiful in life. Lord Henry, accredited ones physical appearance to the ability of achieving accomplishments in life. Beauty ordains the fate of Dorian, Basil, and Lord Henry. The novel embodies the relationship of beauty and morality. Beauty is not based on how attractive an object is to everyone, but how attractive it is to one.
Wilde, O. (1945). The picture of Dorian Gray. The Electronic Classics Series, The Pennsylvania State University. p. 3/ Retrieved January 3, 2014 from http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/oscar-wilde/dorian-gray.pdf
In The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, hedonism, the pursuit of self-pleasure, is a widespread view. When Dorian Gray comes under the influence of Lord Henry Wotton, his personality, as well as the influence he has on other people, quickly worsens. The Picture of Dorian Gray gives many examples and negative outcomes of hedonism, such as bad influence, distorted self-image, disastrous love affairs, and corruption. In the beginning of the book, Dorian Gray, a beautiful young man, is sitting to be painted by Basil Hallward.
In conclusion, it has been reiterated that Lord Henry's influence, the changes in Dorian, and the immorality of the yellow book further enforced The Picture of Dorian Gray as a moral book. Oscar Wilde allows for those who could understand the real meaning of the novel by comprehending the importance of these three things to discern that he fully intended on writing this novel as a moral book.
Set in the late 19th Century, Oscar Wilde wrote his only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, which is a story about debauchery and corruption of innocence and well known as a "Gothic melodrama." Violent twists and a sneaky plot make this novel a distinct reflection of human pride and corrupt nature.