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    Oscar Wilde Definitivo

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    Marianna Musumeci
    This novel by Oscar Wilde tells the story of Dorian Gray, a young man whose portrait ages instead of him as he engages in a hedonistic lifestyle. Lord Henry influences Dorian to pursue pleasure without limits. Over time, Dorian's acts of vice and immorality take their toll on his soul, appearing in the portrait. When the portrait reveals his corruption, Dorian kills the artist Basil. Later, seeking to destroy the evidence of his sins, Dorian kills himself when he stabs the portrait.

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    Oscar Wilde Definitivo

    Uploaded by

    Marianna Musumeci
    59 views23 pages
    This novel by Oscar Wilde tells the story of Dorian Gray, a young man whose portrait ages instead of him as he engages in a hedonistic lifestyle. Lord Henry influences Dorian to pursue pleasure without limits. Over time, Dorian's acts of vice and immorality take their toll on his soul, appearing in the portrait. When the portrait reveals his corruption, Dorian kills the artist Basil. Later, seeking to destroy the evidence of his sins, Dorian kills himself when he stabs the portrait.

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    Oscar Wilde definitivo

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    Oscar Wilde definitivo

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    This novel by Oscar Wilde tells the story of Dorian Gray, a young man whose portrait ages instead of him as he engages in a hedonistic lifestyle. Lord Henry influences Dorian to pursue pleasure without limits. Over time, Dorian's acts of vice and immorality take their toll on his soul, appearing in the portrait. When the portrait reveals his corruption, Dorian kills the artist Basil. Later, seeking to destroy the evidence of his sins, Dorian kills himself when he stabs the portrait.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as ppt, pdf, or txt
    59 views23 pages

    Oscar Wilde Definitivo

    Uploaded by

    Marianna Musumeci
    This novel by Oscar Wilde tells the story of Dorian Gray, a young man whose portrait ages instead of him as he engages in a hedonistic lifestyle. Lord Henry influences Dorian to pursue pleasure without limits. Over time, Dorian's acts of vice and immorality take their toll on his soul, appearing in the portrait. When the portrait reveals his corruption, Dorian kills the artist Basil. Later, seeking to destroy the evidence of his sins, Dorian kills himself when he stabs the portrait.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as ppt, pdf, or txt
    of 23

    THE PICTURE OF

    DORIAN GRAY
    Birthname:Oscar Wilde
    Birthplace:Dublin, 1854
    Education:Trinity College(Dublin) and a degree in Classics at
    Oxford University
    Influenced:He was a disciple of Walter Pater and accepted the
    theory of “Art for Art’s Sake”
    Personal attitudes:He adopted “the aesthetic theory” becoming a
    dandy and distinguishing himself for his eccentricity
    Prose works: A series of short stories such as The Canterville
    Ghost, Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime, The Happy Prince and
    Other tales and the novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray
    Drama:The importance of Being Earnest and Salomé
    Reputation:He was sent to prison for homosexual offences
    Last years of life:He went into exile in France where he lived in
    poverty
    Death:He died of meningitis in Paris
    AESTHETICISM
    EUROPEAN INFLUENCES

    Parnassians: Théophile Gautier: the poet


    should be as objective as possible ; art
    should have no relevance to life = no moral
    nor social function

    Charles Baudelaire: leader of the


    Decadent Movement→ disenchantment
    with the world; boredome and malincholy;
    fascination with evil and perversity.
    AESTHETICISM IN ENGLAND

    Swimburne (1837-1909): unconventional


    and transgressive nature; pleasure to
    shock the foundations of the pious
    Victorian society; suggested the abolition of
    monarchy
    Walter Pater (1839-1894): pleasure is the
    main purpose of life, to be found in beauty.
    The ideal of beauty is in art→ it serves no
    moral or social purpose; it is self-sufficient;
    it has only to be beautiful→ form more
    important than content and subject matter
    Difference between Victorian and
    Aestethical values

    The Victorians believed that art could


    be used as a tool for social education
    and moral enlightenment, as
    illustrated in works by writers such as
    Charles Dickens.
    The Aestheticists believed that art
    did not need to possess any other
    purpose than being beautiful.
    MEMORABLE QUOTES

    “My life is a work of art”

    “There is no such thing as a moral or


    immoral book. Books are well written or
    badly written. That is all!”

    “Life is for pleasure and pleasure is


    unlimited indulgence in the beautiful”
    In De Profundis: “ pleasure for the beautiful
    body, but pain for the beautiful soul”
    “ There is no sin except stupidity”

    “In examinations the foolish ask questions that


    the wise cannot answer”

    “There is only one thing in the world worse


    than being talked about, and that is not being
    talked about”

    “Education is an admirable thing. But it is well


    to remember from time to time that nothing
    that is worth knowing can be taught”

    “Art is the only serious thing in the world. And


    the artist is the only person who is never
    serious”
    Dorian Gray is a young man whose beauty fascinates an artist,
    Basil Hallward, who decides to paint him.
    While the young man’s desires are satisfied, including that of
    eternal youth, the sings of age, experience and vice appear on
    the portrait.
    Dorian lives only for pleasure, making use of everybody and
    letting people died because of his insensitivity.
    When the painter sees the corrupted image of the portrait, Dorian
    kills him.
    Later Dorian wants to free himself of the portrait, witness to his
    spiritual corruption, and stabs it, but he mysteriously kills
    himself.
    In the very moment of death the picture returns to its original
    purity, and Dorian’s face becomes “withered, wrinkled, and
    loathsome”.
    This story is told by an unobtrusive third-person
    narrator; the perspective adopted is internal
    from the point of Dorian who appears in the
    second chapter; and this allows a process of
    identification between the reader and the
    character.
    The settings are vividly described with words
    appealing to the senses, the characters reveal
    themselves through what they say or what
    other people say of them, according to a
    technique which is typical of drama.
    DORIAN GRAY is the protagonist, the typical dandy, who thinks
    man should live his life, realising his wishes and his dreams.
    Dorian believes youth is synonymous with beauty and
    happiness.

    BASIL HALLWARD is the artist ; initially he is attracted by


    Dorian’s beauty, but then he discovers how the handsome
    young man is corrupted. At the moment of his discovery,
    Dorian kills him.

    LORD HENRY WOTTON is a friend of the painter; he belongs to


    the aristocracy and his way of speaking is abrupt and satirical.
    When he sees the picture of Dorian, he wants immediately to
    meet him. Lord Henry will direct the beautiful guy to pleasure.
    .
    This novel takes place in London and represents
    Victorian society.
    The settings are vividly described with words
    appealing to the senses; for example this is how the
    story starts: “The studio was filled with the rich
    odour of roses, and when the light summer wind
    stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came
    through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or
    the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering
    thorn”.
    The novel initially takes places in Basil’s studio and in
    the garden of his house.
    This story is profoundly allegorical; it is a nineteenth-century
    version of the myth of Faust, the story of a man who sells
    his soul to the devil so that all his desires might be
    satisfied.
    This soul becomes the picture, which records the signs of
    experience, the corruption, the horror and the sins
    concealed under the mask of Dorian’s timeless beauty.
    The moral of this novel is that every excess must be punished
    and reality cannot be escaped; when Dorian destroys the
    picture, he cannot avoid the punishment for all his sins, that
    is, death.
    The horrible picture could be seen as a symbol of the
    immorality of the Victorian middle class, while Dorian and
    his pure appearance are symbols of bourgeois hypocrisy.
    Finally the picture, restored to its original beauty, illustrates
    Wilde’s theories of art: art survives people, art is eternal.
    IMPLICATIONS

    Final stabbing
    of the picture

    Impossibility of a
    Triumph of art
    life without moral
    over life
    responsibility
    Psychological interpretations of
    “The Picture of Dorian Gray”
    Structure of the mind or personality

    Freud distinguished three structural


    elements within the mind, which he
    called id, ego, and super-ego.

    All objects of consciousness reside in the ego.


    The contents of the id belong to the
    unconscious mind.
    The super-ego is an unconscious screening-
    mechanism which seeks to limit the blind
    pleasure-seeking drives of the id by the
    imposition of restrictive rules.
    conscious mind =what you are
    aware of at any particular moment

    preconscious =what we might today


    call "available memory:" anything that
    can easily be made conscious

    unconscious. It includes all the


    things that are not easily available to
    awareness
    Id = instincts or drives. Freud also called
    them wishes ( pleasure principle)
    Ego = the conscious self created by the
    dynamic tensions and interactions between
    the id and the super-ego (reality principle).
    Superego =that part which contains the
    'conscience', a socially-acquired control
    mechanisms (usually imparted in the first
    instance by the parents) which have been
    internalised . It is not completed until about
    seven years of age.

    Conscience= internalization of ego ideal = rewards and


    punishments and warnings positive models presented
    to the child
    Instincts
    the neurological representations of physical
    needs
    Life instincts →perpetuate the life of the
    individual, by motivating him or her to seek
    food and water, and the life of the species,
    by motivating him or her to have sex. The
    motivational energy of these life instincts
    that powers our psyches, he called libido,
    from the Latin word for "I desire.“
    Death instincts→ Life can be a painful
    and exhausting process. Death promises
    release from the struggle.
    The Picture of Dorian Gray

    Id → Life instinct = achieving pleasure

    Ego → The Yellow Book - Joris-Karl


    Huysman’s decadent nineteenth-
    century novel À Rebours ; Lord Henry.

    Superego →The portrait; James


    Vane = consciousness; social
    restraints.
    Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
    Hyde represents the ever-demanding
    destructive powers of the Id
    Jekyll represents the conscious ego,
    whose original tendency was by no
    means towards the vicious, but rather
    towards the 'loose', a neutral desire
    for certain kinds of personal freedom
    Superego → the dictates of social
    conventions; the Victorian
    professionist.
    Dr Jekyll shows a failure to integrate the
    sources of energy and will which become
    personified in Hyde: because Hyde (who
    had been a necessary part of Jekyll's
    whole psyche), is unacknowledged by
    Jekyll and, therefore, he becomes split off
    and relations between the two are
    antagonistic

    Jekyll's familiar desire to 'make another man'


    stems from problems in the organisation of
    his own personality
    Dr. J. and Mr.H. The Pict. of D.G.
    challenging Victorian prudery and hypocrisy

    Respectable façade Beautiful aspect


    Possibility to follow Shameful and criminal
    bad instincts without habits do not alter
    spoiling reputation(it is physical appearance -
    Hyde who acts) it is the portrait that
    changes
    Mirror where J. Picture which reflects
    discovers Hyde’s Dorian’s evil soul
    aspect = his evil soul Is fascinated by his
    Likes his other self but image but feels
    feels remorse for the disgust when
    murder contemplating the
    image of his evil
    actions

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