The Picture of Dorian Gray

Dorian Gray kills Basil after the artist has viewed the portrait he once painted and sees in it the depravity of soul which has overtaken the once beautiful and untainted young man. In this...

Lord Henry is a wealthy aesthete and hedonist, meaning he believes the pursuit of beauty and pleasure are the most important life goals. He is a persuasive and charismatic figure, so dangerous that...

In order to understand the answer to this question fully, one must first be acquainted with the definition from the Victorian Era of the word "dandy." In this case (as you can tell by the use of...

From the preface of The Picture of Dorian Gray, the reader can infer that Oscar Wilde’s style in the novel will be ornate, elaborate, and beautiful. Wilde writes, The artist is the creator of...

Wilde liked to strike an amoral pose, and he certainly wasn't moral in the conventional Victorian sense of the word. Nevertheless, I would argue he was a moralist. In The Picture of Dorian Gray, he...

The fate of Dorian's parents is a tragic story which is told to the reader in Chapter Three. Dorian's mother, the beautiful Margaret Devereux, fell in love and eloped with a "penniless young...

In Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Lord Henry Wotton, the hedonistic aristocrat, teaches the protagonist, Dorian, how to embrace a libertine lifestyle. Dorian is a young man noted for his...

Basil is the artist who paints the beautiful portrait of the twenty-year-old Dorian Gray. Basil tells Lord Henry that he likes Dorian "immensely" and that Dorian has cast an enchantment over him....

Your question is a perfect reason why students should never substitute a movie for a work of literature! The writers of screen plays and directors themselves change things in order to increase the...

Chapter X of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray makes mention of the "yellow book" that was given to Dorian by his main tempter, Lord Henry Wooton. In reality, the book to which Wilde...

Although The Picture of Dorian Gray deceptively begins as a novel of manners with satirical and witty dialogue from Lord Henry, it takes a dark turn and ends up incorporating many Gothic elements....

Lord Henry and Basil essentially represent both sides of Dorian Gray. They are foils and mirrors of one another; that is, they are similar, but in other ways they are different forces that pull...

The society of Oscar Wilde's narrative is one that supports the facade rather than the reality as each of the three characters of The Picture of Dorian Gray exhibits a certain illusion about...

Epigrams are witty, succinct, and often surprising sayings that are often expressed with economy of language, parallel structure, or unique vocabulary. Oscar Wilde is known as a master of the...

Dorian Gray's internal conflict is that he wants to stay forever young so he can enjoy life to its fullest, but he knows that he must age and die like everyone else in the world. He realizes that...

Hetty Merton is the young girl that Dorian has a brief dalliance with at the end of the novel. More significantly, Hetty represents to Dorian the hope of redemption, that he can actually love, and...

In this novel, the issue is not so much the inability to distinguish between art and reality as it is the conscious choice—and supernatural ability—to aestheticize reality and, in so doing, to...

I would single out three devices Wilde uses with particular skill: foreshadowing, irony, and symbolism. The most obvious instance of the first of these is Dorian's wish that he will never age and...

The language style in the novel is often quite florid, sensuous and dreamy, in keeping with Wilde’s aesthetic sensibilities, and at other times epigrammatic, reflecting his celebrated wit. These...

One of the comments Lord Henry makes about women in Chapter 4 is as follows: My dear boy, no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it...

Asking in what way does Oscar Wilde's use of the term "sins" in The Picture of Dorian Gray condemn a society that is rigid and heterosexist implies two anachronistic assumptions, the first being...

The painting really does change, but so does Dorian Gray. The painting may age instead of the man himself, but Dorian Gray grows ugly on the inside.Technically, the painting ages after Dorian...

In chapter 1 of The Picture of Dorian Gray, Basil Hallward explains that he does not want to exhibit Dorian's portrait because, as he says, "I really can't exhibit it. I have put too much of myself...

As a character, Lord Henry Wotton is the pivotal agent that moves the plot forward by transforming Dorian Gray into a dynamic character that will change dramatically throughout the novel. As...

The picture of Dorian Gray that Basil paints shows him in his youthful beauty. Dorian wishes he could look that way always. After Dorian makes a pact with the devil to remain young and attractive,...

In The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wilde uses a number of literary devices to emphasize some of the book's key themes. First of all, Wilde uses a number of symbols to reinforce a key theme. The yellow...

Indeed he is. On the face of it, Dorian has all the qualities you'd normally associate with a traditional hero. Young, handsome, and full of vitality, we could easily imagine him performing all...

Dorian's portrait does not influence his character so much as it enables it. At first, after Basil completes the painting, Dorian is filled with longing to remain as young and beautiful as he is in...

When we first encounter Dorian, he is described in terms of his angelic appearance, with golden hair, blue eyes, and porcelain skin. "All the candour of youth was there, as well as all youth's...

Lord Henry's advice is, essentially, to live life to the fullest while he is young, before the ravages of time sap him of his youth. He should, Lord Henry tells him, live for himself, and for no...

Chapter 1 of Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray is set in painter Basil Hallward's studio, where the painter observes in awe his most effective portrait; that of a young London...

Lord Henry Wotton is a wealthy aristocrat who first meets the young title character of Wilde's novel in the studio of their mutual friend, the painter Basil Hallward. He espouses a cynical,...

I think you might be getting confused between different points of view here. Normally we only associate questions concerning the reliability of a narrator with tales that are told using the first...

To compare and contrast Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with Oscar Wilde`s The Picture of Dorian Gray, you might want to select a single theme for comparison....

The theme of Faust, or Doctor Faustus, is mirrored in The Picture of Dorian Gray. Both protagonists, Faustus and Dorian, are the quintessential characters who seek to know more, have more, or...

In The Picture of Dorian Gray there is an added tendency to correlate the East End of London, a place where anything goes, to people who completely detour from Wilde's idea of aesthetic. As the...

Lord Henry is both a hypocrite and a catalyst in The Picture of Dorian Gray. Beginning with his hypocrisy, we see the first, and arguably most important, example of this in Chapter Two when Lord...

Before Oscar Wilde even begins his narrative, he gives us a preface consisting of a series of aphorisms that express contradictions or paradoxes about art: The highest, as the lowest, form of...

Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray is a novel rich with aphorism, imagery, and symbolism. His association with the artistic and literary movement of Aestheticism emerges strongly in his...

Dorian Gray's view of the world changes dramatically as the novel progresses. At first, he is pleased to sell his soul, in order that all of his sins and signs of aging show up on his portrait,...

Considering Wilde's own predilection for aesthetics, and his tendency to be arrogant, we could sustain that Wilde shows pride more prominently than other deadly sins in the character of Dorian...

This book takes place in late-nineteenth-century London, a time and place characterized by extravagance and artistry flying in the face of traditional, conservative values. It comes as little...

Dorian makes the fateful decision to aestheticize his existence, to turn his life into a work of art—and all in pursuit of a constant stream of pleasurable experiences. Strongly influenced by the...

The use of different names of plants, precious stones, and other items is a stylistic device often chosen by writers of the aesthetic movement in order to produce strong and beautiful imagery....

The book Lord Henry gives Dorian is a kind of symbol of what we would now term the alternative lifestyle upon which Dorian embarks. We are told that It was a novel without a plot, and with only...

Let us remember that Freud argued our personality was made up by the id, the ego and the super ego, and that the id played the role of trying to convince us to pursure our own selfish desires...

The short answer is: not in a good way. The Yellow Book is given to Dorian by the decadent aristocrat Lord Henry Wotton. In the book, the protagonist becomes obsessed with experiencing as many...

Mr. Isaacs is Sibyl's manager. He has lent her mother fifty pounds, a large amount of money in those days. Dorian shows some of the ugliness growing in his own character, now that he is secure from...

In the story, friendship is a double-edged sword. In the scene at the theatre, both Henry and Basil show a self-important, judgmental attitude about Sibyl's performance. As friends, they seem to be...

It appears that your question is in reference to Basil Hallward, Dorian Gray, and Lord Henry Wotton. Here is the quote your question references: "...Your rank and wealth, Harry; my brains, such as...