WILDE AND STEVENSON

Oscar Wilde and Robert Louis Stevenson

DIFFERENCES AND SIMILARITIES

Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde, the son of a surgeon and of an ambitious literary woman, was born in Dublin in 1854. After attending Trinity College in his home city, he was sent to Oxford, where he gained a first-class degree in Classics and distinguished himself for his eccentricity. He was influenced by the art critic John Ruskin and became a disciple of Walter Pater, accepting the theory of 'Art for Art's Sake’. After graduating in 1878, he moved to London, where he soon became a celebrity for his extraordinary wit and his characteristic style of dress as a ‘dandy’.

1881

Wilde's works

1880

Poems

The Canterville GhostLord Arthur Savile's Crime The Happy Prince and Other Tales

1891

The Picture of Dorian Gray

1892

1893

Lady Windermere's Fan

A Woman of No Importance Salomè

1895

1898

An Ideal Husband The Importance of Being Earnest

1905

The Ballad of Reading Gaol

De Profundis

Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh in 1850, Because of his poor health he spent most of his childhood in bed, terrified of the dark room he was kept in and tutored at home, under the influence of his family's Calvinism. He took up Engineering at university, following in his father's footsteps, but he was not an enthusiastic student. He traveled a lot in search of a friendlier climate; he lived in the South of England, Germany, France and Italy. He was in conflict with his social environment di, the respectable Victorian world; he grew his hair long, his manners di lui were eccentric and he became one of the first examples of the bohemian in Britain, openly rejecting his family's religious principles and their love for respectability. After giving up Engineering, he graduated in law in 1875 and decided to devote himself to writing. He married an American woman and since his health di lui was deteriorating, they moved to Australia and Tahiti, settling down at Vailima in Samoa. He died of a brain haemorrhage in 1894.

Stevenson's works

1883

1886

Treasure Island

The Strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr HydeKidnapped

1889

The Master of Ballantrae

1882

New Arabian Nights

THE DIFFERENCES AND THE SIMILARITIES

Wilde and Stevenson

THE DIFFERENCES

The books belong to different genres: if 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'is a philosophical novel that claims the importance of an aesthetic existence and the superiority of art over the mediocrity of human experience, ' The strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' is a horror story based on science fiction. The main difference between the two authors lies in the fact that if in Stevenson there is a double personality that characterizes the life of the novel's protagonist. In the 'Portrait of Dorian Gray', on the other hand, the characters have different personalities. as far as Stevenson's thinking is concerned, it is to consider the rules of society too heavy, while Oscar Wilde criticizes Victorian moralism and does so through his characters with immoral behavior despite their good looks. A further difference lies in the death of the protagonists of the novels, in fact, if Jekyll dies by committing suicide because he also wants to eliminate Hyde, he must eliminate himself. Dorian, on the other hand, does not commit suicide as he does not know that by stabbing the painting he will also die.

THE SIMILATIRIES

The theme of the double

Both Gray and Jekyll have an important role in society and a respectable image inherited from their families. Dorian Gray is a young esthete, capricious and egocentric (the dandy), it is the task of the secondary characters and the narrating voice to direct his lightness of spirit towards deeper reasoning. Henry Jekyll seems to be his opposite: mature and discreet, measured in language, more acute in every digression. The narrative evolves in different ways but the development of the shadow is very similar. Gray and Jekyll indulge in sin and their respective alter egos are transformed into two monstrous entities: the portrait is disfigured based on Dorian's perversions and Hyde becomes more aggressive and disturbing. But if at first the first personality is able to keep the second in check, the relationship is compromised when both Gray and Jekyll commit the first murder. The situation can only be resolved with a tragic epilogue, the last point of contact between the story of Dorian Gray and that of Henry Jekyll. Because there is no Dorian without his portrait, there is no Jekyll without Hyde. If shadow is the dark side of light, eliminating the alter ego means eliminating the ego.

Paola Tavano VC