One Pager the portrait of Dorian Grey

later some bad events make the portrait age until Dorian stabs the painting, Dorian becomes a disfigured old man again and the portrait returns to its beauty

Dorian remains young and beatiful while his portrait grows old

Dorian falls in love with his own beauty and makes a pact with the aesthete Lord Henry

Dorian sees the portrait painted by Basil

art victorian period beauty aestheticism narcissism decadence

themes literary period

London, late 19th century

setting

Dorian Grey

main character

Oscar Wilde nacque a Dublino nel 1854 in una famiglia benestante (suo padre era un celebre chirurgo, sua madre una scrittrice e una donna piuttosto eccentrica).Oscar Wilde imparò che l’arte non aveva uno scopo didattico e morale, adottò uno stile di vita basato sull'estetismo e cominciò a comportarsi e a vestire in modo stravagante. Oscar Wilde scrisse una serie di racconti come The Canterville Ghost (1887), The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888) che scrisse per i suoi figli, e il suo unico romanzo The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), in cui espresse le sue teorie estetiche. Oscar Wilde scrisse anche molte opere teatrali di successo tra cui la tragedia Salomè (1892).

Oscar Wilde nacque a Dublino nel 1854 in una famiglia benestante (suo padre era un celebre chirurgo, sua madre una scrittrice e una donna piuttosto eccentrica). Oscar Wilde imparò che l’arte non aveva uno scopo didattico e morale, adottò uno stile di vita basato sull'estetismo e cominciò a comportarsi e a vestire in modo stravagante. Oscar Wilde scrisse una serie di racconti come The Canterville Ghost (1887), The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888) che scrisse per i suoi figli, e il suo unico romanzo The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), in cui espresse le sue teorie estetiche. Oscar Wilde scrisse anche molte opere teatrali di successo tra cui la tragedia Salomè (1892).

Oscar Wilde

the picture of dorian grey

a philosophical and gothic novel

moral

Dorian forces us to look into the darkest part of each of uor souls, into our most hidden desires, into wanting to be above the consequences of our actions, with which, instead, sooner or later, human beings must deal.

Basil Hallward, Lord Henry Wotton

The protagonist is an handsome, impressionable and wealthy young gentlement, who becomes extremely concerned about his beauty and pursue a life of pleasures. In him the beautiful and young aspect and the morally corrupt internal one collide.

London is mainly divided into two parts: the wealthy West End, where Dorian has his houseand frequents gentlemen's clubs, and the decrepit East End where Dorian frequents saloons and smoke shops. London also represents the two sides of Dorian. Wild describing the environment wants to highlight and analyze the divisions within Victorian society, London is also personified as something monstrous, so much that society is worried about the continuous growth of the city and the expansion of the working class.

Widespread thought at the end of the 9th century that exalts beauty as the supreme value of life, considers life itself as a search for beauty and artistic creation of the individual. Aestheticism developed during the Victorian age, a period in which England was experiencing economic growth, but saw the emergence of social problems concerning workers.

Beauty is the main theme, and in this novel the focus is on the fact that man wants to preserve his beautyand youth, that he does not want to surrender to the passage of time by going against nature. Art is also important, in fact Dorian looks inside himself through his portrait, art therefore acts as a mirror for the soul.