Dorian Gray Análisis La Vida De Basil Hallward

1) Period of time in which the story takes place (historical context)
2) Complete character description.
3) Role and development of he character throughout the story.
4) Similarities between the character and the period of time in which the story takes place and the present/your real life.
5) Conclusion (personal/group).
6) Mention all the sources.
Group special activity:
Social contextof the story (social classes/works)

1) “The picture of Dorian Gray” was written in the last years of XIX century, with the Victorian period. In this period of time Victoria queen headed England, and the society celebrate values like materialism, insularity and pleasure. Aristocracy and appearance were the most important virtues for people.
The industry had an intense activity at this time,and technological advances promoted a better communication.
This novel was written during the Aestheticism literary movement, whose slogan was “the art for art’s sake”.
Oscar Wilde published this novel in 1890, but it was criticized as scandalous and immoral. So, Wilde published it again in 1891 adding a Preface where he explained that art is beautiful and doesn’t need any moral or politicalpurpose. This attitude was revolutionary in Victorian England because the novel was a complaint to the society’s characteristics.

2) We had to describe Basil Hallward. He’s perhaps an old-fashioned representative of the aesthetic movement. He lives his life artfully, making a mystery when there is usually predictability, for instance, in his habit of taking trips without ever telling people wherehe’s going. He dedicates his life to art and, when he sees Dorian Gray, decides to found a new school of art, one devoted to the youthful beauty of his subject. His home is filled with beautiful things. He has clearly devoted his life to the pursuit of the aesthetic as a way of life.
He is an old-fashioned aesthete in the sense that he is willing to give up art for the sake of moralresponsibility. When he sees Dorian has become upset over the portrait he paints of the boy, he is willing to destroy the painting. This is a painting he has just said is the best work of his artistic career. Basil Hallward is the only one in Dorian Gray’s life who beseeches him to reform himself. In this respect, Basil Hallward is the moral center of the novel. The novel opens with him and the plot actionsees a sharp downward turn when he is murdered. Basil Hallward play a small role in the novel, only appearing at three points in Dorian Gray’s life, but his influence is great.

3) If Lord Henry is the Devil's advocate, then Basil Hallward is God's. He's an eternal idealist who truly believes in the innate goodness of mankind. What he doesn't realize is that he's a good man living in a badworld. He continues to have faith in the possibility of redemption and he's a firm believer in high-minded, pure values like Beauty, Truth, and Love. The problem is, he tends to confuse these things; because Dorian continues to be beautiful, Basil optimistically thinks that he also continues to be truthful and loving. Basil refuses to believe that his supposed friends, Henry and Dorian, can bereally bad. Ultimately, he pays for his optimism and good faith with the highest price – his life.

As Henry and Dorian drift farther and farther away from him, Basil grows more and more tragic – his truly artistic temperament leads him into worshipping beauty where he sees it (in Dorian), and it clouds his vision. Basil's true problem is that art is more real to him than life. In an artwork,beauty is always a good thing, but in the real world, it's just not. He doesn't just want life to be like art – he wants life to be art, and vice versa. He believes that Dorian must still have some shred of good in him, if he can continue to look like an angel – and maybe he's right. However, we don't ever get to find out, since Dorian decides rashly to kill Basil rather than pray for forgiveness....