The picture of dorian gray

Introduction

“The Picture of Dorian Gray” is a novel written by Oscar Wilde. It was published on June 20th of 1890 in United Kingdom by Lippincott's Monthly Magazine. Wilde’s literary career had achieved with this publication. I chose this passage because of its author is one of the best and recognized in the history, and because of its different and creative plot.

Author’s Biography

Hiscomplete name was Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde, and he born on October 16th of 1854, in Dublin, Ireland. Oscar Wilde, as we know him, was a playwright, short story writer, and poet. He became one of the most successful playwrights of the late Victorian era in London. His life was extravagant and he learned a lot of that life form, many of his stories were written based on his experiences.For instance, “The Picture of Dorian Gray”. Another one is “De Profundis” a poem that he sent to his homosexual partner saying goodbye forever. Even he got married and had two children, he was bisexual, and he was in the jail for 2 years because of “gross indecency” with another man. He died on November 30th of 1900, in Paris, France. He never returned to Ireland. More of his stories are: ThePicture of Dorian Gray, Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime and Other Stories, The Happy Prince and Other Tales. Plays: Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband, The Importance of Being Earnest. Poems and essays: The Ballad of Reading Goal, Ravenna, De Profundis.

Plot

Dorian Gray is a kind and noble person that is been painted by his best friend Basil Hallward, who always caresDorian’s attributes, such as honesty and innocence. Basil is visited by Lord Henry Wotton when he is about to finish his paint, Basil warns to Lord Henry to keep himself away from Dorian, because of his crazy ideas about life could confuse Dorian Gray. While Basil paints the final details, Lord Henry talks with Dorian and says, between more phrases, that Dorian’s beauty would not be forever, hehad to grow old and watch sadly his portrait. Dorian, scared, goes to the portrait and wishes that the paint grows old instead himself. After that, Dorian becomes Henry’s best friend and hears him like to a teacher, also tells him about his new adventures as a new man, and says him about Sibyl Vane, a poor actress from a poor theater. Dorian falls in love with her and engages her, but after thefinal act he arrives to Sibyl’s room and screams her because of Sibyl’s mistakes. Then, she kills herself because Dorian hates her. When Dorian knows about Sibyl’s death, he looks his portrait and sees the face wrinkled and ugly. That occurs when Dorian does a crime, and he does not grow old, his portrait shows Dorian’s real appearance. Sibyl’s brother, Jimmy Vane, searches and wants to kill to DorianGray because of the hate caused by his sister’s death, but he sees Dorian after twenty years in an opium store, and leaves him because Dorian’s appearance could not be possible. With the time Dorian reaches to be an evil man, and even he looks like a guy, his portrait shows a mean and old person. James dies, Dorian’s friends go away, and Dorian kills Basil Hallward. The story ends when DorianGray, exhausted to himself, stabs the paint with the same knife that he kills Basil. The portrait changes and shows the original paint, while Dorian is wrinkled, ugly, old, and died, on the floor.

Setting

The story takes place in London, all the time the characters are there. The time is approximately the same that the author lives when he writes the novel, which is in the XIX century, we canconclude that the novel starts 20 years before that, so we have two sequences of time, the first one, at 1870; and the second one, at 1890, because I don’t believe that Oscar Wilde has written the novel with the range of 1890 to 1910 –talking about the story, and not about the time that he dedicated to write it-, knowing that he dies in November 1900, he does not meet the new century, and is more...