the picture of dorian gray

Materie:	Scheda libro
Categoria:	Letteratura Inglese
Download:	205
Data:	06.06.2005
Numero di pagine:	4
Formato di file:	.doc (Microsoft Word)

THE PICTURE
OF
DORIAN GRAY

AUTHOR: Oscar Wilde
NOTES OF THE AUTHOR: Oscar Wilde borned in Dublin in 1854. When he went to Oxford to study, he was influenced to aesthetics ideas of Ruskin and Peter. In 1882 he moved to Paris. Here, he became popular in the houses of the good society. He was a dandy, in other words an artist that search the pleasure in every form. He spended his life like a work of art. In 1895 he was ondamned for homosexuality with two years of forced labours. He died in Paris in 1900.
TOPIC: The picture of Dorian Gray
THEMES: 1) cult of the beauty
2) hidden identity and corruption of soul
SUPPORTING SENTENCES (OR PERIODS):
• “I’m jealous of the portrait you have painted of me, Basil, every moment that passes takes something from me, and give something to it..”
• “Women are a decorative sex..”
• “ ..Herry, think of a girl, not yet seventeen, with a face like a flower, dark-brown hair, and violet eyes full of passion. She was the loveliest thing I had ever seen in my life.”
• ..As he passed through the library, his eyes fell on the portrait that basil Hallward had painted of him. He stared at it in surprise. Then he went into his bedroom, took off his coat, and seemed to hesitate. He returned to the library, went over to the picture, and examined it carefully.Yes, there was no mistake about it. The face in the portrait had changed a little. The expression looked different [...]. It was the mouth that was different. It looked unkind, and cruel, with hard lines around it.
• ..Dorian would climb the stairs that led to the locked room, open the door with the key which he always carried with him now, and stand, with a mirror, in front of the portrait, looking now at the evil and ageing face on the canvas, now at the beautiful young face that looked back at him from the polished glass.
• ..The sharp contrast between the two images gave him extreme pleasure. He fell more and more in love with his own beauty, and bacame more and more interested in the corruption of his own soul.
VERBS EXPRESSING:
• To look at( a beautiful thing), to like, to adore
• To hide, to destroy, to run away
CONNECTIVES: Because, and, for, who, but, with, that
KEY WORDS: Picture, portrait, beauty, room’s key,
corruption, secret
PLOT: Enthralled by his own exquisite portrait, Dorian Gray makes a Faustian bergain to sell his soul in exchange for eternal youth and beauty. Under the influence of Lord Henry Wotton, he is drawn into a corrupt double life, where he is able to indulge his desires while remaining a gentleman in the eyes of polite society. Only Dorian’s picture bears the traces of his decadence. A knowing account of a secret life and an analysis of the darker side of Victorian society, The picture of Dorian Gray offers a disturbing portrait of an individual coming face to face with the reality of his soul.
STORY: A day Basil Hallward proposed him to pose for a picture. Dorian accepted. So Basil made the picture: it was fantastic. When Lord Henry saw it he wanted to meet Dorian Gray.
Lord Henry met Dorian Gray and he understood that he was very beautiful at real with his red lips, his hair and his blue eyes.
The same day Basil finished the picture. The three men had a discussion about the picture and Basil
wanted to destroy it, but luckily Dorian Gray stopped him.
A month later Dorian Gray met a very beautiful actress, Sybil Vane and he fal1 in love. Sybil loved him too .
Every evening Dorian went to see her play. An evening a1so his friends, Basil and Harry, went to see the play, but Sybil didn't recite well that evening.
Dorian got angry with her, so he decided to leave her.
The actress couldn’t' t live without him, she Loved him too much, so she killed herself.
The next day Lord Henry said Mr. Gray that SybiI Vane was died.
Dorian Gray was despairing, because he wanted to marry Sybil.
He thought he was the murderous of his Love, SybiI. Dorian wanted to change his life, he didn’t' t want to become old.
The following day Basil went to Dorian' s and he confessed all his love for him. Basil gave Dorian
The picture. Dorian put it in the top of the house and every day he went to see it: he loved himself. Some years later he met Basil, again, and he showed him the picture. Basil didn’t' t recognised it because it was about an old man, it was changed. Dorian say that he didn’t' t destroy the picture, but the picture destroyed him. The picture was his heart.
Dorian killed Basil with a knife. Then he cal1ed a friend, Alan Campbel1, that destroyed the body. That evening Dorian met Sybil' s brother, Jim, that wanted kil1 him. But he said that he wasn't the man who loved his sister because he was too young, so Jim didn’t' t kil1 him. Dorian changed house, because he was afraid.
A day, while he was walking with some of his friends, a man shoot them. One of Dorian' s friends shoot him and kil1ed him. The man was Jim.
Dorian wanted to change his life, destroying the picture. But he preferred to kil1 himself that the picture. The servants found his died body, but it was an old man' s body. The man in the picture was young.
MY CONSIDERATIONS: I like this book very much because is full of mystery and contradictions. Descriptions are fantastic, so detailed! I love Oscar Wilde and I will still read many of his novels!