The Victorian Society in The Picture Of Dorian Gray

The Victorian Society in The Picture Of Dorian Gray

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The Victorian age was the time when the British Empire was at its

strongest and greatest. People of Britain felt better and more special

then other people from different countries. The nature of England had

begun to change, the farming industry began to deteriorate and England

started to become a manufacturing industry. It was the time of

contrast especially where the rich were extremely rich and the poor

were extremely poor. Aristocracy was everything and it was what

everyone wanted to be even though the aristocratic world was the

smallest minority of about one percent of England's population.

The Vane family is of a middle class and they are aspiring to social

advancement. However in comparison to the upper class the still seem

like the "seedy" poor. Wilde shows that the desire to be upper class

is misplaced and that the upper class is actually an immoral place as

none of them work, in fact they look down upon it and they very much

believe in scandal and gossip and so for most of the aristocrats that

is the only exciting thing that happens in their lives.

Underneath all the glitz and glamour of the upper class Wilde shows

what it is really like in the lower class that Dorian Gray tries not

to live in. When Dorian goes to the opium den Wilde shows us what it

is really like. The majority of society is living in the squalor of

the working class in a dark nasty and violent world. As Wilde

describes the trip to the opium den he uses nasty adjectiv...

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...ws quite seriously.

"They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty one owes to

one's self."

This shows that Lord Henry thinks we should put ourselves before

others.

Basil Hallward, however, has views opposite of the Victorian age. He

thinks that it is in what is inside is right.

"You never say a moral thing and you never do a wrong thing."

There were very few people of that time in the aristocratic world that

took that view. Whenever Basil said what he thought in that respect he

was always laughed at, ignored or argued.

The Victorian society was not a very nice place to be in, everyone

wanted to live in the aristocratic world, which was not actually a

good place. It was full of corruption, lies and scandal. Everyone else

was leading very poor lives where they were frowned upon for working.