Dorian Gray

In The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde portrays Dorian Gray as being as innocent like a newborn; with the morals of a perfect gentleman, who meets Lord Henry Wotton, a not so perfect gentleman who comes along and influences Dorian Gray like a mother would a newborn. Dorian Gray is a tragic hero in the fact that he is so easily influenced Henry Wotton but cycles through to discover he has developed many flaws. Lord Henry Wotton is a pessimistic witty man. Lord Henry Wotton seems brilliant, but in reality; all this philosophies contradict each other, he “likes peoples better than principles” (11) and he understands the psychology of the human brain. And has become a master in distinguishing the thoughts and words of people.

2. Dorian is suffering under the guilt of his murder, yet he seeks release from it not by redemption, but by obliteration of memory. He wishes to “stamp the thing out, to crush it as one would crush the adder that had stung on” (135). He cannot find any other means of forgiving himself, so he decides to forget instead. The quote shows how keenly he feels the weight of Basil’s murder, and how he is too wicked and too far gone to forgive himself for his sins.

He tries to use his beauty to influence others in the same way that Henry influenced him. He feared changing and growing old so badly that rather than going by the natural order of things he chose to go down the wrong path which ended up hurting him more than it did anyone else; and the portrait, in a way, offered him an opportunity to hide his sins. Henry was smart enough to hide his sins from the society, and he secretly manipulates Dorian-- the corruption ultimately blinds Dorian and it eventually leads to his own death. Works Cited Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray.

The only reason that comes to mind is his jealousy of the nobility that the other characters possess. It may be that there is no motive but his pure hatred for humanity and if he must be a part of it, he will create a hell for everyone else in it. Iago is the perfect villain in the sense that he is a true outsider from humanity. You can almost respect him in the fact that he can do such wrong with absolutely no recognition of the destruction he has caused. Plus he is able to manipulate people’s good qualities such as trust and love and use them for his own immoral benefit.

Those reason are rational enough for his hatred, but they are not rational for his acts what he did after. b) Iago fools everyone in the play to reach his goals. He only gets away with this because they trust him, his lie (his “poison”) works, and this protects him from any questioning. He uses this to his own benefit, talking Cassio into pleading with Desdemona and inducing Othello to believe that Desdemona is having an affair. Throughout the play Iago is described as an "honest" man, which to the audience seems ironic because really everything the man says they know to be a lie.

After listening for quite a while to Lord Henry's views, Dorian begins to change his own to match them, and therefore begins to live a life of immorality. The yellow book is a device that Lord Henry uses to further corrupt and drive Dorian deeper into the pits of sin. Through Lord Henry's influence, the changes in Dorian Gray, and the impact of the yellow book, Oscar Wilde efficiently reveals The Picture of Dorian Gray as a moral book. Lord Wotton sees Dorian as "wonderfully handsome...all of youth's passionate purity," and cannot resist the t... ... middle of paper ... ...self from the influence of this book. Or perhaps...that he never sought to free himself from it."

Jekyll’s conscience ultimately comes into play and knows that he cannot let Mr. Hyde be a permanent character in society as it is too dangerous. After trying to get himself to no longer turn into Hyde fails, he chooses to kill himself. “The pleasures which I made haste to seek in my disguise were...undignified...his every act and thought centered on self; drinking pleasure...from any degree of torture to another; relentless like a man of stone...but the situation was apart from ordinary laws, and insidiously relaxed the grasp of conscience” (129). Jekyll realizes that he has made a bad decision by wanting himself to be able to act on his suppressed ideas as Hyde has put his life in jeopardy after killing a man. Jekyll knows that he cannot be caught because he carries out his evil thoughts through Hyde, who nobody suspects to be Jekyll as that would be seen as nonsense in that time period.

Macbeth fails to realize the witches never promised happiness, contentment, or safety in their words, but rather they managed to lure him in because he convinced himself that being ... ... middle of paper ... ...that he damns all who have faith in the dark forces, basically cursing at himself that he was able to be manipulated by evil. Macbeth begins to understand that he could not have it all, after all. Equivocation eventually fairly wins against our ambitious hero. The consequences of equivocation can be observed through Macbeth’s vulnerability to evil, overconfidence in dark forces, and irrational ambition. An honourable man is destroyed before our very eyes as “instruments of darkness” deceive him by their warped honesty.

Every evil act he performed, he already knew the impact would be on the painting and not himself. Readers can see how the influence of the painting made him progressively corrupt. This corrupting influence of art is also seen in Lord Henry’s character. Lord Henry saw that this painting was Dorian Gray’s prized possession and used this painting to easily influence Dorian. “All influence is immoral... To influence a person is to give him one’s own soul” In this quote, Wilde foreshadows the relationship between Dorian Gray and Lord Henry.

Othello had the right idea in a lot of things in his life, but if you have tragic flaws like he did, he was doomed from the beginning. Iago may have had the last laugh, and orchestrated the madness, but in all honestly Othello was truly to blame because he was weak, controlled by jealousy, was an easy target, and eventually let Iago have complete control of him. Common sense should have saved the day, but Othello seemed to be lacking this critically. All in all, Othello was truly to blame for his own demise , his own destruction. He caused his own death, and well now, he isn’t coming back.