In this essay the representation of the city will be explored in the writing style of the Fin de siècle. This essay will investigate The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde and a selection of Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. Both books represent the city differently in some aspects, and in others, share similarities.
Point one: dirty
Dorian Gray is set in the late 19th century, in the middle of the decadent artistic movement, meaning Dorian would have been a fictitious contemporary of Wilde. Although the Victorian period was plagued with conservative views , Wilde has used Dorian to express the double standards those of the city’s elite indulge. Dorian sees between both ends of the social scales. But despite Dorian disapproving/disgusted he still visits the ‘narrow and gloomy’(Wilde,182) streets of the east end. As Richard Elman agrees ‘between these two worlds, no decent or comfortable middle classes , no quite family life, no dormitory sections in wildes vision of the big city’(p51). Dorian seems ignorant to the plight of people around him less fortunate. He uses this depressing environment as escapism, despite being inescapable to the poor people who live in the area whom opium dens, prostitution and filth are a reality. (Elman,154)
P2-Sherlock Holmes-copper beeches)
An alternative view of being able to disguise is that it is hard to realise that Holmes is one of these disguised people too. Holmes is a rational man in his work, but outside of that he is a drug addict, who ‘stores his tobacco in eccentric places like the toe of a Persian slipper’ (19th Century suspense, 93).In a city of thousands, Sherlock can easily flit in and out of society. Holmes is aware that vast amounts of crime happens everywh...
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...ood, which means allot of things, are overlooked. The city environment allows him to seem as if he is a functioning like any other member of decent society.
As this essay has shown, both texts use a variety of methods to show the opinions of the time and author. Wilde uses his character to portray the double standards and decadence of the age. While Doyle similarity uses Sherlock and Watson as moral compasses. Although on the face of it both Dorian and Sherlock seem polar opposites, they do share similarities; the city is seen as a corruptible force by the authors. Some people fight this, like Holmes and Watson, but others cannot or will not as in Dorians case. In the end, the city changes its inhabitants whether they like it or not.
Works Cited
http://www.angelfire.com/ok5/perceivers/images/Scandal.pdf
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1661/1661-h/1661-h.htm#1
“The Picture of Dorian Gray” is a novel written by Oscar Wilde. The story takes place in England, where the artist Basil Hallward paints a portrait of the young and beautiful Dorian Gray. During his stay at the artist’s studio, he gets introduced to Lord Henry who later becomes one of the most influential people in his life. Dorian Gray becomes aware of his amazing beauty and youthfulness due to the portrait and wishes that the portrait ages instead of him. His wish comes true, Dorian remains beautiful and youthful while the portrait changes. Lord Henry becomes his best friend and motivates him to live in abundance, to sin and always strive for beauty. After a while, Dorian discovers that his portrait doesn’t only age, but also changes face expression as a result of all his sins and evil deeds. Dorian gets anxious by the fact that the portrait shows his evil soul and is scared that somebody will see it, therefore he hides it. The portrait haunts Dorian although it’s hidden. As Dorian’s sins gets worse, he feels that he can’t handle the pressure anymore and decides to destroy the portrait that shows his true self.
The concerns of Victorian England about the status of faith and manhood have left a deep mark in the literature of the period. The Picture of Dorian Gray and Dracula are good examples of this concern. In both books there is an emphasis in the corruption of the body and of the soul as maladies that haunt the greatness of England. The aristocracy is pointed as the social strata from where this decadence will spread. These books show a population of youth that lacks the guidance of parents and are apparently deprived of fertility as a consequence of the disorientation that reigns among them. This corruption is shown in conjunction with a lack of religious faith and an excess of sin that will result in the transference of England to the forces of evil.
In "The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde, we see a beautiful young man who makes tremendous efforts to transform the actual world into the idealistic world of art, dreams and sensations. Dorian's quest, however, culminates in his ultimate tragic destruction. Given that Dorian lives a corrupt life, one is likely to focus on the negative aspects of his character. In spite of his significant character flaws, Dorian Gray may still be considered a hero. This essay will examine Dorian's degradation from the innocent world to the vicious, sensation-oriented world. The elements contributing to Dorian’s status of tragic hero will then be discussed.
David A. Upchurch emphasizes the impact that the novel had on Victorian society in his article, “The Picture of Dorian Gray: Overview”. Upchurch declares:
The Picture of Dorian Gray is a rich story which can be viewed through many literary and cultural lenses. Oscar Wilde himself purposefully filled his novel with a great many direct and indirect allusions to the literary culture of his times, so it seems appropriate to look back at his story - both the novel and the 1945 film version - in this way.
As a reader, one can overlook “the detective’s social abnormality only because these are attached to individuals we take to be normal” (Gregoriou 25) as well as Watson’s adoration for Holmes pores through the narration and binds the reader.
In this novel, Oscar Wilde displays Dorian’s moral corrosion negatively in order to convince his audience of the detrimental effects of aestheticism. As Dorian descends deeper into the depths of his depravity, the audience loses faith in him. His innocent, childlike and charitable qualities, seen in his philanthropy and petulance when he is first introduced, are lost, and he acts cruelly and selfishly. For example, when his lover, Sibyl Vane, performs on stage and fails to meet Dorian’s expectations, Wilde fashions Dorian’s reaction to be callous and bitter to her so that the reader sympathizes with Sibyl.
The novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde shows the life of three men who are affected by art in the Victorian society. In Victorian times men were expected to provide for himself and his family, accumulate wealth, exemplify good morals and prove his masculinity. If a man did not show one of these qualities in the Victorian time his masculinity would be questioned. In the novel these men show three different sides to masculinity. Each character finds himself unhappy with the role he is forced to play in order to prove his masculinity. For them it seems in order to be successful or achieve happiness they must push past the gender roles society has placed on them. Basil Hallward represents the artist, Dorian
In this novel, we see the corruption of Dorian’s unscathed innocence and his beauty by various outside sources. Dorian first meets Basil, who values Dorian’s beauty so much that he is Basil’s muse for art, his way of living. Basil wants to cherish Dorian forever, and wants to keep him for himself. Additionally, at first, he cherishes Dorian’s beauty more than he does his personality. As an artist, Basil is completely enamored by Dorian’s beauty, and he says, “what the invention of oil-painting was to the Venetians, the face of Antinous was to late Greek sculpture, and the face of Dorian Gray will some day be to me” (Wilde 12).
Out of the countless similarities between these two forms of literature, the most significant comparisons are the ones between the best friends of the egotistical main characters. It shows that even though Holmes and House are the most arrogant, lazy, and brilliant protagonists; they still have just a little bit of hope for their humanity because they have one person in their lives that try to bring out the best in them.
He becomes an echo of someone else’s music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. ”(Wilde 13). The words of an honored role model can easily persuade even the purest of hearts into the darkness of crime and evil, such as Dorian Gray. At this moment, Gray falls victim to the flourishing words of Lord Henry, who manipulates Gray from a timid and shining boy to nothing but a shallow man who commits capital crimes to conceal his secret.
The picture of Dorian Gray. The Electronic Classics Series, The Pennsylvania State University. p. 3/ Retrieved January 3, 2014 from http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/oscar-wilde/dorian-gray.pdf
Oscar Wilde`s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray is written primarily out of the aesthetic movement of the Nineteenth Century. Therefore, the text contains a profuse amount of imagery which reflects the concepts of beauty and sensory experiences. By taking the aesthetic approach, Wilde was able to revive the gothic style through grotesque imagery of the portrait and the character whose soul it represents. Wilde is not using gothic elements to shock his audiences; rather he uses the gothic to capture the hideousness of Gray`s corruptness which leaks out of the painting and into the tone of the entire text.
Though Wilde wrote in the preface to this book that, "To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim", we can still trace the shadow of the author himself in all of the three major characters. Basil Hallward, the artist who painted the picture of Dorian Gray, probably has a homosexual attachment to the young Dorian. And as a homosexual himself (or to be exact, bisexual, because he also loved his wife and two sons), Wilde here might be commenting on the enforced secret homosexuals' lives in the late nineteenth century. Seemingly striving after impersonality and aesthetic perfection in his work, Basil feels the greatest anxiety of having put "too much of himself" into his picture of Dorian (Chapter 1, page 20) that he can't exhibit it. To display his work of art in public would, in a sense, amount to exposure of Basil's attraction to Dorian Gray.
Wilde, Oscar, and Michael Patrick. Gillespie. The Picture of Dorian Gray: Authoritative Texts, Backgrounds, Reviews and Reactions, Criticism. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2007. Print.