Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

2. Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) The Importance of Being Earnest Lady Windermere’s Fan A Woman of No Importance An Ideal Husband Salome The Happy Prince and Other Stories De Profundis The Ballad of Reading Gaol

3. Dandyism Refers to men who place particular importance to physical appearance and refined activities- a cult to the Self.

4. Hedonism pleasure or happiness is the sole or chief good in life

5. The Doppelganger • A double of a person that represents evil

6. Myths The Temptation of Eve Faust

7. Aesthetic Movement Art for Art’s Sake Art should provide sensuous pleasure not convey moral or sentimental messages Sought to free art from the responsibility of social education or moral enlightenment (The Preface) http://www.upword.com/wilde/dorgrayp.html

8. Art versus Life • Art as beautiful, as an escape from real life • Lord Henry encourages Dorian to treat his own life as if it were a work of art • Throughout the novel art allows Dorian to detach himself from his crimes • Both Lord Henry and Dorian surround themselves with objects of beauty • “The real world” as portrayed by the poor neighborhoods and dark places Dorian visits is contrasted to upper class life

9. Gothic Elements in the Novel • The story of Dorian’s parents • The cruel grandfather • The destruction of Basil’s body by chemicals • Poor neighborhoods as dark places • The supernatural nature of the portrait

10. Themes • The power of youth and beauty • Society’s superficiality • The consequences of following a negative influence • Selling one’s soul

11. The Beginning “The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn. From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was lying, smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry Wotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured blossoms of a laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to bear the burden of a beauty so flamelike as theirs; and now and then the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window, producing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making him think of those pallid, jade-faced painters of Tokyo who, through the medium of an art that is necessarily immobile, seek to convey the sense of swiftness and motion. “

12. The Characters: Lord Henry • “The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.” • “Crime belongs exclusively to the lower orders” • "No woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly” • "I am afraid that women appreciate cruelty, downright cruelty, more than anything else. They have wonderfully primitive instincts. We have emancipated them, but they remain slaves looking for their masters, all the same. They love being dominated"

13. The Characters: Lord Henry Lord Henry admires Dorian’s "finely-curved scarlet lips, his frank blue eyes, his crisp gold hair."

14. The Characters: Basil Hallward • (to Lord Henry) "I believe you are really a very good husband, but that you are thoroughly ashamed of your own virtues. . . . You never say a moral thing, and you never do a wrong thing. Your cynicism is simply a pose."

15. The Characters: Basil Hallward • Lord Henry: “Tell me more about Mr Dorian Gray. How often do you see him?”Basil Hallward: “Every day. I couldn’t be happy if I didn’t see him everyday. He is absolutely necessary to me.” • "I was dominated, soul, brain, and power by you. You became to me the visible incarnation of that unseen ideal whose memory haunts us artists like an exquisite dream." • “sin writes itself across a man’s face.”

16. The Characters: Dorian Gray • About twenty when the novel begins, 38 when it ends • "You have had passions that have made you afraid, thoughts that have filled you with terror, day-dreams and sleeping dreams whose mere memory might stain your cheek with shame.” • Struck by his own beauty (Narcissus) • Influenced by Lord Henry who gives him a yellow book • Surrounds himself with beautiful objects

17. The Characters: Sybil Vane • "There is something of a child about her” • "moved like a creature from a finer world. Her body swayed, while she danced, as a plant sways in the water. The curves of her throat were the curves of a white lily. Her hands seemed to be made of cool ivory.” • Lord Henry: "When is she Sibyl Vane?" Dorian replies "Never"

18. Other Characters • Victoria Wotton • James Vane • Mrs. Vane • Adrian Singleton • Lord Fermor • Duchess of Monmouth • Alan Campbell

19. The Ending “When they entered, they found hanging upon the wall a splendid portrait of their master as they had last seen him, in all the wonder of his exquisite youth and beauty. Lying on the floor was a dead man, in evening dress, with a knife in his heart. He was withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage. It was not till they had examined the rings that they recognized who it was.”

20. (2009) Director: Oliver Parker

21. Dorian Gray: Choice of Actors Stuart Townsend as Dorian Gray League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

22. The Beginning What effect does beginning with Basil’s murder have upon the viewer?

23. What do we learn about Dorian just through this initial scene when he arrives to London?

24. One of the first things we learn about Dorian is that he is a pianist. This is contrasted To Basil’s drawing of Dorian. Why are these two facts important?

25. How does each of the main characters react to the painting?

26. Notice how, much like the devil, Lord Henry seems to be tempting Dorian.

27. How is the character of Sybil changed in the film?

29. “You’re Perfect”

30. Lord Henry’s gift

31. Sin

32. Dorian’s Debauchery

33. Basil

34. Basil

36. I am God. DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee/Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,/Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures be,/Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,/And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,/Rest of their bones, and soulesdeliverie./Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,/And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,/And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,/And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,And death shall be no more, death, thou shalt die. John Donne

37. What role does Emily within the film’s story?

38. Is she like Beauty in Beauty and the Beast?

39. Gothic elements Both Basil and James Vane return to haunt Dorian.

42. The film shows many canted angles.

43. Psychologically, his secret room is also where he keeps his secret inner life.

44. There are also many images of hands.

45. There are many images of reflective objects, like mirrors.

48. The Ending

50. Is the change in ending effective in terms of the story that is being told?