The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Summary, Review and Ideas. 

Author: Oscar Wilde

Context: Wilde published his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, before he reached the height of his fame. The first edition appeared in the summer of 1890 in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine. It was criticized as scandalous and immoral. Disappointed with its reception, Wilde revised the novel in 1891, adding a preface and six new chapters. In 1891, the same year that the second edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray was published, Wilde began a homosexual relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas, an aspiring but rather untalented poet. The affair caused a good deal of scandal, and Douglas’s father, the marquess of Queensberry, eventually criticized it publicly. When Wilde sued the marquess for libel, he himself was convicted under English sodomy laws for acts of “gross indecency.”

Summary:

• INTRODUCTION – Dorian Gray is a beautiful, youthful and naïve young man who is the muse to artist Basil Hallward. Dorian is introduced to Lord Henry Wotton and is slowly corrupted by the man who plays devil’s advocate asking Dorian if he would pin his soul to the devil’s altar. He says he would and from that moment the portrait and Dorian link to reflect the two extreme sides of his soul. Dorian begins to smoke and drink.
• MAJOR CONFLICT  · Dorian Gray, having promised his soul in order to live a life of perpetual youth, must try to reconcile himself to the bodily decay and dissipation that are recorded in his portrait
• RISING ACTION  · Dorian notices the change in his portrait after ending his affair with Sibyl Vane, leading her to commit suicide.  he commits himself wholly to the “yellow book” and indulges his fancy without regard for his reputation; the discrepancy between his outer purity and his inner depravity surges and the portrait grows more and more decayed.
• CLIMAX  · Dorian kills Basil Hallward after Basil realises that Dorian has become corrupted and sees how distorted the portrait has become.
• FALLING ACTION  · Dorian descends into London’s opium dens; he attempts to express remorse to Lord Henry; he stabs his portrait, thereby killing himself and transforming into the disfigured version of his soul, restoring the portrait to its original form.

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Main Characters:

• Dorian Gray: Portrays the moral dilemmas of good and evil and the overall destruction of the soul and mind due to corruption. he's himself, a living, breathing human being, and he's also the portrait, a visible reflection of the state of his corrupt and crumbling soul.

• Basil Hallwood: If Lord Henry is the Devil's advocate, then Basil Hallward is God's. He's an eternal idealist who truly believes in the innate goodness of mankind.What he doesn't realize is that he's a good man living in a bad world. He continues to have faith in the possibility of redemption and he's a firm believer in high-minded, pure values like Beauty, Truth, and Love.

• Lord Henry Wotton: This hedonistic, selfish aristocrat has the whole world at his fingertips, and, rather than doing something good for humanity, he simply goes about his business in a totally self-indulgent manner. Nothing seems to have any meaning for Lord Henry except his own pleasure

• Sybil Vane: She's everything Dorian sees in himself, only better, since her purity is totally unspoiled. However, her lack of cynicism makes her particularly vulnerable to just about everything; as she herself says, her only experience up to this point is a kind of sheltered half-life on the stage:

Chosen Character and Scene:

• Dorian Gray – The reason I have chosen Dorian as my character to base my work around is because of the juxtapositions of his personality, the idea of the disfigured rotting portrait of his soul next to the pure and youthful face he bares to the world.

• I would like to look at the final scene in which he stabs his portrait, resulting in his transformation into the disfigured man he should have become because of all of the immoral acts he has committed. I want to create the transitional look at the point where Dorian is half pure and half corrupt.

Sites Used:

Spark notes: SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on The Picture of Dorian Gray.” SparkNotes LLC. 2002. http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/doriangray/ (accessed January 28th 2016) 

Shmoop: Shmoop Editorial Team. "The Picture of Dorian Gray Characters." Shmoop University, Inc.Last modified November 11, 2008. http://www.shmoop.com/picture-dorian-gray/characters.html.

(Accessed January 28th 2016) 

MY REVIEW: 

I picked this book because I didn't want the generic gothic horror era monster, i.e. frankenstein. I wanted my final designs to reflect that of a male or female that fits the time period that the book was set in, but instead of having his demons on the outside for  all to see he/she has inner demons. I think that the transitional scene in which Dorian's malevolent inner corruption begins to become apparent on his beautiful exterior is the perfect scene to depict. After reading the book and watching the film I began to think of many different interpretations of Dorian's character in this state. I liked how in the book Dorian ages in a more natural way, the eternal youth slips away until he becomes a decaying old man. "The cheeks would become hollow or flaccid. Yellow crow's feet would creep round the fading eyes and make them horrible. The hair would lose its brightness, the mouth would gape or droop, would be foolish or gross, as the mouths of old men are. There would be the wrinkled throat, the cold, blue-veined hands, the twisted body...' (chpt. 10).  Whereas in the film interpretation of 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' Dorian's portrait tears away from the actual painting and lunges toward him until Dorian actually absorbs all of this evil energy and it reflects on his face in a rather grotesque and vile manor until he bursts into flames because of the painting that he stabbed and set alight. In my interpretation i would like to be a lot more subtle than the film but taking elements of the makeup styling. While focusing more on a natural ageing process that would predominantly follow the story line of the book. Overall I thought that the story was very interesting and i was captivated while reading it with ease over christmas. I cannot wait to start this unit and learn all the ways in which to create the looks that i am currently being inspired by. 

Books used: 
 'The picture of Dorian Gray.' Written by Oscar Wilde, Published  1891. Last read: Throughout December 2015.

Films watched: 
 'Dorian Gray' Released September 9th 2009. Directed by Oliver Parker. Last watched: January 29th 2016.