The Supremacy of Youth and Beauty
The transience of our youth is a matter of course. With every heartbeat and every breath we grow just a bit older, and naturally this leaves its marks. We know them as wrinkles, lack of colour, deteriorating posture and energy; attributes all interfering with our external beauty. Thus this is an element of life that many fear for, some more than other, one of who is the character Dorian Gray in Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. Under the influence of Lord Henry, Dorian Gray is taught to believe that his most esteemed and precious attribute is his marvellous beauty. The full effect of Lord Henry’s speech is first indicated by the reaction that Basil’s painting evoke from the young lad Dorian Gray, crying out; “How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. /…/ If it were only the other way! /…/ I would give my soul for that!”.
The transience of our youth, and thus our beauty is therefore one of the initial themes that Oscar Wilde discusses in his captivating novel. This has a strong connection to the philosophy of art by which Oscar Wilde lived, called aestheticism, signifying that art serves no other purpose than to offer beauty. Furthermore, during the shift from the Enlightenment to Romanticism a philosophical change of heart occurred. Instead of thinking we began to feel; reason were replaced by emotion; brain substituted by heart; and practicalities succeeded by beauty and sensation. A theory is therefor that Oscar Wilde lived in a society that prized beauty so highly that youth and physical attractiveness became valuable commodities. The proof in is the pudding, as the saying goes, because throughout The Picture of Dorian Gray, beauty reigns.
Our society today is no exception. The appreciation of beauty and fear for growing old, lingers in our culture. We are exposed to this fear the moment we start watching Disney films such as Snow White and Tangled. The moment we revel in a fashion magazine, the moment we are exposed to plastic surgery commercials on the television, or the moment we hear the song Forever Young by Alphaville on the radio. Being young and beautiful is an ideal deeply rooted in our everyday life and it becomes more prominent for every day that passes. Just consider the countless jars of face-cream, that in ten easy steps will make you look ten years younger! “Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?” Snow Whites stepmother becomes blinded by hatred when she is replaced by her own stepdaughter. The old lady named Gothel kidnaps Rapunzel, wanting to reclaim her immortality and youth. Dorian Gray selling his soul to remain forever young and beautiful. The connection is unmistakable; in our world youth is beauty. Or is it?
Cecilia Wickman
The transience of our youth, and thus our beauty is therefore one of the initial themes that Oscar Wilde discusses in his captivating novel. This has a strong connection to the philosophy of art by which Oscar Wilde lived, called aestheticism, signifying that art serves no other purpose than to offer beauty. Furthermore, during the shift from the Enlightenment to Romanticism a philosophical change of heart occurred. Instead of thinking we began to feel; reason were replaced by emotion; brain substituted by heart; and practicalities succeeded by beauty and sensation. A theory is therefor that Oscar Wilde lived in a society that prized beauty so highly that youth and physical attractiveness became valuable commodities. The proof in is the pudding, as the saying goes, because throughout The Picture of Dorian Gray, beauty reigns.
Our society today is no exception. The appreciation of beauty and fear for growing old, lingers in our culture. We are exposed to this fear the moment we start watching Disney films such as Snow White and Tangled. The moment we revel in a fashion magazine, the moment we are exposed to plastic surgery commercials on the television, or the moment we hear the song Forever Young by Alphaville on the radio. Being young and beautiful is an ideal deeply rooted in our everyday life and it becomes more prominent for every day that passes. Just consider the countless jars of face-cream, that in ten easy steps will make you look ten years younger! “Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?” Snow Whites stepmother becomes blinded by hatred when she is replaced by her own stepdaughter. The old lady named Gothel kidnaps Rapunzel, wanting to reclaim her immortality and youth. Dorian Gray selling his soul to remain forever young and beautiful. The connection is unmistakable; in our world youth is beauty. Or is it?
Cecilia Wickman
Connection to American Psycho
The plot of The Picture of Dorian Gray is the protagonist character, Dorian Gray’s desent into madness and corruption as he choose to put his morals aside in order to live a life full ofpleasure seeking. In 2000 a movie came out with Christian Bale as the main lead actor. The movie called American Psycho revolves around the main character Jason Bateman who is a Wall Street businessman. From the outside he looks perfect, he is very fond of his looks and appearance. He has a life as a serial killer however and he is also somewhat of a sex addict. This is an excellent pop culture connection.
These behaviors of keeping a façade up for the outside world to connect these two stories well and the two protagonists of the story shares many similarities. Both of them are extremely narcissistic and only care about themselves and their progress in life. Dorian Gray for example in chapter 7 chooses to completely reject her and say that he wishes he never met her, because her acting did not match his standards. The two characters also share their focus on their appearance and give great importance to these superficial values. The main plot of The Picture of Dorian Gray is that he wants to remain young and look handsome forever, while American Psycho opens up with the rituals that Jason Bateman goes through every morning in order to look good.
The Picture of Dorian Gray and American Psycho can therefore be connected to each other. They both explore hedonism as a concept and the moral impact of living according to that lifestyle. Both portray a narcissistic superficial and most likely psychologically unstable character. In a way, American Psycho can almost be seen as a more modern interpretation of how hedonism exists in today’s society and how a hedonistic person would act and acquire his thrills in the society we live in today
Jakob Wedenborn
These behaviors of keeping a façade up for the outside world to connect these two stories well and the two protagonists of the story shares many similarities. Both of them are extremely narcissistic and only care about themselves and their progress in life. Dorian Gray for example in chapter 7 chooses to completely reject her and say that he wishes he never met her, because her acting did not match his standards. The two characters also share their focus on their appearance and give great importance to these superficial values. The main plot of The Picture of Dorian Gray is that he wants to remain young and look handsome forever, while American Psycho opens up with the rituals that Jason Bateman goes through every morning in order to look good.
The Picture of Dorian Gray and American Psycho can therefore be connected to each other. They both explore hedonism as a concept and the moral impact of living according to that lifestyle. Both portray a narcissistic superficial and most likely psychologically unstable character. In a way, American Psycho can almost be seen as a more modern interpretation of how hedonism exists in today’s society and how a hedonistic person would act and acquire his thrills in the society we live in today
Jakob Wedenborn
Connection to the idea about souls
The picture of Dorian Grey associates with the idea of a soul. In the very end of Oscar Wilds novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian Gray destroys the picture with a knife. Stabbing his portrait, Dorian inadvertently kills himself. Not only is the gothic tone ones again presented, nevertheless the idea of a soul. An interpretation is that Gray´s soul is caught in the portrait. As he stabs the portrait he kills his soul, and when the soul dies subsequently the person dies with it.
The idea about a perish soul associates with an act of a creature in J.K Rowling´s Harry Potter saga, the Dementor´s kiss. The Dementor´s kiss is when a Dementor sucks out a person’s soul. Then the soul is lost the person of interest fairly dies, or as the character Remus Lupin explain it; “You can exist without your soul, you know, as long as your brain and heart still working. But you´ll have no sense of self anymore, no memory, no… anything. There’s no chance at all of recovery. You´ll just—exist. As an empty shell. And your soul is gone forever… lost”. Even though Dorian dies completely, the idea of inability to live without a soul is a similarity between the two novels.
If by saying Dorian Grays soul is captures in the painting it explains why the portrait changes while his real appearance remain the same. During the course of the novel Dorian´s soul turns into the darker, in addition the painting also changes, darkening. In a last attempt to alter into the better Gray tries to destroy his dark side reflected in the painting, unintentionally he kills his soul and consequently dies himself. The impression of living without a soul is presented in both Oscar Wilde´s The Picture of Dorian Gray and J.K Rowling´s Harry Potter, and is one explanation to the death of Dorian Gray in the novels ending.
Ebba Wadstein
The idea about a perish soul associates with an act of a creature in J.K Rowling´s Harry Potter saga, the Dementor´s kiss. The Dementor´s kiss is when a Dementor sucks out a person’s soul. Then the soul is lost the person of interest fairly dies, or as the character Remus Lupin explain it; “You can exist without your soul, you know, as long as your brain and heart still working. But you´ll have no sense of self anymore, no memory, no… anything. There’s no chance at all of recovery. You´ll just—exist. As an empty shell. And your soul is gone forever… lost”. Even though Dorian dies completely, the idea of inability to live without a soul is a similarity between the two novels.
If by saying Dorian Grays soul is captures in the painting it explains why the portrait changes while his real appearance remain the same. During the course of the novel Dorian´s soul turns into the darker, in addition the painting also changes, darkening. In a last attempt to alter into the better Gray tries to destroy his dark side reflected in the painting, unintentionally he kills his soul and consequently dies himself. The impression of living without a soul is presented in both Oscar Wilde´s The Picture of Dorian Gray and J.K Rowling´s Harry Potter, and is one explanation to the death of Dorian Gray in the novels ending.
Ebba Wadstein
Obsession with literature
The Romantic Era is known for going from valuing the human’s ability to think to value the ability to feel, and the poets replaced the scientists as the new “rock stars”. This period of time was also the beginning of the real obsessions of art. Back in time, it was mostly the religions pieces, like for example the Bible, which could really capture a person emotionally. Now, the focus of all literature was to awake, associate and move the individual’s feelings, and as a consequence did the audience become really captured and even obsessed with the pieces. Dorian Gray is one example of one of these persons in the audience; he gets so obsessed with his “yellow book” that he orders nearly a dozen copies of the first edition and has them bound in different colors to suit his shifting moods. Dorian feels like it is his life described in the book and gets so influenced by it that his character begins to change, even if his outside can’t.
Something else that was new with the romantic’s obsession with literature was that it could grow so strong that people began committing suicide and threatening the authors to rewrite the endings. One example of this was the significative piece The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The first edition was published in 1774, leading to that it was one of the first emotional novels of the Romantic Era, an inspiration for the following, and also one of the first pieces that people got obsessed with. The behavior of obsession with literature has continued and is still today a very usual common in our society. Every day, people read books, poetry or hear a song that inspires them to make a change in their life and to get obsessed with a book series is nothing unusual at all. I myself love to read and when I found a book I really like, I just can’t stop reading it. I get totally caught up in the book and the time flies by as I escape from my reality to the fantastic and capturing reality of the book. It’s one of the best feelings I know and I believe that the obsession with literature will continue as long as there is a person to read it.
References:
http://www.ur.se/Produkter/158023-Hej-litteraturen!-Romantiken http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sorrows_of_Young_Werther
Alice Engström
Something else that was new with the romantic’s obsession with literature was that it could grow so strong that people began committing suicide and threatening the authors to rewrite the endings. One example of this was the significative piece The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The first edition was published in 1774, leading to that it was one of the first emotional novels of the Romantic Era, an inspiration for the following, and also one of the first pieces that people got obsessed with. The behavior of obsession with literature has continued and is still today a very usual common in our society. Every day, people read books, poetry or hear a song that inspires them to make a change in their life and to get obsessed with a book series is nothing unusual at all. I myself love to read and when I found a book I really like, I just can’t stop reading it. I get totally caught up in the book and the time flies by as I escape from my reality to the fantastic and capturing reality of the book. It’s one of the best feelings I know and I believe that the obsession with literature will continue as long as there is a person to read it.
References:
http://www.ur.se/Produkter/158023-Hej-litteraturen!-Romantiken http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sorrows_of_Young_Werther
Alice Engström