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The Painter's
Studio, The Death of
Dorian Gray, Rebel or Devil?, . -…
The Painter's
Studio
Context
- Basil Hallward's studio→ London.
- Basil Hallward (painter) + Lord Henry
Setting
- sensory sensations: scents 🌹, sounds 🐝, colors and lights
- atmosphere: refined - unreal→ contrast nature - city
→ environment= Wilde's aestheticism
Portrait presentation
- study center: portrait of Dorian Gray
- painting→ mystery→ anticipates Basil's death
- portrait = perfect work + religious adoration
Characters
- Basil
- sensitive and introverted
- emotionally involved
- art = moral and personal expression
- artist sacrifices himself for art
- Lord Henry
- detached, ironic, provokes
- brilliant and paradoxical language.
- despises traditional institutions
- enhances pure beauty
- Represents→ amoral aestheticism
Function of the extract
- myth of beauty
- conflict: art, morality and life
- central role of the portrait
- influence of Lord Henry
- anticipates the moral drama
Narrative techniques and style
- third-person narrator.
- language→ rich, decorative→ visual
- dialogues→ typical of Wilde's theatre.
- paradox (Lord Henry).
Main themes
- art (aesthetic ideal) and beauty (absolute value)
- art and identity→ painting contains the artist's soul
- contrast beauty - intellect→ ruins harmony
- prefiguration→ anticipates destruction
The Death of
Dorian Gray
Initial situation
- Night VS tragedy → ironic contrast
- Dorian → tired and longs for anonymity
- Meeting with Hetty Merton
- reflects on the past→ corruption of the soul
- desire atonement→ punishment to purify
Context
- final chapter→ tragic climax
- Theme: moral reckoning
Portrait vision
- downplay crimes→ Basil and Campbell
- living death of his soul
- repugnant picture→ hypocrisy and blood
- "good" gesture for: vanity, hypocrisy, curiosity
- portrait→ his conscience + proof of guilt
Catastrophe
- stabs the portrait→ kills himself
- cry→ sign of damnation
- Portrait: young and pure again
- Dorian's Body: Old and Repulsive
- recognition with rings
Final decision
- escape route→ destroy the portrait
- knife→ punishment tool
→ symbolic justice
Illusion of redemption
- Dorian believes he has changed:
→ "good"→ improved portrait
- he looks at it→ hope and self-deception
Symbolic meaning and themes
- Inevitable punishment→ no escaping conscience
- The portrait= soul
- Dorian = bourgeois hypocrisy
- Triumph of art→ survives and is eternal
Rebel or Devil?
Devil
- increasingly serious sins
- incarnation of evil→ corrupt soul
- portrait→ monster, locked up
Double identity
- externally:
→ handsome, young, innocent
- internally:
→ degraded, immoral, monstrous
- no one suspects his true nature.
Rebel
- transgresses Victorian society norms.
- refuse: morality and responsibility
- lives according to: pleasure, hedonism, freedom
Complex character
- ambiguous and contradictory
- rebellion + moral and social rules
Meaning of contrast
- criticizes bourgeois hypocrisy
- complaint: vanity, self-indulgence, pleasure
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