WILDE

WILDE

PLOT

"The picture of Dorian Gray" tells the story of Dorian, a handsome young man who is retracted by a famous painter Basil Hallward attracted by his beauty. When Dorian sees his picture he's impressed by the perfection of his beauty and so he expresses the desire to remain young forever. Meanwhile he lives an immoral life and all the signs of his immorality appeared on the painting which is kept hidden in a room; when he sees that his painter became horrible and transured he tries to destroy the painting after killing the author of the picture but he failed and when he died mysteriously the painter return to his original perfection and all the signs appeared on Dorian's body.

CRITICA

This novel, expression of extreme Decadents is a really mystery's story, deeply allegorical and full of symbolic meanings, centred on the theme of the double, typical of the psychological horror stories (Stevenson). The picture represents Dorian's double side, the dark side that is the symbol of immorality, of dirty conscience and also of Victorian middle class. On the other side Dorian with his pure innocent appearance represents the Victorian bourgeois Hypocrisy. In others words Dorian's double existence reflect the contradictions of the Victorian Age and his beauty represents the importance given to external appearance. This novel banned as immoral when it appeared later proved to be full of morality, in fact the message convained by this book is that the excesses must be punished and the reality can not be avoided. In fact when Dorian tries to destroy the painting he's punished with the worst punishment: his own death. Besides the return of the picture to its original beauty soon after Dorian's death expresses Wilde's conception of Art that remind us to Keats art theories. Wilde, in fact, asserts the superiority of the art over life.

However Wilde's popularity rests on his light comedies such as "An ideal husband", but the greatest one was "the importance of Being Earnest", in this comedy W. shows all his humour, irony, satirical vein, originality, verbal agility, presenting situation full of miser understanding, paradoxes, mistakes identities, and equivocal episodes.

Moreover these comedies are built on brilliant dialogues and absurd characters used to criticize all Victorian bourgeoisie values.