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The Picture Of Dorian Gray

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The Picture Of Dorian Gray
The Picture of Dorian Gray is a novel written by Oscar Wilde in 1890. The book was written during the Victorian era, a period of time that brought Britain several changes concerning technology, science, culture, religion and others. The Picture of Dorian Gray talks about a character called Dorian Gray, who is a young and handsome man that owned a portrait of himself. An artist and friend called Basil Hallward painted it. The artwork was different from a normal painting. It showed Dorian’s physical changes through years while his physical aspects in real life were always the same without any change. Every time Dorian saw the painting, he saw his true self rather than the one he showed to society. Basil introduced Dorian to Lord Henry Wotton, …show more content…
“Hallward stirred in his chair as if he was going to rise. He rushed at him, and dug the knife into the great vein that is behind the ear, crushing the man's head down on the table, and stabbing again and again” (Wilde, 351). Murder is an immoral act that occurs in the novel when Dorian killed his friend Basil with a knife after they had a discussion. Oscar Wilde didn’t wanted people to remember the book due to the immoral acts present on it. He wanted people to see in the novel as piece of art, without any intention of immorality. As he belonged to the aesthetic movement, he wanted to show the beauty of the grotesque. This movement pretends to make art just for pleasure and to show the beauty of things were there’s chaos and unpleasantness. The immoral events presented in the book are the reflection of society attitude and the reason why people critic the book for it’s immorality is because society don’t want to accept there own immoral acts and thoughts.

The Picture of Dorian Gray is a novel that was criticized as an immoral book due to it’s content. The novel has no immoral connotation and as Oscar Wilde said in the book, “The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame” (Wilde, 487). Society doesn’t approve immoral acts, showing it’s constant dislike to murders, robberies, and others. They use the argument

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