My first blog - Oscar Wilde
I recently saw a movie A good woman.. based on a play by Oscar wilde (forgot the name). In many ways it was a very intresting movie. I guess it made me look back at the picture of dorian gray .. the book i read few years ago .. i think there was a lot of similarities between the two. Most importantly as in dorian gray here too the central character had her dark side; this is one aspect of the movie which hit me most. Behind those paradox which Oscar Wilde uses for his humor he tends to show us the other facet of our hero .. which most of us find difficult to adjust to. We are so much in love with our heros that we want to see them as perfect human beings(i guess too much bollywood) but wilde goes much beyond that, he shows us that a situation makes a hero of villan and a person who is good in one situation wont be so always .. time, his circumstances and his environment change him. A person whom you think is good wont always be good and someone you think is totally immoral wont always be so. He in a way wants to challenge the reader and wants him to open his mind towards the realities of this world.
When i read Picture of Dorian Gray i couldnt figure out what was the real purpose of the book, i still dont understand it pretty well but what i have gathered so far is that he wants to potray how a very calm gentle pleasant person can degrade morally (although he time and again writes there is nothing which is moral or immoral) once he become aware of his beauty and falls in love with it. As Dorian becomes more and more aware of his external beauty the more he wants to have it and is ready to do anything for that. That is what leads to his eventual downfall. May be that was one of the things that the book was aimed at.
I think beauty is gods gift to a man, he should neither be concieted and nor should he give no importance to it at all for as the great man said beauty is higher than genius for beauty needs no explanation.
P.S. - All art is quite useless .... hope to figure this out.
When i read Picture of Dorian Gray i couldnt figure out what was the real purpose of the book, i still dont understand it pretty well but what i have gathered so far is that he wants to potray how a very calm gentle pleasant person can degrade morally (although he time and again writes there is nothing which is moral or immoral) once he become aware of his beauty and falls in love with it. As Dorian becomes more and more aware of his external beauty the more he wants to have it and is ready to do anything for that. That is what leads to his eventual downfall. May be that was one of the things that the book was aimed at.
I think beauty is gods gift to a man, he should neither be concieted and nor should he give no importance to it at all for as the great man said beauty is higher than genius for beauty needs no explanation.
P.S. - All art is quite useless .... hope to figure this out.
posted by Siddharth at 9:40 PM
1 Comments:
Dorian Gray is one of my favorite books because it dares t show you that it is within human nature to not be always black or white, that with everything there is gray matter, whether you choose to accept such manner of perception is dependent on the personality of that invidual. Wilde does push people beyond conventional british humor, tragedy, etc, in a way, he was a non conventional writer, perhaps incredibly controversial in his time because of his open homosexuality.
i think every being has a dark side which we occasionally succumb to given the circumstances and environments. the idea that morality and immorality does not exist is repeated in the book to exaggerate even more that morals are simply for rules and that one should act according to one's desires and likes, that one should always succumb and give into pleasure, much like one of the characters of the book, of whose name i cant remember at the moment but i think it starts with a letter H. he was dorian's mentor for some part of the book.
i think one of the main purposes of the book is to remind you that beauty fades, youth fades, and time is continuous and not within one's power and so one should enjoy life to the fullest. Dorian is too worried about losing his beauty, the only true thing which he posseses and as humans, we never want to lose our most prized assets. Beauty and youth was all he had and that drove him into complete insanity and misinterpretation of his mentor's teachings about living life according to ones volition. The thing is, we can never hold on to something materialistic and fleeting like beauty and age. till the day u die, it is one;s good deeds and knowledge which stays with him which is why i dont agree that beauty is higher than intellect. Yes, true beauty does not need to be explained, that is the beauty of beauty. but i hold more regard in the value of wisdom and goodness. and in judgement of dorian, he was selfish, stubborn, arrogant, conceited and did not care about anyone but himself. This was his downfall and that of many others.
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