Review the book as a whole. In Dorian Gray does Oscar Wilde promote an amoral lifestyle? Explain your opinion by using specific examples from the book. Overall, what did you think of the book?
I believe that Oscar Wilde doesn't necessarly promote an amoral lifestyle yet shows the consequences and differences in thinking that one has with that lifestyle. For example, we see the character of Lord Henry pushing Dorian Gray into this amoral lifestyle, where he was once living a normal life and had it tragicaly turned around. Wilde seems to show what greed and living off of our desires will do to you, pushing you to live an amoral life caring only about what is best for you and not what is right. Wilde uses Lord Henry as the ultimate amoral character, Basil on the opposite side and Dorian Gray stuck inbetween the two men's views. I don't think that Wilde was necessarly promoting an amoral lifestyle because of the ending of Dorian Gray where Dorian explains "But I seem to have lost the passion, and forgotten the desire. I am too much concentrated on myself. My own personality has become a burden to me. I want to escape, to go away, to forget" (150-151). This section I think shows that even though we thought Dorian was completly lost in this amoral lifestyle his moral side is still intact and that the amoral lifestyle is never fully satisfying. I thought the book was pretty good all together. It was a lot harder to read at first because of the writing style but as we countinued to read on I got used to the style and was able to comprehend more.
I believe that Oscar Wilde doesn't necessarily promote an amoral lifestyle but he certainly portrays that its more fun than living life with actual morals. In the beginning of the book its all portrayed by Lord Henry since the life he leads is completely backwards to how we would lead our lives today. Even though Oscar Wilde has so many amoral actions throughout the book, it seems like he's more just trying to set the scene to compare Lord Henry to what Dorian Gray has become in the end. At the end of the book Dorian Gray has become almost a copy of Lord Henry and had no problems going out and drinking and other pleasurable things. So in the end Dorian Grays attempt to live an amoral life backfired and he ended up killing himself. Oscar Wilde just tries to set a good scene.
I don't think that Oscar Wilde is using Dorian Gray to promote an amoral lifestyle. I rather think that it's the other way around. By the end of the book we can see Dorian regretting his lifestyle choices and attempting to reverse the evil in his soul. However, it's too late for him, and when he realizes this he stabs the painting of his soul with the same knife he used to kill Basil. He eventually pays the ultimate price for his choices: death, in a more horrible way than he could have if he were to live normally. So, by the end of the story, I think that Oscar Wilde used Dorian Gray as way to show that people who live amoral lifestyles will pay dearly for it. I have always liked this book. I feel the same way reading it now as I did when I read it a few years back. I like the writing style and think that the social interactions of the characters are very interesting.
I agree with both Laura and Brian, I dont think Oscar Wilde promotes living an amoral life style but his book show the advantages and disadvantages of both a moral and amoral way of living. When Lord Henry enters Dorian Grey's life, Dorian is drawn to Lord Henry's carefree and unregulated life style. If your life is "normal" or "boring" meeting someone with the opposite life style can make you want to change and become more relaxed about morals. People who choose to live amorally usually end up pushing everyone away because of their self centered attitude. By the end of the book Dorian has adopted most of Lord Henry's ideas and thoughts about life, and in the process he ends up killing both his best friend, Basil, and his fiance Sibyl Vane. Over all I thought the book was a pretty easy read, but some of the references were difficult to understand without a through discusion in class. The begining and end of the book were my favorit parts, but I thought the middle chapters were considerably slow and repetative.
I feel like Oscar Wilde is explaining that life is more excited when you have an amoral way of thinking. I see how he shows throughout the book that living like that may be rewarding for a short period of time and having amoral lifestyle will produce many laughs. But, one has to think for themselves if they want to have their short life be filled with excitement at the cost of their soul. I think Oscar Wilde is not necessarily promoting an amoral lifestyle, more like he is explaining the cost of each and wants you to choose for yourself. "The real draw back to marriage is that it makes one unselfish. And unselfish people are colourless " (pg 54). Wilde kind of states that people that live a good moral life may be boring and even though they maybe for a short period of time I think Wilde is promoting that it still might not be the right way to live. It is your choice to make, what is it worth to you? I liked the book, but I feel like it started off a little to slow. But, it was a good book that got people thinking, which I liked.
I don't believe that this book at all promotes an amoral lifestyle, because the consequences are readily apparent. It does present such a life as full of glamour and pleasure, but the true cost in the end is far too terrible for those things to be of any worth at all. Perhaps Dorian will always retain a superficial youth, but his soul is completely detached from him, resulting in his true self in the portrait becoming so twisted that he couldn't let anyone bear witness to it; he even slew Basil because he saw the dark portrait for himself. In the end, Dorian ended up taking his own life because he was so shocked at what he had done without having thought of the consequences. Thus, this book is, in my opinion, a criticism of amorality.
Overall, I felt this book was my least favorite of the three that we have read so far. It started out slow and there was a lot that I felt could have been shortened or cut out entirely.
I believe that Oscar Wilde's character was played through the book very strongly. I would not say that he promotes an amoral life style, but he uses the example of Dorian Gray's life to show us what leading an amoral lifestyle could end up like. After finding out about Sibyl Vane's death is the moment where you can really see that he is unaffected by the cruelty that he has caused. His lack of caring is a deep sign of concern for the beginning of his amoral lifestyle. I believe that Oscar Wilde's outlook on life is more like that of Lord Henry's. Each aphorism that Lord Henry says is in some way a truth that is parallel to Oscar Wilde's life. All of Lord Henry's views on marriage and pleasures seem like those that Oscar Wilde would have. Overall I struggled with the book. For me it moved at a rather slow pace, and at times it was very hard to follow. At the same time though I loved the plot of the book, and I found myself enjoying the book when it got into the parts with more action. I am also enjoying the movie.
I think that Oscar Wilde is glamorizing the amoral lifestyle, though he is not promoting it. The character Lord Henry helped to reinforce this idea because he seemed to have no sense of propriety when saying any idea he thought of humanity. Many of his aphorisms have amoral viewpoints such as, “It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances” (16). When reading one of these quotes, our first thought is to disagree, then amusement after realizing it holds a slight truth. The appeal of the amoral lifestyle is how different it is from our normal way of thinking. Overall, I thought the book was a decent. The first half was pretty slow, but the actual story was kind of entertaining in some ways.
I don’t believe that Oscar Wilde promoted an amoral lifestyle but there were aspects of the book that were amoral. I think that he is showing the advantages and disadvantages of an amoral lifestyle. At the beginning of the book, Dorian had morals but once Lord Henry came along this changed. Lord Henry does not have many morals and he is trying to push his ideas onto Dorian. Lord Henry made Dorian think that living an amoral lifestyle would be fun. Dorian accepts Lord Henry’s amoral lifestyle but Dorian goes back to his moral lifestyle at the end of the book. He sees that living an amoral lifestyle is not how he wants to continue on in life. Lord Henry notices that Dorian is going away from his amoral lifestyle and creating a moral person again. Wilde is showing that an amoral lifestyle has consequences and it is not the way to live life. I thought that the book was pretty good but there were parts that were hard to read. Once the action started towards the middle of the book, it became more interesting but was hard to get into a first.
I think that Oscar Wilde is promoting a moral lifestyle. While he may seem to be promoting an amoral lifestyle through the influence of Lord Henry. While Dorian acts very amorally, at the end of the book he realizes his mistakes and all throughout he can see through the painting that his soul is becomming corrupted. Through Dorian's death, Wilde shows how the remorse for all of Dorians horrible actions caused him to finally try to destroy the painting and in turn destroy himself. He shows that one can not live a life of pleasure for too long without feeling any signs of guilt.
Jaina Shah The Oscar Wild is definitely glorifying the amoral life style, but he was not portraying it. He was thinking of the consequences. There are pro and con of the amoral life style. Lord Henry life is totally different from our live the way we live. In the end of the book he just Doran Grays wants to live amoral life and he ended up killing Lord Henry and him self as well. Oscar Wild glorifying the amorally lifestyle but hey was not portraying it.
Honestly, I did not like the starting of the book. It started so slow, in order for me move further in the book I had to skip few chapters. Also, what I did not like about the book was the quote he made against women for example “ Women are not always allowed a choice,” he answered, but hardly had he finished the sentence before the far end of the conservatory came a stifled groan, followed by the dull sound of a heavy fall” 146
Oscar Wilde is not necessarily promoting an amoral lifestyle, but merely showing how living amoral and over the top can influence your life. When Lord Henry says the only way to get rid of a temptation in to give into it, this ideal is not widely used in our culture today so its almost funny how far left of our ideals he is. I didnt like this book. Alot of the aphorisms were offensive and hard to understand. The book itself was slow. Especially that one chapter about tapestries and whatnot. Also the homosexual undertone was really weird.
In this book I don’t think that Oscar Wilde is promoting an amoral lifestyle, he is just telling the reader what one’s life would be like if they lived an amoral life. In the beginning of the book it seems like Dorian Gray lives a somewhat moral life and then when he meets Lord Henry he starts to change. Lord Henry turns Dorian’s lifestyle into a more amoral lifestyle. I think Dorian considers Lord Henry’s lifestyle as more fun and free so and he doesn’t want to change is “boring” lifestyle into one that is more carefree. Throughout the book Lord Henry turns Dorian away from marriage because he is really against it and he makes Dorian become this cruel person by twisting stuff around in his aphorisms. I thought the book was a little boring yet very interesting at the same time. The thing I didn’t like about it was that there were some chapters that I felt there was a lot of useless information in that you didn’t need to know to get the story. I did like all the aphorisms though because it made you really think about what Oscar Wilde was twisting around.
Oscar Wilde is not promoting an amoral lifestyle, but rather he is showing the two sides to it. Through the character of Lord Henry, Oscar Wilde is showing the views from a man who is promoting an amoral lifestyle and how those views can affect others (such as Dorian Gray). Early on in the book, Oscar Wilde begins to develop Lord Henry's character as amoral. One of the many examples is when Lord Henry says, "I can sympathize with everything, except suffering" (29). As the book goes on, Lord Henry has much influence on Dorian Gray when he begins to take him away from Basil, who is one with much more morals than Lord Henry. However, in the end, Dorian Gray comes out as a more moral character and realizes the wrong he has done. This is especially shown when Dorian is questioning his wrong doings, "He knew that he had tarnished himself, filled his mind with corruption and given horrow to his fancy..." (162). I think that through the character of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde displayed the transformation of a morally-lead lifestyle to an amoral lifestlye lead by influence, back to a moral lifestyle in the end because Dorian realized that morality was the "right" or "good" way to go in the end.
This book was very hard for me to get throught. I agree that this book could have been told in a matter of ten pages or so and I think that is how it should be told. It seemed to develop a good overall theme, but this was done so very slowly.
Although Oscar Wilde may portray an amoral lifestyle as being a grand way to live, towards the end of the book we see the dire consequences of Dorian’s amoral life, and we realize that to be happy, one must live morally and without the egregious sin demonstrated by Dorian Gray. At the end of the book, Dorian realizes that “it was his beauty that had ruined him, his beauty and the youth that he had prayed for. But for those two things, his life might have been free from stain. His beauty had been to him but a mask, his youth but a mockery” (162). This shows that Dorian regrets his wish to stay young and beautiful forever, and in a desperate attempt to cleanse himself of his hideous sins he stabs the picture of his soul, killing himself, which shows us that an amoral lifestyle will not end well. Overall, I really enjoyed the book because it was such a fascinating and complex story. There were some sections of the book that were extremely boring, but it actually wasn’t as hard to read as I thought it would be. However, I was offended by the aphorisms about women, which made me hate Lord Henry, and I also hated the character of Dorian Gray by the end of the book because he could have made different choices (such as not being friends with Lord Henry) and turned his life around.
Oscar Wilde shows some benefits of living an amoral lifestyle, but ultimately theorizes that allowing your temptations to take over your conscience will lead to your demise. Wilde was not a moralist and within the book there is not much to emphasize some sort of moral code or right conduct. But, in its covert meaning, the novel is not without a moral lesson. We can see that beauty is ephemeral and any attempt to deny this fact is amoral. It brings ruin as shows the case of Dorian Gray. The aphorisms in the book were what kept me interested. They may have been easily refutable at times, but they were also just a different perspective about the world. It doesn't mean they are wrong or right, it just means that you can see any situation in a different light.
I believe that Oscar Wilde just wants the people reading this book to see multiple perspectives. I do think that he is promoting the amoral lifestyle, but still; wants people to choose for themselves. Lord Henry is a huge influence on the amoral lifestyle, and this is seen throughout the entire book. There are also parts of the book that show a more typical lifestyle, but it is not seen as often. Oscar Wilde is just showing that living an amoral lifestyle is more fun, but it will come with its consequences.
I thought the book was very boring at first and it took me a long time to get into it. Although I did not agree with many of the concepts of the book, like those of Lord Henry, I found them amusing to read. Towards the end of the book it became more interesting to read.
I dont think that Oscar Wilde wrote this book to promote an amoral lifestyle, but he uses Lord Henry to express what that lifestyle would look like. Over the time of the book, Dorian stops thinking for himself and just starts doing and repeating things that Lord Henry is telling him. Its like Dorian gets brain washed by lord Henry. Overall, the book was ok. Some parts of it were really boring and some were really interesting. So far I have liked the movie though because it gets to the point alot faster then the book.
I most definitely do not think that Oscar Wilde uses his story to promote an amoral lifestyle. Throughout the book we read of an extremely amoral person and the things he believes, that person being Lord Henry. Wilde also presents us with a pure and naïve character, Dorian Gray, and in my opinion uses the entire story to show how unless you are able to stick true you your principles and standards, you will be corrupted by activists. “To cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul.” (Pg 136) A thought offered by Lord Henry that Dorian repeats to himself, we can use this as an example of the horrific way Lord Henry’s amoral habits would posses Dorian Gray. Overtime, we slowly see Lord Henry change Dorian Gray into an unscrupulous person, one without care for anybody but himself and preserving his youth. Examples of this that occur throughout the course of the book include Dorian selling his soul to the portrait for an everlasting youth, the sudden change in having no pity for Sybil’s death, and the murdering of Basil-because Basil began to question his contentious personality transformation. These terrible deeds are finally realized by Dorian to be immoral, and we see Dorian enter into a major depression within the last few chapters of the book. I believe Oscar Wilde uses this depression (and eventually suicide) with Dorian to present to readers what living an amoral lifestyle leads to-the worst kind of misery. Overall, as twisted and wretched as I thought the book to be, (with primarily the ideas expressed by Lord Henry and eventually Dorian Gray) I couldn’t find myself able to put down the book. Once I began reading the cruel tail and really submerged myself in it, the book read dreadfully…beautifully. I loved it, the aphorisms were sickly remarkable.
Taking into consideration The Picture of Dorian Gray as a whole, I don't think Oscar Wilde was promoting an amoral lifestyle. If Wilde truly was trying to encourage an amoral lifestyle instead of letting Dorian die after trying to destroy the painting Wilde would have chosen some other alternate ending. The painting could have been torn to shreds and Dorian could have been fine and dandy but I think Wilde new also that there had to be a stopping point. Dorian could only do so much and the painting could only get so ugly. Maybe the figure could have gone skeletal but even then the next worst thing that should happen to it would be to degrade.
Overall, I liked the book. There was that one chapter that practically put one to sleep but other than that I liked it. I especially liked how the settings mood changed through out the story. It was all “peaches and cream” in the beginning but in the end it was all dark and moody as it should have been. Even then I found the “peaches and cream” to be entertaining because of its rich and vivid description.
When you first begin to read "The Picture of Dorian Gray," it definately seems like Oscar Wilde is promoting an amoral lifestyle. One of the main characters, Lord Henry, advocates giving in to all of your temptations and not worrying about the consequences. His constant relaying of aphorisms critique many of the values society believes in. A great example this is his critique of marriage: "The only charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception necessary for both parties." Dorian Gray, the main character, follows the lifestyle Lord Henry promotes. However, what seems like a great way to live at first soon comes back to haunt Dorian Gray, and leads to his demise. Oscar Wilde is not trying to promote an amoral lifestyle, but is showing the consequences of living one.
I thouroughly enjoyed reading "The Picture of Dorian Gray." The story was very unique and interesting, and definately gave justice to the saying "you reap what you sow." I also thought the aphorims were very clever and interesting.
I overall liked the book when it was more straight to the point and left out all the unnessisary details. But what I thought of doing with the book was find out the 7 deadly virtues that were mentioned by Lord Henry.
"Ugliness is one of the seven deadly virtues...(143)" ~Lord Henry
When I had really thought about this and in the previous parts of the book, where Lord Henry looks down upon a certain thing that Dorian did or wanted to do. So by looking back I believe I have figured out, or close to figured out, what the seven deadly virtues are and why.
1. Ugliness because during that time, youth was everything.
2. Faithfulness because Lord Henry said something like that every married man lives like a bacholer and every bacholer lives like a married man.
3. Selflessness because Lord Henry mentioned that you should do only for yourself and not others.
4. Happiness because Lord Henry believed that happiness can only be obtained my pleasure instead of the many number of things it could be.
5. Shame because Lord Henry believed that only shameful people madeup for their mistakes.
6. Saintly because Lord Henry believed that by being so naive is dangerous, that's why he corrupted Dorian Gray.
7. Love because Lord Henry believed that there was no such thing as love. Lord Henry believed you loved one love just as much as you last and none of them were truely loved.
I feel like Oscar Wilde showed the consequences of living an amoral lifestyle. Throughout the book Dorian Gray finds the joy and excitement from living off this lifestyle. But as we reach the end it starts to take its toll on Dorian and every bad thing that he did in the past comes back to get him. Such as the memories of breaking Sybles heart and causing her suicide, or killing Basil, or all the friends he made that lost their direction in life after they met him. This lifestyle came with a price and Dorian Gray paid for it all at the end when he stabbed his painting and died.
Overall i thought the book wasn't that bad. It was too slow for my taste but the ending was definitely good. I feel like if they gave more specifics on what he did rather then what he was thinking it would have been more interesting because he rambled on so much.
When our class first began reading The Portait of Dorian Gray I was not fond of it. The vocabulary was a bit tricky, and there was a very limited plot; it was hard to follow. But after analyzing the text and talking about different aphorisms in class, I began to enjoy reading the novel. Wilde's curious sense of humor and what is wrong or right in society is incredibly intriguing. Not everyone liked how Wilde portrayed society, some aphorisms came off as very offensive, sexist, or very bigoted; but you have to learn to love them. While Oscar Wilde may not be suggesting an amoral lifestyle, he does show what he thinks about society, and it's not pretty. I found myself becoming most fond of aphorisms involving marrige and romance, as I have found many of these sayings to be completly true, or very similar to what I believe.
I do think this book promotes a somewhat amoral lifestyle because it is an example of someone who lives an amoral life and is completely happy (Lord Henry) and someone who lives one and it backfires. I feel the message is that you need to be smart if your going to be living that way, and then everythings peachy. Its almost like a dare, with a threat at the end. But thats only what I saw with the whole picture, if you look deeper you find that the book almost explains why you shouldn't give into your sins. "There are moments, phsycologists tell us, when the passion for sin, or for what the world calls sin so dominates a nature that every fibre in the body, as every cell of the brain seems to be instinct with fearful impulses. Men and women at such moments lose the freedom of their will. They move to their terrible end as automatins move.
this is basically saying that if you give into your desires, you become a slave and though your happy for a short amount your not in the long run.
In Dorian Gray I don't think Oscar Wilde was permoting an amoral life at all, but was acctualy doing the oposite. During Dorians life he seemed happy until he did start to live an amoral life and started doing ilegal things that eventauly lead to his death. If Dorian got away with his life style and didn't end up dieing and feel guilty about murdering his friend then yes, the book would then be supporting an amoral life style.
I liked the book's plot and some of the aphorisms were pretty interesting. However I think some parts of the book weren't needed to get the books point across and it just made the book harder to stay interested in.
To me, it seemed that Oscar Wilde showed the consequences an abnormal lifestyle, rather than promoting it. A life without morals can turn right around, and cost in the end. Oscar Wilde did not seem to live an amoral lifestyle, but see's humor and more enjoyment in it. Every comment Lord Henry made about marriage, women, or other cynical comments, showed the amoral thinking, and how it made life more humorous and easy going. But in the end, Dorian Gray payed for this way of thinking. To be honest, i did not enjoy this book as much as others. It did have a good story line and i enjoyed the way the book made you think. But it was very slow moving, and the lack of action made it hard to keep my attention.
I wouldn't necessarily say that Oscar Wilde used the book to say that living amoral is a good/bad lifestyle. I think it's more of saying that if someone has a conscience, that they should listen more to the ego and not the id. If you look at the book one way, Lord Henry can be the id and Basil can be the ego. When Dorian starts listen to Lord Henry, or his id, then his life starts to spiral downward, finally ending in his death. If Dorian listened more to Basil than Lord Henry, his life would of ended up better, as it already was. I thought the book, overall, was good. I didn't like the way Oscar Wilde used a lot of his aphorisms to degrade women, though some of them did have a little bit of truth. I liked the last few chapters more than the beginning of the book.
"To get back one's youth, one has merely to repeat one's follies." (30) Throughout The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde does not promote an amoral lifestyle, he simply makes the reader aware of it and what powers it can have over the people who choose to do it. Although the novel can get pretty dull sometimes, I enjoyed the quick moments that caught my interest.
Personally I dont feel that Oscar Wilde was trying to Promote an amoral lifestyle. Though I do believe that Oscar wrote the book showing that Dorian had certain morals that he lived by but his whole life wasn't controlled by morals. Throught the book there there were times were it depicted Dorain living by his morals, then there were other times he would be making decisions for himself. For me as a whole I enjoyed the movie much more than the book. I say this becasue the book was more interesting to me and i was able to follow and understand it better. Overall the book was decent though I prefer the movie.
I don't think that Wilde is promoting a moral or amoral lifestyle. I think that he is simply stating what he believes and leaving the decision up to us. He lets us know that living life without morals is more fun than it is to live with them, but he also lets us know that by the end of your life, if you live without morals, you will have deep, deep regrets. He lets you make the decision on whether the benefit in the fun outweighs the consequence in the regret and ultimately, the painful death. It's something you ultimately have to decide, but he shows the positives and negatives in living with and without morals.
Laura Ahlrep
ReplyDeleteI believe that Oscar Wilde doesn't necessarly promote an amoral lifestyle yet shows the consequences and differences in thinking that one has with that lifestyle. For example, we see the character of Lord Henry pushing Dorian Gray into this amoral lifestyle, where he was once living a normal life and had it tragicaly turned around. Wilde seems to show what greed and living off of our desires will do to you, pushing you to live an amoral life caring only about what is best for you and not what is right. Wilde uses Lord Henry as the ultimate amoral character, Basil on the opposite side and Dorian Gray stuck inbetween the two men's views. I don't think that Wilde was necessarly promoting an amoral lifestyle because of the ending of Dorian Gray where Dorian explains "But I seem to have lost the passion, and forgotten the desire. I am too much concentrated on myself. My own personality has become a burden to me. I want to escape, to go away, to forget" (150-151). This section I think shows that even though we thought Dorian was completly lost in this amoral lifestyle his moral side is still intact and that the amoral lifestyle is never fully satisfying.
I thought the book was pretty good all together. It was a lot harder to read at first because of the writing style but as we countinued to read on I got used to the style and was able to comprehend more.
Brian Gleadle
ReplyDeleteI believe that Oscar Wilde doesn't necessarily promote an amoral lifestyle but he certainly portrays that its more fun than living life with actual morals. In the beginning of the book its all portrayed by Lord Henry since the life he leads is completely backwards to how we would lead our lives today. Even though Oscar Wilde has so many amoral actions throughout the book, it seems like he's more just trying to set the scene to compare Lord Henry to what Dorian Gray has become in the end. At the end of the book Dorian Gray has become almost a copy of Lord Henry and had no problems going out and drinking and other pleasurable things. So in the end Dorian Grays attempt to live an amoral life backfired and he ended up killing himself. Oscar Wilde just tries to set a good scene.
Jenny Hergert
ReplyDeleteI don't think that Oscar Wilde is using Dorian Gray to promote an amoral lifestyle. I rather think that it's the other way around. By the end of the book we can see Dorian regretting his lifestyle choices and attempting to reverse the evil in his soul. However, it's too late for him, and when he realizes this he stabs the painting of his soul with the same knife he used to kill Basil. He eventually pays the ultimate price for his choices: death, in a more horrible way than he could have if he were to live normally. So, by the end of the story, I think that Oscar Wilde used Dorian Gray as way to show that people who live amoral lifestyles will pay dearly for it.
I have always liked this book. I feel the same way reading it now as I did when I read it a few years back. I like the writing style and think that the social interactions of the characters are very interesting.
I agree with both Laura and Brian, I dont think Oscar Wilde promotes living an amoral life style but his book show the advantages and disadvantages of both a moral and amoral way of living. When Lord Henry enters Dorian Grey's life, Dorian is drawn to Lord Henry's carefree and unregulated life style. If your life is "normal" or "boring" meeting someone with the opposite life style can make you want to change and become more relaxed about morals. People who choose to live amorally usually end up pushing everyone away because of their self centered attitude. By the end of the book Dorian has adopted most of Lord Henry's ideas and thoughts about life, and in the process he ends up killing both his best friend, Basil, and his fiance Sibyl Vane.
ReplyDeleteOver all I thought the book was a pretty easy read, but some of the references were difficult to understand without a through discusion in class. The begining and end of the book were my favorit parts, but I thought the middle chapters were considerably slow and repetative.
Crystal Nybo
ReplyDeleteI feel like Oscar Wilde is explaining that life is more excited when you have an amoral way of thinking. I see how he shows throughout the book that living like that may be rewarding for a short period of time and having amoral lifestyle will produce many laughs. But, one has to think for themselves if they want to have their short life be filled with excitement at the cost of their soul. I think Oscar Wilde is not necessarily promoting an amoral lifestyle, more like he is explaining the cost of each and wants you to choose for yourself. "The real draw back to marriage is that it makes one unselfish. And unselfish people are colourless " (pg 54). Wilde kind of states that people that live a good moral life may be boring and even though they maybe for a short period of time I think Wilde is promoting that it still might not be the right way to live. It is your choice to make, what is it worth to you? I liked the book, but I feel like it started off a little to slow. But, it was a good book that got people thinking, which I liked.
Derek Decker
ReplyDeleteI don't believe that this book at all promotes an amoral lifestyle, because the consequences are readily apparent. It does present such a life as full of glamour and pleasure, but the true cost in the end is far too terrible for those things to be of any worth at all. Perhaps Dorian will always retain a superficial youth, but his soul is completely detached from him, resulting in his true self in the portrait becoming so twisted that he couldn't let anyone bear witness to it; he even slew Basil because he saw the dark portrait for himself. In the end, Dorian ended up taking his own life because he was so shocked at what he had done without having thought of the consequences. Thus, this book is, in my opinion, a criticism of amorality.
Overall, I felt this book was my least favorite of the three that we have read so far. It started out slow and there was a lot that I felt could have been shortened or cut out entirely.
I believe that Oscar Wilde's character was played through the book very strongly. I would not say that he promotes an amoral life style, but he uses the example of Dorian Gray's life to show us what leading an amoral lifestyle could end up like. After finding out about Sibyl Vane's death is the moment where you can really see that he is unaffected by the cruelty that he has caused. His lack of caring is a deep sign of concern for the beginning of his amoral lifestyle. I believe that Oscar Wilde's outlook on life is more like that of Lord Henry's. Each aphorism that Lord Henry says is in some way a truth that is parallel to Oscar Wilde's life. All of Lord Henry's views on marriage and pleasures seem like those that Oscar Wilde would have. Overall I struggled with the book. For me it moved at a rather slow pace, and at times it was very hard to follow. At the same time though I loved the plot of the book, and I found myself enjoying the book when it got into the parts with more action. I am also enjoying the movie.
ReplyDeleteI think that Oscar Wilde is glamorizing the amoral lifestyle, though he is not promoting it. The character Lord Henry helped to reinforce this idea because he seemed to have no sense of propriety when saying any idea he thought of humanity. Many of his aphorisms have amoral viewpoints such as, “It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances” (16). When reading one of these quotes, our first thought is to disagree, then amusement after realizing it holds a slight truth. The appeal of the amoral lifestyle is how different it is from our normal way of thinking. Overall, I thought the book was a decent. The first half was pretty slow, but the actual story was kind of entertaining in some ways.
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ReplyDeleteChristine Nafizger
ReplyDeleteI don’t believe that Oscar Wilde promoted an amoral lifestyle but there were aspects of the book that were amoral. I think that he is showing the advantages and disadvantages of an amoral lifestyle. At the beginning of the book, Dorian had morals but once Lord Henry came along this changed. Lord Henry does not have many morals and he is trying to push his ideas onto Dorian. Lord Henry made Dorian think that living an amoral lifestyle would be fun. Dorian accepts Lord Henry’s amoral lifestyle but Dorian goes back to his moral lifestyle at the end of the book. He sees that living an amoral lifestyle is not how he wants to continue on in life. Lord Henry notices that Dorian is going away from his amoral lifestyle and creating a moral person again. Wilde is showing that an amoral lifestyle has consequences and it is not the way to live life.
I thought that the book was pretty good but there were parts that were hard to read. Once the action started towards the middle of the book, it became more interesting but was hard to get into a first.
Kiera Wesley
ReplyDeleteI think that Oscar Wilde is promoting a moral lifestyle. While he may seem to be promoting an amoral lifestyle through the influence of Lord Henry. While Dorian acts very amorally, at the end of the book he realizes his mistakes and all throughout he can see through the painting that his soul is becomming corrupted. Through Dorian's death, Wilde shows how the remorse for all of Dorians horrible actions caused him to finally try to destroy the painting and in turn destroy himself. He shows that one can not live a life of pleasure for too long without feeling any signs of guilt.
Jaina Shah
ReplyDeleteThe Oscar Wild is definitely glorifying the amoral life style, but he was not portraying it. He was thinking of the consequences. There are pro and con of the amoral life style. Lord Henry life is totally different from our live the way we live. In the end of the book he just Doran Grays wants to live amoral life and he ended up killing Lord Henry and him self as well. Oscar Wild glorifying the amorally lifestyle but hey was not portraying it.
Honestly, I did not like the starting of the book. It started so slow, in order for me move further in the book I had to skip few chapters. Also, what I did not like about the book was the quote he made against women for example “ Women are not always allowed a choice,” he answered, but hardly had he finished the sentence before the far end of the conservatory came a stifled groan, followed by the dull sound of a heavy fall” 146
Lexy Kaftan
ReplyDeleteOscar Wilde is not necessarily promoting an amoral lifestyle, but merely showing how living amoral and over the top can influence your life. When Lord Henry says the only way to get rid of a temptation in to give into it, this ideal is not widely used in our culture today so its almost funny how far left of our ideals he is.
I didnt like this book. Alot of the aphorisms were offensive and hard to understand. The book itself was slow. Especially that one chapter about tapestries and whatnot. Also the homosexual undertone was really weird.
Tori Weisel
ReplyDeleteIn this book I don’t think that Oscar Wilde is promoting an amoral lifestyle, he is just telling the reader what one’s life would be like if they lived an amoral life. In the beginning of the book it seems like Dorian Gray lives a somewhat moral life and then when he meets Lord Henry he starts to change. Lord Henry turns Dorian’s lifestyle into a more amoral lifestyle. I think Dorian considers Lord Henry’s lifestyle as more fun and free so and he doesn’t want to change is “boring” lifestyle into one that is more carefree. Throughout the book Lord Henry turns Dorian away from marriage because he is really against it and he makes Dorian become this cruel person by twisting stuff around in his aphorisms.
I thought the book was a little boring yet very interesting at the same time. The thing I didn’t like about it was that there were some chapters that I felt there was a lot of useless information in that you didn’t need to know to get the story. I did like all the aphorisms though because it made you really think about what Oscar Wilde was twisting around.
Anna Billmaier
ReplyDeletePeriod 3
Oscar Wilde is not promoting an amoral lifestyle, but rather he is showing the two sides to it. Through the character of Lord Henry, Oscar Wilde is showing the views from a man who is promoting an amoral lifestyle and how those views can affect others (such as Dorian Gray). Early on in the book, Oscar Wilde begins to develop Lord Henry's character as amoral. One of the many examples is when Lord Henry says, "I can sympathize with everything, except suffering" (29). As the book goes on, Lord Henry has much influence on Dorian Gray when he begins to take him away from Basil, who is one with much more morals than Lord Henry. However, in the end, Dorian Gray comes out as a more moral character and realizes the wrong he has done. This is especially shown when Dorian is questioning his wrong doings, "He knew that he had tarnished himself, filled his mind with corruption and given horrow to his fancy..." (162). I think that through the character of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde displayed the transformation of a morally-lead lifestyle to an amoral lifestlye lead by influence, back to a moral lifestyle in the end because Dorian realized that morality was the "right" or "good" way to go in the end.
This book was very hard for me to get throught. I agree that this book could have been told in a matter of ten pages or so and I think that is how it should be told. It seemed to develop a good overall theme, but this was done so very slowly.
Savannah Guillen
ReplyDeleteAlthough Oscar Wilde may portray an amoral lifestyle as being a grand way to live, towards the end of the book we see the dire consequences of Dorian’s amoral life, and we realize that to be happy, one must live morally and without the egregious sin demonstrated by Dorian Gray. At the end of the book, Dorian realizes that “it was his beauty that had ruined him, his beauty and the youth that he had prayed for. But for those two things, his life might have been free from stain. His beauty had been to him but a mask, his youth but a mockery” (162). This shows that Dorian regrets his wish to stay young and beautiful forever, and in a desperate attempt to cleanse himself of his hideous sins he stabs the picture of his soul, killing himself, which shows us that an amoral lifestyle will not end well.
Overall, I really enjoyed the book because it was such a fascinating and complex story. There were some sections of the book that were extremely boring, but it actually wasn’t as hard to read as I thought it would be. However, I was offended by the aphorisms about women, which made me hate Lord Henry, and I also hated the character of Dorian Gray by the end of the book because he could have made different choices (such as not being friends with Lord Henry) and turned his life around.
April Dick
ReplyDeleteOscar Wilde shows some benefits of living an amoral lifestyle, but ultimately theorizes that allowing your temptations to take over your conscience will lead to your demise. Wilde was not a moralist and within the book there is not much to emphasize some sort of moral code or right conduct. But, in its covert meaning, the novel is not without a moral lesson. We can see that beauty is ephemeral and any attempt to deny this fact is amoral. It brings ruin as shows the case of Dorian Gray.
The aphorisms in the book were what kept me interested. They may have been easily refutable at times, but they were also just a different perspective about the world. It doesn't mean they are wrong or right, it just means that you can see any situation in a different light.
Katie Martens
ReplyDeleteI believe that Oscar Wilde just wants the people reading this book to see multiple perspectives. I do think that he is promoting the amoral lifestyle, but still; wants people to choose for themselves. Lord Henry is a huge influence on the amoral lifestyle, and this is seen throughout the entire book. There are also parts of the book that show a more typical lifestyle, but it is not seen as often. Oscar Wilde is just showing that living an amoral lifestyle is more fun, but it will come with its consequences.
I thought the book was very boring at first and it took me a long time to get into it. Although I did not agree with many of the concepts of the book, like those of Lord Henry, I found them amusing to read. Towards the end of the book it became more interesting to read.
Erik Enselman
ReplyDeleteI dont think that Oscar Wilde wrote this book to promote an amoral lifestyle, but he uses Lord Henry to express what that lifestyle would look like. Over the time of the book, Dorian stops thinking for himself and just starts doing and repeating things that Lord Henry is telling him. Its like Dorian gets brain washed by lord Henry. Overall, the book was ok. Some parts of it were really boring and some were really interesting. So far I have liked the movie though because it gets to the point alot faster then the book.
Sarah Hale:)
ReplyDeleteI most definitely do not think that Oscar Wilde uses his story to promote an amoral lifestyle. Throughout the book we read of an extremely amoral person and the things he believes, that person being Lord Henry. Wilde also presents us with a pure and naïve character, Dorian Gray, and in my opinion uses the entire story to show how unless you are able to stick true you your principles and standards, you will be corrupted by activists. “To cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul.” (Pg 136) A thought offered by Lord Henry that Dorian repeats to himself, we can use this as an example of the horrific way Lord Henry’s amoral habits would posses Dorian Gray. Overtime, we slowly see Lord Henry change Dorian Gray into an unscrupulous person, one without care for anybody but himself and preserving his youth. Examples of this that occur throughout the course of the book include Dorian selling his soul to the portrait for an everlasting youth, the sudden change in having no pity for Sybil’s death, and the murdering of Basil-because Basil began to question his contentious personality transformation. These terrible deeds are finally realized by Dorian to be immoral, and we see Dorian enter into a major depression within the last few chapters of the book. I believe Oscar Wilde uses this depression (and eventually suicide) with Dorian to present to readers what living an amoral lifestyle leads to-the worst kind of misery.
Overall, as twisted and wretched as I thought the book to be, (with primarily the ideas expressed by Lord Henry and eventually Dorian Gray) I couldn’t find myself able to put down the book. Once I began reading the cruel tail and really submerged myself in it, the book read dreadfully…beautifully. I loved it, the aphorisms were sickly remarkable.
Samielle Foltz
ReplyDeleteTaking into consideration The Picture of Dorian Gray as a whole, I don't think Oscar Wilde was promoting an amoral lifestyle. If Wilde truly was trying to encourage an amoral lifestyle instead of letting Dorian die after trying to destroy the painting Wilde would have chosen some other alternate ending. The painting could have been torn to shreds and Dorian could have been fine and dandy but I think Wilde new also that there had to be a stopping point. Dorian could only do so much and the painting could only get so ugly. Maybe the figure could have gone skeletal but even then the next worst thing that should happen to it would be to degrade.
Overall, I liked the book. There was that one chapter that practically put one to sleep but other than that I liked it. I especially liked how the settings mood changed through out the story. It was all “peaches and cream” in the beginning but in the end it was all dark and moody as it should have been. Even then I found the “peaches and cream” to be entertaining because of its rich and vivid description.
Brody Hovatter
ReplyDeleteWhen you first begin to read "The Picture of Dorian Gray," it definately seems like Oscar Wilde is promoting an amoral lifestyle. One of the main characters, Lord Henry, advocates giving in to all of your temptations and not worrying about the consequences. His constant relaying of aphorisms critique many of the values society believes in. A great example this is his critique of marriage: "The only charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception necessary for both parties." Dorian Gray, the main character, follows the lifestyle Lord Henry promotes. However, what seems like a great way to live at first soon comes back to haunt Dorian Gray, and leads to his demise. Oscar Wilde is not trying to promote an amoral lifestyle, but is showing the consequences of living one.
I thouroughly enjoyed reading "The Picture of Dorian Gray." The story was very unique and interesting, and definately gave justice to the saying "you reap what you sow." I also thought the aphorims were very clever and interesting.
Gina Tuthill
ReplyDeleteI overall liked the book when it was more straight to the point and left out all the unnessisary details. But what I thought of doing with the book was find out the 7 deadly virtues that were mentioned by Lord Henry.
"Ugliness is one of the seven deadly virtues...(143)" ~Lord Henry
When I had really thought about this and in the previous parts of the book, where Lord Henry looks down upon a certain thing that Dorian did or wanted to do. So by looking back I believe I have figured out, or close to figured out, what the seven deadly virtues are and why.
1. Ugliness because during that time, youth was everything.
2. Faithfulness because Lord Henry said something like that every married man lives like a bacholer and every bacholer lives like a married man.
3. Selflessness because Lord Henry mentioned that you should do only for yourself and not others.
4. Happiness because Lord Henry believed that happiness can only be obtained my pleasure instead of the many number of things it could be.
5. Shame because Lord Henry believed that only shameful people madeup for their mistakes.
6. Saintly because Lord Henry believed that by being so naive is dangerous, that's why he corrupted Dorian Gray.
7. Love because Lord Henry believed that there was no such thing as love. Lord Henry believed you loved one love just as much as you last and none of them were truely loved.
Leslee Fall
ReplyDeleteI feel like Oscar Wilde showed the consequences of living an amoral lifestyle. Throughout the book Dorian Gray finds the joy and excitement from living off this lifestyle. But as we reach the end it starts to take its toll on Dorian and every bad thing that he did in the past comes back to get him. Such as the memories of breaking Sybles heart and causing her suicide, or killing Basil, or all the friends he made that lost their direction in life after they met him. This lifestyle came with a price and Dorian Gray paid for it all at the end when he stabbed his painting and died.
Overall i thought the book wasn't that bad. It was too slow for my taste but the ending was definitely good. I feel like if they gave more specifics on what he did rather then what he was thinking it would have been more interesting because he rambled on so much.
Mark Galambos
ReplyDeleteWhen our class first began reading The Portait of Dorian Gray I was not fond of it. The vocabulary was a bit tricky, and there was a very limited plot; it was hard to follow. But after analyzing the text and talking about different aphorisms in class, I began to enjoy reading the novel. Wilde's curious sense of humor and what is wrong or right in society is incredibly intriguing. Not everyone liked how Wilde portrayed society, some aphorisms came off as very offensive, sexist, or very bigoted; but you have to learn to love them. While Oscar Wilde may not be suggesting an amoral lifestyle, he does show what he thinks about society, and it's not pretty. I found myself becoming most fond of aphorisms involving marrige and romance, as I have found many of these sayings to be completly true, or very similar to what I believe.
Breanna Taylor
ReplyDeleteI do think this book promotes a somewhat amoral lifestyle because it is an example of someone who lives an amoral life and is completely happy (Lord Henry) and someone who lives one and it backfires. I feel the message is that you need to be smart if your going to be living that way, and then everythings peachy. Its almost like a dare, with a threat at the end. But thats only what I saw with the whole picture, if you look deeper you find that the book almost explains why you shouldn't give into your sins.
"There are moments, phsycologists tell us, when the passion for sin, or for what the world calls sin so dominates a nature that every fibre in the body, as every cell of the brain seems to be instinct with fearful impulses. Men and women at such moments lose the freedom of their will. They move to their terrible end as automatins move.
this is basically saying that if you give into your desires, you become a slave and though your happy for a short amount your not in the long run.
Nik Toor
ReplyDeleteIn Dorian Gray I don't think Oscar Wilde was permoting an amoral life at all, but was acctualy doing the oposite. During Dorians life he seemed happy until he did start to live an amoral life and started doing ilegal things that eventauly lead to his death. If Dorian got away with his life style and didn't end up dieing and feel guilty about murdering his friend then yes, the book would then be supporting an amoral life style.
I liked the book's plot and some of the aphorisms were pretty interesting. However I think some parts of the book weren't needed to get the books point across and it just made the book harder to stay interested in.
Jade Baumann
ReplyDeleteTo me, it seemed that Oscar Wilde showed the consequences an abnormal lifestyle, rather than promoting it. A life without morals can turn right around, and cost in the end. Oscar Wilde did not seem to live an amoral lifestyle, but see's humor and more enjoyment in it. Every comment Lord Henry made about marriage, women, or other cynical comments, showed the amoral thinking, and how it made life more humorous and easy going. But in the end, Dorian Gray payed for this way of thinking. To be honest, i did not enjoy this book as much as others. It did have a good story line and i enjoyed the way the book made you think. But it was very slow moving, and the lack of action made it hard to keep my attention.
Will Quattlebaum
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't necessarily say that Oscar Wilde used the book to say that living amoral is a good/bad lifestyle. I think it's more of saying that if someone has a conscience, that they should listen more to the ego and not the id. If you look at the book one way, Lord Henry can be the id and Basil can be the ego. When Dorian starts listen to Lord Henry, or his id, then his life starts to spiral downward, finally ending in his death. If Dorian listened more to Basil than Lord Henry, his life would of ended up better, as it already was. I thought the book, overall, was good. I didn't like the way Oscar Wilde used a lot of his aphorisms to degrade women, though some of them did have a little bit of truth. I liked the last few chapters more than the beginning of the book.
Kirsten Zoba
ReplyDelete"To get back one's youth, one has merely to repeat one's follies." (30) Throughout The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde does not promote an amoral lifestyle, he simply makes the reader aware of it and what powers it can have over the people who choose to do it. Although the novel can get pretty dull sometimes, I enjoyed the quick moments that caught my interest.
Personally I dont feel that Oscar Wilde was trying to Promote an amoral lifestyle. Though I do believe that Oscar wrote the book showing that Dorian had certain morals that he lived by but his whole life wasn't controlled by morals. Throught the book there there were times were it depicted Dorain living by his morals, then there were other times he would be making decisions for himself. For me as a whole I enjoyed the movie much more than the book. I say this becasue the book was more interesting to me and i was able to follow and understand it better. Overall the book was decent though I prefer the movie.
ReplyDeleteMaxx Forde
ReplyDeleteI don't think that Wilde is promoting a moral or amoral lifestyle. I think that he is simply stating what he believes and leaving the decision up to us. He lets us know that living life without morals is more fun than it is to live with them, but he also lets us know that by the end of your life, if you live without morals, you will have deep, deep regrets. He lets you make the decision on whether the benefit in the fun outweighs the consequence in the regret and ultimately, the painful death. It's something you ultimately have to decide, but he shows the positives and negatives in living with and without morals.