OSCAR WILDE

 LIFE AND WORKS

Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854 to a quite wealthy family; his father was a surgeon and his mother
a literary woman. For this reason, he had the opportunity to study in the best English schools, such as
Trinity College and Oxford; soon after gaining his degree he became Walter Pater's disciple, from whom
he had learnt the "Art for Art's sake" theory, and he perfectly embodied the dandy "stereotype".

His first publication was Poems in 1881, work that he paid for on his own expenses, nevertheless he soon
achieved great success thanks to his lecture on beauty in art, especially in America. With him, his irony and
attitude became popular.

Once Wilde returned to Europe in 1883, his success exploded as he was considered not only a great writer,
but also a fashion icon. Soon after he published some of his most famous novels such as The Picture of
Dorian Gray (1891) or The Canterville Ghost; in addition, also Wilde's plays were successful on London's
stage, the most relevant being The Importance of Being Earnest (1895).

However, the author’s year of triumph ended dramatically in 1891, when he was accused and sentenced
to hard labour for his homosexuality, after this Wilde never regained his respect.
In fact, he dies alone, in 1900, in a hotel in Paris.

 THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY

The novel was published in 1891 and it’s set in London.

 THE PLOT
The protagonist is Dorian Gray, a young man whose beauty fascinates a painter, Basil Hallward who
decides to paint his portrait.

Under the influence of Lord Henry Wotton, Dorian throws himself into a life of pleasure. He begins to
look at youth as something important, so much so that he envies his portrait, which will be eternally
beautiful and young while he grows older.

After Dorian comes to enter a sort of “pact with the devil”, thanks to which he will remain eternally
young and beautiful, while the picture makes the signs of physical decline.
When the painter sees the corrupted image, Dorian kills him.

Later Dorian wants to get rid of the portrait and stabs him but in doing so he kills himself, at this point
the picture returns to its original purity and Dorian’s face becomes withered, wrinkled and loathsome.
 THE CHARACTERS
Dorian Gray represents the ideal of youth, beauty and innocence. When he first appears in the novel,
he is immature, but the reader is made aware of his purity and innocence through the narrator’s words.
Dorian is influenced by Lord Henry who teaches him about hedonism and starts to look for a life of
pleasure and sensations. In the end his vanity ruins him, and the portrait provides a visual
representation of the degradation of his soul.

Lord Henry Wotton is an intellectual, a brilliant talker but sharp in his criticism of institutions
considered sacred by his contemporaries. He is able to influence Dorian.

Basil Hallward is an intellectual who falls in love with Dorian’s beauty and innocence. He doesn’t want
to exhibit the picture, because he is afraid that it will reflect the strange attraction he feels for Dorian.
He is killed by Dorian, after seeing the corrupted painting, since his art and passion are considered
responsible for the young man’s tortured existence.
Basil becomes a sad example of how a good artist can be destroyed in a sacrifice for art.

 NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE
This story is told by a third- person narrator.
The perspective adopted is internal.
The settings are described with words appealing to the senses.

 THE MORAL
The moral of this novel is that every excess must be punished and there is no escape from reality.
When Dorian destroys the picture, he cannot avoid the punishment for all his sins which is death.
The horrible picture could be seen as a symbol of the bad conscience of the Victorian middle class,
while Dorian and his innocent appearance are symbols of bourgeois hypocrisy.
Finally, the picture restored to its original beauty, illustrates Wilde’s theory of art: that is that art
survives people and that art is eternal.

 ALLEGORICAL MEANING
This story is allegorical, indeed, it’s a 19th century version of the legend of Faust, the story of a man
who sells his soul to the devil so that all his desires might be satisfied. In the novel this soul is the
picture which records the signs of time, of corruption, of horror and of sins under the mask of Dorian’s
beauty.
The portrait represents the dark side of Dorian’s personality.

 DORIAN’S DEATH
In this passage Dorian’s mood is quite bad. He’s thinking about his mistakes and his sins and wishes he
could change what he has done.
Dorian fell in love with a girl who killed herself because of his behavior (because of his insensitive); he
remembers confessing to her what a horrible person he was, but she didn’t believe him, in fact she
laughed, thinking that bad guys were old and ugly, while he was a young and handsome. Dorian blames
his beauty for his sins.
Then he decides to look at the portrait, but when he finds out that the painting is horrendous, he stabs it
and, consequently, dies.
Suddenly the picture looks as perfect as when Basil painted it, and Dorian looks as disgusting as the man
he was in the picture before he stabbed him.

According to Wilde’s logic the character needs to be punished for his sins. At first the hideous man in the
picture didn’t look like Dorian, but when he realizes his wickedness, he realizes that the picture reflects
his soul. Dorian stabs the picture only to delete all the evidence that remindes him of his evil life.
The painting represents the murder of art and Dorian’s soul.
 THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST
Is Wilde’s most important play.

 THE PLOT

The first act takes place in Mayfair in London’s West End.

Here the aristocratic Algernon Moncrieff waits for the arrival of his aunt Lady Bracknell.
He is surprised at the intrusion of his wealthy friend Ernest who has come to ask the hand of Lady
Bracknell’s daughter, Gwendolen.
Algernon finds out that the man he calls Ernest in the city, it is his invented alter ego, a younger
brother as a pretext to shirk his responsibilities, in the country where he lived, is called Jack Worthing,
and was adopted as an infant by a Mr. Thomas Cardew, who made him guardian to his granddaughter,
Cecily Cardew, under the charge of her governess, Miss Prism.
Even Algernon confesses that he has invented a friend, called Bunbury who lives in the country, whose
invalidity requires frequent attention, so that he can get away from his London social obligations.
The story developed around the two young men’s attempts to marry Gwendolen and Cecily.
Jack must overcome the obstacle of Gwendolen’s mother who interviews him, but on finding that he
was a foundling found in a handbag she dismisses him.

The second and third acts take place in the country where Cecily studies supervised by Miss Prism.
In the end the two girls fall in love with “Ernest”, without knowing their real names, that they will find
out only later. Both girls dreamed of falling in love with a guy named Ernest. After Lady Bracknell
refuses to allow a marriage with Algernon until she knows that Cecily is heir to a large fortune. Miss
Prism confesses that she put the manuscript of a novel she was working on into the perambulator and
the baby in her care into a handbag which she then deposited in the cloakroom of Victoria Station. In
the end Jack and Algernon are revealed to be brothers and finally they get to marry the women they
love.

 THEMES

The main concern of all the characters in the play is marriage. Wilde makes fun of the institution of
marriage which he saw as a practice surrounded by hypocrisy and absurdity. Victorian aristocracy
doesn’t see marriage as the result of love, but as a tool for achieving social status.

 IRONY AND APPERANCE

The whole play is built on witty1 dialogues, amusing puns, and paradoxes. The title is a pun2 in itself: the
name Earnest (a misspelling for Ernest) evokes the adjective earnest that is serious, while none of the
characters is truthful. The characters used to criticize the Victorian prudery exist only because they take
part in conversation. Wilde’s social satire comes from the ironic use of solemn language in ridiculous
situations. Appearance is important in the play because the characters may change their identities as
they wish.

1. Dialoghi spiritosi.

2. Gioco di parole.
 THE INTERVIEW

Jack Worthing proposed marriage to Gwendolen, a girl belonging to London’s upper classes.
Gwendolen’s mother Lady Bracknell tests him through a series of personal questions before giving her
blessing. With pencil and note-book in hand she begins to ask him questions, assuming that he is not
down on her list of good young man.

1. She asks di he smokes, and he says yes, and she doesn’t appear not against it

2. Than Lady Bracknell asks for age, income, if he owns investments, house in the city and in the
countryside. Later She asks him about his parents and Jack explains that he has lost both parents and
that the late Thomas Cardew, a very kind old gentleman, had found it in a handbag in the baggage
locker of Victoria Station and gave him the name “Worthing”, because he had a ticket to Worthing in
his pocket. At the end Lady Bracknell reacted with indignation saying that she will never give her only
daughter to a “parcel” (referring to Jack) and that she will not allow her to be related to a “baggage
locker” (referring to Jack’s parents)