English Question about the Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde 1. Locate three
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Question
English Question about the Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
1. Locate three dense quotations that portray Dorian's portrait. What does the portrait represent? What does it suggest about the effect of experience/aging on the soul? How do your quotations support your ideas?
2. What code or set of beliefs does Lord Henry live by? How does he view conventional morality and in what ways does he challenge it? Why, for instance, does he believe it is futile and wrong for the individual to resist temptation?
3. Wilde writes that "there is no such thing as a moral or immoral book." In other words, art has no effect, other than aesthetic, on individuals or society. Do you agree with Wilde's premise? Does this novel adhere to his statement?
Explanation / Answer
Consider the following three quotations that portray Dorian's portrait (from the picture of Dorian's Gray).
1. “Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.”
2. “Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing.”
3. “Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes.”
As we become aged, we start realising the things how they are being influenced by the past experiences and the surrounding environment. Some of us also realise how dramatic they are, and once we realise what is done by what, the pain or happiness attributed by any situation in our life becomes lighter. As we become aged, if one realise the purpose and nature of a living being and its relation with nature, the struggle of soul ends, senses comes under control obviously then the soul also. What we did till that point becomes the experience (today's act is tommorrows experience), wheather that is good or bad. Again we cannot define this is good or bad, because nothing can be good for all and nothing can be bad for all, it varies based on several aspects.
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