...From the Writer “Dorian Gray the Escape Artist” is the culmination of my work in my WR100 seminar, Fantasy at the Fin-de-Siècle. The final assignment was to create a research paper based on an interesting problem or paradox I had found in Oscar Wilde’s book, The Picture of Dorian Gray. For me, one of the book’s most fascinating elements was Dorian’s immature behavior; though he grows older, he never seems to “grow up.” At first, I investigated how my idea related to aestheticism and what Dorian’s immaturity showed about aestheticism; however, I could not find a solid way to prove my thesis. My greatest problem was being unsure of how writing a paper based on a research problem in The Picture of Dorian Gray constituted a researchable argument and not just a literary analysis. Hoping to gain a different perspective on the assignment, I met with fellow classmates to talk out my problem. It turned out that they were having the same issue with their essays, and through discussing my paper with them, I realized that my topic was too narrow to be easily supported by sources; the idea of Dorian growing older without growing up was interesting but could not easily be supported with sources outside the novel itself. With this in mind, I modified my thesis, claiming that though Dorian Gray demonstrates aesthetic behavior in The Picture of Dorian Gray, his fascination with artistic things serves less to pursue aestheticism and more to evade his dark past. In this manner, I argued,...
Words: 2321 - Pages: 10
...Oscar Wilde was a passionate admirer of art, an intellectual dandy and a keen advocate of the Aesthetic Movement. Through his essay The Decay of Lying: An Observation, Wilde uses an obviously self-modelled character named Vivian to set out a series of doctrines which detail his personal philosophy on the relationship that exists between art and life, and the rolls that they should play. Chiefly these are: art should only express itself, expressing life and nature makes for bad art, life imitates art more than art imitates life, and that lying is the true aim of art . When applied to his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray these doctrines add an extra layer of meaning to the themes already presented, and this allows for a greater level of understanding. There are several instances during the narrative of the novel which show a relationship between the roles of art and life, and the ways in which they are separated, combined, and reversed. Understanding the theories set out by Vivian helps with comprehending the relationship between Dorian and his portrait, as well as with his friends Lord Henry and Basil Hallward. The Decay of Lying is presented as a slightly confusing and seemingly contradictory essay on the relationship between art and life which treads the border between being sincere and ironic, while The Picture of Dorian Gray is a metaphor infused novel which blurs the lines between art and life as actively as it seeks to separate them. Both writings leave room for speculation...
Words: 1707 - Pages: 7
...Oscar Wilde Birth and early life Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (October 16, 1854 – November 30, 1900) was an Anglo-Irish playwright, novelist, poet, short story writer and Freemason. One of the most successful playwrights of late Victorian London, and one of the greatest celebrities of his day, known for his barbed and clever wit, he suffered a dramatic downfall and was imprisoned after being convicted in a famous trial for gross indecency. Birth and early life Wilde was born into a Protestant Anglo-Irish family, at 21 Westland Row, Dublin, to Sir William Wilde and his wife Jane Francesca Elgee. Jane was a successful writer and an Irish nationalist, known also as 'Speranza', while Sir William was Ireland's leading ear and eye surgeon, and wrote books on archaeology and folklore. He was a renowned philanthropist, and his dispensary for the care of the city's poor, in Lincoln Place at the rear of Trinity College, Dublin, was the forerunner of the Dublin Eye and Ear Hospital, now located at Adelaide Road. In June 1855, the family moved to 1 Merrion Square, in a fashionable residential area. Here, Lady Wilde held a regular Saturday afternoon salon with guests including Sheridan le Fanu, Samuel Lever, George Petrie, Isaac Butt and Samuel Ferguson. Oscar was educated at home up to the age of nine. He attended Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, Fermanagh from 1864 to 1871, spending the summer months with his family in rural Waterford, Wexford and at...
Words: 1925 - Pages: 8
...SMM Group 2 – Alex, Jaya, Rachel, Richard Oscar Myer Case Background Oscar Mayer is a leading manufacturer of processed meats in the American market because of its brand equity, successful history and effective product diversification within the meat market. It is focused on placing quality first and price second and its major goal is to boost convenience products in the processed meat market. Currently, the OM sales are declining, but the losses have been offset by a recent acquisition of Louis Rich (LR) a #1 turkey based line (#1), which is a cheaper and less fat meat more in tune with customer demand. The SWOT analysis given below presents a snapshot of the company’s internal and external background. Weaknesses Strengths High prices of OM products compared to Powerful brand reputation with retailers competitors and consumers Focused on product and competition, and Technology skills in R&D not on “customer satisfaction” Unmatched sales force No products on chicken market History as “get it done” organization Batting average for new products: 1 in 10 Strong business and distribution system Strong acquisition of a #1 turkey based line – cheaper and less fat “total division scorecard” – favorable Threats Opportunities The processed meat undergoing The need for products offering greater fundamental changes that will affect convenience growth in 3‐5 years. The growing emphasis on nutrition Red meat products (bologna...
Words: 945 - Pages: 4
...Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. Today he is remembered for his epigrams, his only novel (The Picture of Dorian Gray), his plays, and the circumstances of his imprisonment and early death. Wilde's parents were successful Anglo-Irish Dublin intellectuals. Their son became fluent in French and German early in life. At university Wilde read Greats; he proved himself to be an outstanding classicist, first at Dublin, then at Oxford. He became known for his involvement in the rising philosophy of aestheticism, led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin. After university, Wilde moved to London into fashionable cultural and social circles. As a spokesman for aestheticism, he tried his hand at various literary activities: he published a book of poems, lectured in the United States and Canada on the new "English Renaissance in Art", and then returned to London where he worked prolifically as a journalist. Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress and glittering conversation, Wilde became one of the best-known personalities of his day. At the turn of the 1890s, he refined his ideas about the supremacy of art in a series of dialogues and essays, and incorporated themes of decadence, duplicity, and beauty into his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). The opportunity to construct...
Words: 489 - Pages: 2
...One of the most famous and most frequently quoted statements about the moral responsibility of artists can be found in Oscar Wilde ’s preface to his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. “There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book,” writes Wilde, “Books are well written or badly written. That is all.” His claim is that works of art are legitimate objects of aesthetic judgement, but not of moraljudgement. Wilde added this preface when the novel was reprinted a year after its initial publication in a literary magazine. The preface was Wilde’s considered response to various reviewers who had found his book to be immoral. The extent of this antagonism should not be exaggerated. Only a few reviewers had condemned the novel in these terms, and there was never any serious campaign for it to be banned. Wilde also replied separately, by letter, to each of the magazines and newspapers which had published these condemnatory reviews. These letters were collected together after his death and republished in a little volume entitled Art and Morality. (Today, they can be found more easily in the collected edition of Wilde’s correspondence.) It is worth our while to read and compare the various arguments he puts forward. He makes his first statement of the principle later enunciated in his preface in his letter to The St. James’s Gazette: “The sphere of art and the sphere of ethics are absolutely distinct and separate.” However in a second letter to the same magazine he makes the surprising...
Words: 2938 - Pages: 12
...CHAPTER 5: by Claudia, Chloe & Annabel Overview: Sibyl Vane and her mother discuss the girl's relationship with "Prince Charming." Sibyl is in love. Mrs. Vane's attitude is more realistic and down-to-earth. She wants her daughter to think of her career. Sibyl has all the idealistic enthusiasm of an innocent seven-teen-year-old. Wilde states the metaphor describing that "joy of a caged bird was in her voice." Sibyl does not want to hear about Mr. Isaacs or money. What is money compared to love? James hates the "young dandy" who is courting his sister. He warns his sister that the man wants to enslave her and repeatedly threatens to kill the "gentleman" if he does Sibyl any wrong. Why was it added? The absence of Dorian and Lord Henry from this chapter makes it seem like filler. It is a chance for the reader to catch a breath after the whirlwind engagement announcement that ended the previous chapter. However, this short chapter serves an important function in the novel; it introduces and describes characters and sets up events that will be developed later in the story. After controversy of the first publication, this innocent girl is introduced to cool the situation. It can also be argued that chapter 5 was added in order to humanise Sibyl – before she is a ‘creature’ and this makes her seem more ‘real’. The characters Sibyl is described as "the girl" -> infantile like Dorian -> naivety, innocence -> "pouted" childish again -> her dismissal of the importance...
Words: 846 - Pages: 4
...OSCAR MAYER: STRATEGIC MARKETING PLANNING Group 8 Smitesh Shah (152054) Prayrit Arora (152038) Shivang Sah (152051) Nikhil Chaudhary (152035) Manik Vasudev (152030) The case is about Oscar Mayer, the leading meat distribution of the company, which pioneered the market in the early 1900s. Through the years the company indulged in several marketing programs to maintain their position in the market. The case starts with the president of the company, Marcus McGraw as he is evaluating various strategies presented from four of his most trusted managers, as the company’s position is under threat based on a report by the consulting firm, McTierman Corp. The report has analysed current market trends and how they are going to effect the marketing strategies of Oscar Mayer Foods. The report says that the company’s most prominent offering, red meat products from Oscar Mayer Foods is facing a serious decline in demand, which for the past couple of years is being offset by the increasing demand for the healthier white meat products offered under the Louis Rich brand. The McTierman report further goes on to suggest investment strategies in order for Oscar Mayer Foods to retain its market share and growth including added benefits to products from both product lines, strengthening via acquisition and/or developing new products to address the changing market demands. Next, he reads the memo from Rob Goodman, Louis Rich Category Manager. He starts off with pointing to the fact...
Words: 753 - Pages: 4
...1913, Micheaux published his first novel, The Conquest. He found great success as a novelist and he began to inspire for greatness. Within a short time, Oscar published, The Forged Note, and The Homesteader. His books, especially The Homesteader, became popular across the United States to the point, George Johnson reached out to him to remake the book into a film. Johnson was booking manager of the Lincoln Motion Picture Company, a successful black film production company. Ultimately, Micheaux turned that offer down and created his own firm, which was called “Micheaux Film and Book Company (Butters). Oscar’s first film, “The Homesteader” was released in 1919 in Chicago. He film was released during the era of silent film. This film was considered the first full-length film made by an African-American. Soon after the release of his first film, Oscar Micheaux continued to release films that not only the African American Community wanted to see, but other races wanted to also. His films led the way for other “race films” that told a more realistic story of black people and their lives. Micheaux’s films often dealt with controversial issues. (Kelly). Oscar’s films were based on two themes, the exposure of racial hostility and prejudice toward African Americans, and alternative depictions of black manhood (Butters). Unfortunately, Oscar Micheaux passed away on a business trip in 1951. It is important to know African American Filmmakers looked inspired to be like Micheaux, and this included...
Words: 700 - Pages: 3
...“There’s nothing bigger than a man who learns to grow.” This sentence appeared in the story “The Growin of Paul Bunyan”. I agree with this statement because it’s not an easy choice to make. Actually, who of us would request something harder vs. easier? Therefore, the bigger man does the harder stuff. If everything was easy, life would be boring. Some examples from the story are on page 21. “Paul learns how to plant seeds to grow trees.” This was big for Paul because he decided to challenge himself and learn something new. Before he was chopping down all the trees. As soon as Johnny Appleseed could get a sapling growing, Paul would chop it down. My second example I found, is on page 18. “Paul likes chopping trees because it makes him happy”....
Words: 349 - Pages: 2
...Throughout the history of literature there have been countless names that have been forever etched onto the book cover of writing—William Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Sylvia Plath. But perhaps one of the more controversial and disputatious of them all would be the Irish writer, Oscar Wilde. Born in October, 1854, Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde1 was and is feasibly one of the most revered Irish novelist, playwright, essayist and poet in the Irish literature and culture renaissance. With his rather comfortable beginnings—being the son of a revered oto-ophthalmologic surgeon who was knighted—Wilde seemed to have the whole world laid out before him. And in his adventures he carved out a name for himself, remembered today for his peculiar writing...
Words: 2057 - Pages: 9
...Biography An exuberant nonconformist and controversial playwright, eminent author Oscar Wilde produced critically acclaimed literary works that defined the essence of late Victorian England. Posthumously recognized for his only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray and satiric comedy The Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde initially acquired criticism for his immoral and unconventional style of writing. Additionally, to his dismay, strife followed Wilde in his personal life as he was notoriously tried and incarcerated on allegations of “gross indecency” (homosexuality). Emotionally depleted post-imprisonment and stricken with poverty, Wilde was diagnosed with meningitis and died soon thereafter at the ripe age of 46. Born October 16, 1854 to father...
Words: 1243 - Pages: 5
...On October 16,1854 in Dublin, Ireland Oscar Fingal O'Flaherite Willis Wilde was born to parents William Wilde and Jane Francesca Elgee. William was an doctor of aural surgery and Jane was an revolutionary, she would trace her family all the way to the Italiane line of Aligheris, she was a write as well and published her works under the pen name "Spernza". Jane created a literary salon for herself and others to be free and express themselves through intellectual and artistic conversations. Oscar had an older brother named Willie and and sister named Isola who died at the age of 10. Unlike children his age scar would not expereince a normal childhood, with their home open to friends of his parents many of whom were artist, docotors, and intellectuals;...
Words: 679 - Pages: 3
...Mayorga 1 Shirley Mayorga Mrs. Conlon ENG4U January 6 2012 The Power and Destruction of Vain Pursuits in the Picture of Dorian Gray “In fact, despite his power of rationalization and the continuing influence of Henry. Dorian is increasingly disturbed by doubts about his moral freedom and stung by the pangs of the conscience that will not die” (Liebman 10). Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray is centered upon the effects of liberty of the soul and degradation that results from it. If one chooses to always act on inner desires and passions, ignoring ethical values, one’s life will be destroyed by vain pursuits. Dorian Gray a wealthy young man has been challenged to “embark upon a hedonistic life, after having feared it for so long, developing every intellectual, aesthetic and sensual appetite to the utmost. Despite the look of his innocent beauty...”(Magill Book Reviews 1) Dorian becomes very vain with the pursuit to simply fulfill his desperate desires without looking into the ethical importance of his actions and thus becomes hopeless and defenceless to his own desires. When one becomes aware of the fear to venture in life, one will pursue to fulfill every incomplete/unfulfilled passion without limits. This in turn leads to an amoral representation of one’s life. For once in his life, Dorian Gray was inspired. He was woken up to a world of freedom. Lord Henry Wotton opened his eyes to a world of hedonism...
Words: 1662 - Pages: 7
...In modern times persecution of Christians in Britain is not common however, the pain cannot be saved for Christians living in other parts of the world that often have to endure the “Nero type” experience in order to live out their faith in such circumstances the words and actions of Jesus remain an invaluable source of support. An example of a Christian who has recently suffered because of his faith is Oscar Romero a Archbishop from El Salvador had his life ended prematurely and brutally because he spoke out about great injustice carried out on the on the citizens of Latin America. The murder of father, Rutilio Grande who’s only crime was living in poverty alongside helpless peasants. An Example of this persecution is “Jesus prays in Gethsemane” Ch14v36-42, this example shows even when Jesus is in despair he will do what God wants him to. The message given from this is that in the time of great suffering you must stick to your faith at all costs. This is what Rutilio Grande did and his faith brought him death. In a way, modern Christians do have to submit to punishment, people could be made social outcast and be called names and take physical and verbal abuse off non-Christians just for their religion. Like when Jesus was summoned to the high priest he had to submit to questioning and suffering. When Jesus healed Jairus’ daughter in Ch5v21-43 the crowd laughed him and ridiculed Jesus for believing that the girl was just sleeping...
Words: 347 - Pages: 2
