The paragraph-Dorian Gray

At first glance, Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray" might appear as a novel of unnecessarily elaborate dialogues that lack the clear purpose of leading the storyline.

After all, when Lord Henry talks to Dorian for the purpose of persuading and charming him, he sites beautifully, but wickedly distorted quotes to convey his points. Since his phrases are so long and sometimes contain incomprehensible humors, the readers get tired of seemingly pointless digressions. However, knowing about the writer's life and what he fought against for all of his later life, the elaborate dialogues do not appear only as 'pointless digressions'.

The value Oscar Wilde considered important was 'beauty', in other words, 'aesthetics'. In the Victorian age, every 'moral' thing had a purpose; for instance, sexual intercourse was to produce offspring, not to get pleasure.

Oscar Wilde, as the one who loved men and criticized what people said as 'immorality', played with his sweetly flowing dialogues to hide hints of homosexuality, to wake the readers' senses, and to 'please' readers. Therefore, it is perhaps more accurate to assume that the enormous amount of seemingly useless sentences convey more meanings than readers would normally predict; such as the longing for beauty and distaste for morality. In this sense, the ironies and humors Lord Henry created, for example: "I have a theory that it is always the women who propose to us, and not we who propose to the women. Except, of course, in middle-class life. But then the middle classes are not modern."
altogether seem like a digression from main point, reminding reader of the murmuring of unimportant parts, but actually the casual intention of Oscar Wilde, to hint his thoughts and philosophy in the novel.

Tales of the Unexpected, the first journal

Yoonhoo Chang 121111 (11v2)

Dahl's tales were truly 'unexpected'. Fans of Dahl's fantasy novels such as 'Charlie and the chocolate factory' were left to be shocked at the 'unexpectedness' of these cleverly written short stories. They expected fantastic descriptions of adventures and mysteriously portrayed settings, but instead they faced seemingly 'normal' introduction and 'abnormal' conclusion. But putting this book away at the moment of awkwardness is the stupid thing for a reader to do. Dahl conveys countless meanings and his own visions of the world through short stories he has written. The reader, if he or she is the true fan of Roald Dahl, must think about the parallel descriptions between stories and between characters before closing the book with an uneasy smile. Unexpected tales contain many notes about human nature, and this journal would particularly examine the nature of women, through the female characters Dahl presented. He generally described that women are surprisingly stronger than men, and those who hid their claws under the veil of 'perfect wife' or 'kind companion' indeed have unexpected strong personalities to show.

'Lamb to the slaughter' is generally viewed as the perfect chilling story. Hitchcock, the legendary director of thriller movies, even attempted to make a short film out of this story (which seemed to fail). At the first glance, the story seems to be peaceful, and the woman character in the story seems peaceful as well. However, this calm and peaceful pregnant wife, when she listens to her husband about the divorce, kills her husband without a single sense of hesitation. She even cooks the weapon-the leg of a lamb she was to cook for dinner-calmly and make the investigators and policemen eat it up. At the end of the story, she giggles, showing that this neat, perfect wife has a nature of a psychopath.

'Man from the South' shortly shows one woman character, but she plays a great role at the ending. Women described in the beginning of this story seems to be all nice and pretty. The girls who play with the soldiers act as a normal pretty 'girls' who want the rich boys to look at them. However, as the bet starts and the young soldier gets his little finger tied for a bidding, this important woman character appears, and she seems to be different from those pretty bikini girls. When she forcefully ends the bet and shows her hands, which have too few fingers, she indirectly portrays the strength of woman. Women, in most of the centuries, were viewed as inferior figures who do not usually find their fortune on their own. However, this woman, who owns everything the man from South once owned, is definitely strong and self-made woman, which is far from traditional imagery of female characters.

However, the most 'normally' powerful female figure appears in 'My lady love, my dove'. It was surprising how many differences there were between con man's wife and the wife of the main character. The former was as lovely as a dove, and as obedient as a servant. The conversation heard by the main character and his wife suggested her characteristics well. But, this was not the case for Pamela-the main character's wife. She was completely dominant over her husband. He had no right to reply negatively about her decisions, and only had to do things she told him to do. Furthermore, adding to her robust personality, she is a rich woman. The wealth of the couple comes mostly from the wife, Pamela. She is a wicked woman, who has nearly everything.

Roald Dahl's portrayal of female characters in these stories are different from any other novels. There's not a one of traditional woman who has perfect personality and flawless habits. Dahl divorced once, and was married with the famous actor. Nothing much is known about his relationship with his wives, but readers can be sure that they were not obedient figures. Through these three stories, Dahl effectively illustrates the nature of women, putting a glimpse of his own experience. Women's nature is no different from men's, probably that's what he wanted to say. 

Journal #2

Journal #2: How is Oscar Wilde is reflected in the novel/ Choose a character from the book and develop an essay comparing that character with any real person from Oscar's life.

Yoonhoo Chang 121111 

We, the modern people, commonly mistake Victorian England for the era of beauty and romance. True, there was beauty and indeed there was romance, but two elements are too few to represent Victorian era by themselves. Reading 'The picture of Dorian Gray', and watching the movie 'Wilde', I bitterly admitted that there were dark sides, in fact 'very' dark sides, in the era when Oscar Wilde lived and loved. Love of beauty turned a young man into a devil, and romance killed an innocent young girl. World that once was a place to play and freely love turned into the place of betrayal and depression. Nothing lasted forever, and those who wanted their tales to be everlasting only faced irreverent ends. Wilde, who at the time when he was writing a novel was facing the bright side of the era, prophetically told the end of brightness in the book The picture of Dorian Gray. His thoughts are reflected in the novel, his style, his appearance, his life also are shown by the characters in the novel, and though he resembles one character most closely, readers can find little 'Wilde' in every character.

Wilde always said that if he would like to find a character he most resembles, he would pick Basil, the painter. However, he's excessively similar to Lord Henry. The way actor in the movie portrayed Wilde reminded me of Lord Henry in every aspect, and that sudden reminders surprised me. They have many things in common. Oscar Wilde was, most of the time, polite but cruel to women. He did truly love no woman, but was always polite to his wife. Lord Henry, who simply mocks women when he talks about one of them, respects a wife whom he deliberately calls 'mutual cheater'. "They have wonderfully primitive instincts," said Lord Henry, "They love being dominated.". Harry and Wilde have wits, clever wits. Lord Henry can persuade anyone to believe in certain way by talking. His words are cynical, clever, carefully placed, and make him look erudite. Oscar Wilde also charmed many by his unexpectedly clever words. For example, sentence like "A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feeling unintentionally.". 

However, he has some significant similarities with Basil, also. Though his appearance and explicit personality is reflected as Lord Henry in the novel, his life story is somewhat related to Basil. Basil finds Dorian, loves him, portrays him, does whatever to make Dorian pleased. Wilde loved his young Dorian Gray, Lord Alfred Douglas, or Bosie. He always wanted to please him, and his efforts are seen in the letters he wrote to his lover. He wrote as if without the presence of Bosie, he would wither and die. Also, the taste for art and beauty is in both Wilde and Basil. Love of wine, flowers, and beautiful things is in both of them.

Honestly, I think Oscar Wilde is somehow reflected in the main character, Dorian Gray, also. I have to be careful about saying this, since most people believe otherwise, but there are some resembling characteristics. Most of the time I thought Lord Henry resembles Wilde and Dorian Gray resembles Bosie, but reading through, and seeing human aspect of Lord Henry, I turned around and looked at those relationship in different view. Dorian Gray is indeed unstable, and was living a quite normal life before he encountered Lord Henry. He knew less about the dangerous hedonistic life Harry told him, and finally assimilates into the world of forbidden pleasure. Wilde's life also permanently changed when he met Bosie. His true friends stabbed him in the front, and he had nowhere to stand. His life, which once seemed to be so good turned into despair and he couldn't do anything about it. He died, and he died irreverently. As cynical and hidden men-lover, he could have lived a joyous life, but instead like Dorian, who followed Lord Henry, Wilde fall in love with Bosie and lost everything. 

When I put Wilde's life into the context of novel, many thing fits. I don't know if he wrote those fitting parts intentionally because lots of things happened after he wrote this novel, and I think if he did or did not, the novel is scarily prophetic. He's called one of the most inspiring writers, who is fantastic at satires. Reading his novel and his quotes-I recently found them very interesting-, I hope I could know him a little better, understand him, and enjoy fully what he really intended to say in the novel. 

(Dorian Gray) Reading Journal #1

Reading journal: Dorian Gray, chapter 1

Yoonhoo Chang

121111

2013. 08. 29

I first have to say that I read Dorian Gray first as a comic book, which was designed to charm young readers. It contained less complicated conversations, and as one can expect, it was shorter and simpler. I never liked that comic book because of its dreadful ending, so consequently, I never really tried to read the 'real' book. I expected no more than few dreadful portrayals of the portrait and few beautiful descriptions of young man. However, when I started reading the 'real' book, my indifference turned into interest. The first chapter was weird, but fascinating, and dark, but somehow charming.

Mom always told me not to judge people by their appearance. "Appearance is never a mirror that reflects that person's inner part.", said she. But it's actually very hard not to judge people by their appearance. People, if they are naturally born in the society where the concept of beauty is quite universal, are naturally fascinated by good-looking people, and are naturally inclined to have prejudice against bad-looking people. Artists, especially. Basil, who met Dorian Gray and felt fear that something inside him would change from this encounter, first tries not to explain his feelings. He is sure he will be made fun of by Lord Henry, and wanted to keep his secret feelings to himself. But when he finally revealed his secrets, it was surprising and disappointing at the same time. It was surprising because the heart of Basil towards Dorian was so pure, and it was disappointing because he was only loving Dorian because of his face, not because of his brain or anything else. Basil is happy because of this beautiful man, but to me, he seems like a thoughtless, however beautiful, doll.

People wither, and their beauties always are temporary. Attempt to preserve the beauty almost always causes some major problems. Outer beauty is never permanent, but inner can be.

And I also found in the book that Lord Henry is a special, and abnormal character. 'You never say a moral thing, and you never do a wrong thing.', said Basil. Henry seems like a person who lives the world to seek pleasure. His duties for his wife are always there, but even though he does care about these, he is not totally concerned about this relationship. But at the same time, he is a contaminated person, perhaps tainted because of his cynical views of the world. Judging from this opium-accompanied conversation, he is now greatly interested in Dorian, who seems to me like a prey waiting to be eaten by a predator. Will Henry taint Dorian? Will his influence be bad to Dorian? How? I have so many questions, and only solution is to read further.

I don't know what will come next. But what I can say for sure is that even the first chapter, which is said to be the most painstaking one to read, is fun and makes readers expect more and more. These first two characters are already charming. And the main character didn't even come out yet.