• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.85-93
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• 2024

In this paper, focusing on Oscar Wilde's novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray," we explore the protagonist's lack of conscience and unethical attitude, emphasizing its relevance to our self-development and growth. The primary goal is to interpret the impact of Dorian Gray's actions and choices on personal development and growth, highlighting the importance of a specific mindset and attitude to the reader. It dissects how Wilde navigates the intricate layers of Dorian's character, exposing the ethical dilemmas and transformative moments that contribute to the profound changes within him. The examination sheds light on the depth and complexity of Dorian Gray's character, offering readers a nuanced understanding of the forces at play in his moral and psychological journey. Interpretation of Wilde's intent to impart lessons on the reader's personal growth and development through Dorian's story is undertaken. The discussion also explores the impact of Dorian's unethical attitude on contemporary readers and its influence on our daily lives and values.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.461-485
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• 2010

The present paper focuses on a specific aspect of H. G. Wells' The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), namely the issue of homosexuality, particularly as it concerns Prendick, the novel's primary narrator, and Montgomery, Moreau's assistant on the island, both of whom are implicitly associated with homosexual identity-and suggested to represent various forms of repression or acceptance-their personalities, or psyche, explored in relation to other characters on Moreau's island, particularly the Beast Folk, as well as Doctor Moreau and his treatment of the creatures as an allegory of Victorian anti-sodomy legislation and its most celebrated victim, Oscar Wilde, who had been convicted for male sodomy in 1895, only months prior to the original publication of The Island of Doctor Moreau. In addition, this paper examines an extensive series of allusions to Oscar Wilde and to late-Victorian homosexual scandals, including that author's own conviction, allusions to others involved in the affair-some of which involve situational/plot analogies, while others involve echoes or semantic associations between the names of characters in Moreau and historical figures-as well as allusions and parallels involving the most recognizably biographical of Wilde's works, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). The deliberate, complex web of allusions and ironic implications of homosexuality, presented in this essay, thus, expands considerably upon existing scholarly work on a range of matters concerning homosexual identity and conduct within the context of social conventions and legislation in the late-Victorian period, as well as more broadly, in scientific and humanistic terms. In this respect, one key aspect of this essay is the exploration of the novel's setting of Noble's Island, which, among other things, includes topographical allusions to nineteenth-century scientific theories of anatomical anomalies in pederasts-namely those of the eminent French forensic medical scientist, Ambroise Tardieu (1818-1879), whose underlying framework of physiological adaptation, moreover, intersected with the scientific interests of Wells and of his protagonist. Beyond this, it is shown that, in Moreau, there is as a web of allusions to homosexual practice and those same anomalies, involving the character of Montgomery and his name.

• Proceedings of the Korea Society of Costume Conference
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• 2001.08a
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• pp.17-19
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• 2001

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.60 no.2
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• pp.211-232
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• 2014

In late Victorian England, a "pervert" meant two things. One meaning designated a person who "turned" or converted from one sect of Christianity to another. In Wilde's time this referred specifically to converts from the established state Church of England to the transnational Roman Catholic Church. The other, newer meaning designated someone who turned from conventional heterosexual relations to a (as yet unnamed) homosexual orientation. In the context of the late Victorian empire, both were considered dangerous. The rising social and political influence of Roman Catholicism appeared threatening as a transnational Church invading a national one. For the Anglican Church of England, this crisis was played out what came to be known as the Oxford Movement, still influential during Wilde's time as a student there from 1874 to 1878. What is interesting in Wilde's life, as in his work, is the way he himself played with the dangerous transgressions inherent in being a "pervert." Sexually, he was converted to same-sex love while still a married man. In terms of religion, he remained fascinated with Catholicism, allegedly converting on his death-bed. But what is provocative is way that Wilde used one "perversion" to play into another: so that in such works as The Picture of Dorian Gray and Salome, his version of a kind of anti-Catholic Catholicism becomes a site of sexual desire, and sexual desire expression for that kind of spirituality, which, as unrequited longing, can ultimately n find no object adequate to its imagination.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.55 no.4
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• pp.619-639
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• 2009

In his 1993 stage play, Arcadia, Tom Stoppard appropriates scientific theories to dramatize the difficulty in predicting the future and in describing the past. Arcadia tracks the archaeological efforts of two present-day literary critics, Hannah Jarvis and Bernard Nightingale, as they attempt to piece together the events that occurred at a large country house called Sidley Park, from 1809 to 1812. While employing a variety of historical and cultural references to the changes taking place in British landscape gardening around the early nineteenth century, the play also turns around the intuitive-romantic versus rational-classical dichotomy represented by Hannah, and present in its discussion of science and the recoverable/irrecoverable past. Stoppard's use of chaos theory as a metaphor for the difficulties faced by those involved in biographical/bibliographical literary research suggests that unsubstantiated assumption can result in the construction of its subject, rather than in its recovery. This paper explores the way in which Stoppard uses scientific concepts, particularly the chaos theory, as a metaphor for human life and behaviour, and how he successfully describes the dilemmas and contradictions of life in so doing. Influences from his famous British predecessors, George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde, are evident, but Stoppard transcends both playwrights and crafts a dramatic style distinctively his own. The combination of wit, comedy, intellectual depth, intriguing ideas, literary allusions, scientific concepts, metaphors, and cultural references, all combine to make Arcadia a dramatic edifice that will stand the test of time.