In relation to when Dorian Gray was first released, the supernatural and sci-fi themes were still very new concepts with Mary Shelly's Frankenstein coming out only in 1818, around 70 years before Dorian Gray. ![]() It might escape the hideousness of sin, but the hideousness of age was in store for it."īy having the picture age instead of Dorian almost with no explanation other than Dorian ‘giving his soul' for it, the supernatural trop is fulfilled due to the uncertainty of not knowing how such a phenomenon can come to be and almost create a fear of the unknown which then immediately separates Dorian Gray from being just another text about a rich man to a gothic tale with quite dominant supernatural undertones. And, just as Dorian gets his wish and never ages, the picture it is said to "Hour by hour, and week by week, the thing upon the canvas was growing old. The only explanation for this happening is when Dorian exclaims ‘If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that - for that - I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!". An example of this in Dorian Gray is the whole plot point of Dorians relation to the picture as throughout the novel, Dorian does not age but the picture does and at the end, when Dorian dies, the picture returns back to how it once was. The gothic genre often has this trait in its texts as it adds a ‘distinct element of feeling which is not drawn from ordinary, or "natural," experience' which ‘evokes an echo from the reader's sense of reality' (Varnado 2015).Ī perfect example of this idea in practice is ghost stories as very few people can claim they have seen ghosts, yet most people are still somewhat afraid of them. One of the key tropes of the gothic genre is the use of the supernatural and unknown powers to help lead the story of Dorian Gray. This essay will look at how the term gothic raises expectations for certain tropes and aspects of the genre to appear gothic texts clearly and if they do so in The Picture of Dorian Gray and how that effects the story as whole. Along with novels such as Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Picture of Dorian Gray 'explore the theme of the human mind and body changing and developing, mutating, corrupting and decaying, and all do so in response to evolutionary, social and medical theories that were emerging at the time. Many theorists also argue that The Picture of Dorian Gray is a definite gothic text and is called a ‘superb example of late-Victorian Gothic fiction' as it is a ‘representation of how fin-de-siècle literature explored the darkest recesses of Victorian society and the often disturbing private desires that lurked behind acceptable public faces'(Buzzwell 2014). ![]() since its conception, the gothic genre has created some of the most highly praised pieces of literature including Bram Stoker's Dracula and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. Some theorists believe that gothic writing was a response to the enlightenment period that had taken place just before the genre first became popular in the late 19th century. The first gothic text that gave birth to the genre is believed to be Horace Walpole's 18th Century novel The Castle of Otranto. Gothic literature is a genre that is famous for focusing on horror, ruin, decay, the supernatural.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |