1. THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY
1.1.1. PRINCIPAL CHARACTERES:
DORIAN GRAY: An ingenuous young person without experience, he was a vain person, cruel, ambitious and gay. He is tall handsome, with blue eyes, blond curly hair.
1.1.2. SECONDARY CHARACTERES:
BASILIO HALLWARD: A noble, friendly, but jealous person with good intentions.
He admired much the Dorian’s beauty greatly.
LORD HENRRY: A gentleman Senior citizen, he is mature, intelligent, astute and with experience. One of his skills was to manipulate. He always worried about his good image.
SIBILA VANE: She was a young actress who fell in love with Dorian Gray. She was 17 years old beautiful and passionate.
JAINME VANE: He was a very serious young person a noble.
His dream was to become a sailor. He wanted to take revenge of Dorian, because Dorian contributed to the suicide of his sister.
1.1.3. OTHER CHARACTERS: Mother of Vane Sibila, Mr. Jorge the uncle of Lord Henry Jorge, Lady Agate, her brother, the Duchess, lady Elizabeth, old people, servants, friends etc.
OMNISCIENT: the narrator acts like a small God in some situations within the book It is narrated in third person.
WITNESS: The story is narrated in second person in some situations, in others; it is like one of the secondary characters of the history.
LEADING: when the history is narrated in first person, that is, it is narrated by Dorian Gray.
1.3.1. TIME OF ADVENTURE:
Victorian time
1.3.2. HISTORIC TIME
XIX century (modern)
1.3.3. CHRONOLOGICAL TIME:
XIX century.
1.3.4. ENVIRONMENTAL TIME:
1.3.4.1. RAINY: when Dorian was in the bar and encountered with Jainme
1.3.4.2. SUNNY: the major part of time in this story, example: when Dorian met Harry in the basil’s house.
The vocabulary is colloquial, although we can find complex words, places and characters that cause the reading has to be a little challenging. The author uses an ironic language.
Through this he shows a tragic atmosphere and attitudes of unhappiness and inconformity; through this the author tries to show the characteristics and develop a criticism of the English society of that time
1.5.1. EXTERNAL:
The street where the bar was a long and narrow street, and the end of this street. There was a port, the bar was just on the middle of this street. there it was where Harry met with Dorian.
1.5.2. INTERNAL:
In Basil’s house, the library was very large. And there were many armchairs. There was one special where Dorian sat down so that they painted it. In the library there was also a door that leads to a very big garden and with beautiful flowers. Where there the encounter between Dorian and Harry happened.
1.5.3. OTHER SPACES
House of Basilio, of Henry, of Dorian, street, theater, friends' house, forest, the library, embroidered of Dorian, etc…
Everything begins when Lord Henry visits his friend Basilio, who was a painter and he shows to him a picture of a young person with extraordinary beauty named Dorian Gray , he meets Henry, a gentleman senior of experience.
They have a conversation and Henry tells him what he thinks about the life, after this conversation, Dorian sees life in a different way and even has an idea that the picture is the one that should grow old and not him. Later, Lord Henry and Dorian become friends.
Some time later Dorian meets Sibila Vane, a young very beautiful actress who thinks that Dorian falls in love with her.
But, in fact he is obsessed with her. One night Dorian decides to invite to Henry and Basilio to see her working in the theater, but her performance is so bad and , for that Dorian tells s to her that he doesn’t lover her and all is over .
Sibila then looses her enchantment, and as a result of this she commits suicide.
The night of the suicide Dorian returns to his house and sees that the picture has a gesture of cruelty on its mouth and he begins to think about the possibility that his dream became reality (that the picture aged and not he), the next day he is aware about the death of Sibila and he does not feel grief.
Later he decides to keep the picture in a place where nobody can see it, where only he could see it. They spend some years and although Dorian ages in contrast with the picture which looks so old. One night he meets with Basilio on the street and he invites him to his house, he shows the picture to him and how the picture had transformed so violently.
Basilio can not believe it and he complains to Dorian and for this he kills to Basilio without remorse or pain. Dorian feels pressed since Jaime Vane, the brother of Sibila, persecutes him to take revenge by himself.
Jaime finds him and he wants to murder Dorian, but he feels confused when he saw him because Dorian looks too young to have loved his sister, Jaime dies because the Duchess’ brother shoots him.
Henry and Dorian return to London one day and when Dorian returned to his house and heard that people spoke about him.
He was happy that people paid attention to him and remember his "rosy youth" as Henry sometimes said, but he also thought about how that youth had destroyed his life.
He decides to see if the picture got better on its aspect, but it only reflected hypocrisy. The picture was more horrible than ever. He remembered all the sins that had committed, of which the picture was the only witness.
After he contemplated that and thought a lot. He decided to destroy the picture; but in fact he never destroyed the picture but instead he killed myself.
Dorian’s picture returned like before handsome and apparently young and perfect, whereas his body laid on the floor, old, wrinkled and unrecognizable, identified only by his rings and the clothes.
WILDE, Oscar, the picture of Dorian Gray, Oxford University Press 1989. (English)
WILDE, Oscar, El retrato de Dorian Gray, (Español)
Spanish English Dictionary, edit. Espasa Calpe, S.A., Madrid, 1999.
JULIANA PEREZ VILLA
INSTITUCION EDUCATIVA SUAREZ DE LA PRESENTACION.
BELLO
2005