A Rose for Emily and Sweat

NameMouri Moumita ID0920605015 1. There is no lots(prenominal) thing as a clean or an meanspirited news, Wilde says in the Preface. Books are thoroughly written, or badly written. That is all. Does the novel confirm this argument? Wilde published his unless novel, The generate of Dorian decrepit, before he reached the height of his fame. It was criticized as lurid and im clean. Disappointed with its reception, Wilde revised the novel in 1891, adding a preface and hexad new chapters.The Preface anticipates some of the criticism that might be leveled at the novel and answers critics who charge The Picture of Dorian Gray with being an immoral tale. It also briefly sets forth the tenets of Wildes philosophy of art. Devoted to a school of thought and a mode of sensibility known as aestheticism, Wilde believed that art possesses an intrinsic valuethat it is beautiful and therefore has worth, and thus call for serve no other purpose, be it moral or political. The Picture of Doria n Gray is the story of unitary beautiful, innocent young mans seduction, moral corruption, and eventual downfall.We meet our three primal characters at the beginning of the defend, when lynx Basil Hallward and his close friend, Lord heat content Wotton, are treating the subject of Basils newest painting, a gorgeous young thing named Dorian Gray. Basil and Henry discuss just how perfectly perfect Dorian is hes totally innocent and exclusively good, as well as being the most beautiful goose ever to walk the earth. Lord Henry wants to meet this mysterious boy, barely Basil doesnt want him to for some reason, hes afraid of what will happen to Dorian if Lord Henry digs his claws into him.Reflecting on the course of his past twenty dollar bill years, he confronts Lord Henry, whom he believes is responsible for leading him astray. Lord Henry gives Dorian a book. Dorian criticizes the yellow book that, years before, had such a profound influence over him, claiming that this book d id him great harm. This charge is, of course, alien to Wildes philosophy of aestheticism, which holds that art cannot be either moral or immoral. Lord Henry says as much, refusing to believe that a book could have such power.The idea that there is no morality in art, only beauty (or an absence of beauty, in the case of bad art), is the central tenet of a movement known as aestheticism, which sought to relinquish literature and other forms of artistic expression from the burden of being honourable or instructive. Wilde himself was associated closely with this creed, as the Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray makes clear. But the novel that follows grapples with the philosophy of art for arts saki in a complicated way. After all, the protagonist suffers from the lessons he has larn from the yellow book that has poisoned him.Lord Henry insists that a book can do no such thing, and we are left to decide how much damned one can place on a book and how much blame must(prenominal) be placed on the reader. Indeed, in one respect, The Picture of Dorian Gray seems to be a novel of extremely moral sensibilities, since Dorian suffers because he allows himself to be poisoned by a book. In other words, he defies the artistic principles that structure the yellow book. One must wonder, then, if there is such a thing as a book without some sort of moral or instruction