The Picture Of Dorian Gray Theme Essay
Everyone Wants an Extravagant Lifestyle: Is Your Soul worth Losing to the Seven Deadly Sins
Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray is about a young, charming man that is in conflict with the cultural anxieties of living an extravagant, seductive, moralistic, and self-confident life style. The Picture of Dorian Gray is a fictional novel that reveals many aspects of cultural anxieties instilled in all the characters. The cultural anxieties complicate the virtues of every character in the novel. This leads each of their lives into the vices of their virtues. All the characters have the anxieties of living a great life and each character wants more than their role, place, and identity in society. The anxieties of the Late Victorian era were having “sexual restraints, low tolerance of crime and living a strict social code of conduct.” (Cenicola) However, no character can stay within an expected generous and moral lifestyle with the pressures of cultural anxieties that …show more content…
Admiration from wealth, youth, and charm is an ideal image in the era. The cultural anxiety of strong social ethics can produce some of the seven deadly sins from over indulging in the pleasures of living beyond a strict social code of conduct. Over indulging in one’s desires and impulses can be undeniably immoral. “The explosion of aesthetic philosophy extended it to life itself. Here, aestheticism advocated whatever behavior was likely to maximize the beauty and happiness in one’s life, in the tradition of hedonism.” (Duggan 63) This says that it is good to find pleasure in beauty for one’s happiness. However, if aestheticism is uncontrolled, it could lead to the complete opposite of respectability and all the hard work can be lost. Instant gratification without thinking of the consequences will lead to some of the seven deadly sins that will result in overtaking one’s
Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray is about a young, charming man that is in conflict with the cultural anxieties of living an extravagant, seductive, moralistic, and self-confident life style. The Picture of Dorian Gray is a fictional novel that reveals many aspects of cultural anxieties instilled in all the characters. The cultural anxieties complicate the virtues of every character in the novel. This leads each of their lives into the vices of their virtues. All the characters have the anxieties of living a great life and each character wants more than their role, place, and identity in society. The anxieties of the Late Victorian era were having “sexual restraints, low tolerance of crime and living a strict social code of conduct.” (Cenicola) However, no character can stay within an expected generous and moral lifestyle with the pressures of cultural anxieties that …show more content…
Admiration from wealth, youth, and charm is an ideal image in the era. The cultural anxiety of strong social ethics can produce some of the seven deadly sins from over indulging in the pleasures of living beyond a strict social code of conduct. Over indulging in one’s desires and impulses can be undeniably immoral. “The explosion of aesthetic philosophy extended it to life itself. Here, aestheticism advocated whatever behavior was likely to maximize the beauty and happiness in one’s life, in the tradition of hedonism.” (Duggan 63) This says that it is good to find pleasure in beauty for one’s happiness. However, if aestheticism is uncontrolled, it could lead to the complete opposite of respectability and all the hard work can be lost. Instant gratification without thinking of the consequences will lead to some of the seven deadly sins that will result in overtaking one’s