The oval portrait-Dorian Gray PDF

Preview

Summary

Download The oval portrait-Dorian Gray PDF

Description

The work of art between reality and dream Poe's construction of the tale mirrors the way that waking reality shades imperceptibly into dream with no possibility of knowing exactly where one ends and the other begins. When the narrator accidentally turns the candlelight to reveal the oval portrait, we find ourselves asking whether he has fallen asleep and entered a dream. The story of the portrait itself constitutes a story within a story. Art as a Vampire The story of The Oval Portrait funcions as an allegory of the vampire-like relationship which exists between art and life. The painter, in order to create the perfect work of art, must suck the life-blood from his subject. But equally important is the absolute coincidence between the work's completion and the girl's death. When the painter exclaims in horror 'this is life itself' it is not only because he has stolen the girl's life to complete his work, but because his painting also includes the moment of her death. In order for the painting to completely emulate 'life' it must include death as its ultimate moment of truth. Only this can explain the mixture of amazed fascination and horror that the girl's expression provokes in the narrator. In Poe's story art is no longer seen as 'a mirror of life' but more profoundly as 'a mirror' of death. A picture within a picture (The Oval Portrait and The Picture of Dorian Gray) The structure and themes of The Picture of Dorian Gray have some relation to those of Poe's The Oval Portrait. The difference is that while in Poe's story the painter's work of art sucks the life from his subject, here Dorian appropriates the eternal beauty of art to trasform his life. In each case the story is itself a picture which contains a picture. The Picture of Dorian Gray is perhaps even more complex in this regards as it creates an almost schizophrenic split between the world of appearances and the inner world of mental and bodily passions. The novel presents us with both a 'true' and a 'false' Dorian Gray without saying which is which....