"Choose a work of recognized literary merit in which a specific inanimate object (e.g., a seashell, a handkerchief, a painting) is important, and write an essay in which you show how two or three of the purposes the object serves are related to one another."
In the novel, "The Portrait of Dorian Gray", by Oscar Wilde, the self portrait of Dorian Gray represents several different purposes. First it physically shows all of the evil that Dorian is doing in reality, from white hair to wrinkles and blood stains, while also showing how people can over idolize youth and physical beauty, instead of on actual character.
When someone creates a beautiful painting it stays the same forever. In this novel Dorian has sold his soul to the devil in an attempt to remain physically beautiful as his portrait forever. Instead of just natural aging, the portrait ages with every evil dead that Dorian does. When he breaks a girls heart because he only loved her talent, the painting turns from a normal mouth to a scowl. This means that even though Dorian is attempting to preserve the physical beauty of youth, he fails to grasp all the other things required to be youthful. He may be physically innocent, but on the inside he becomes twisted and evil. Moreover it shows that one cannot truly be good falling in love with an image instead of the real thing (talent of a person instead of the person)
Lord Henry is a horrible influence over Dorian Grey. He laments about love and says that the greatest loves are those that last the shortest. He also over idolizes youth, and this scares Dorian into believing that his beauty is running out of time. That as he ages it will whither and die. Tragically, what he fails to grasp is that the body might start to go, but the mind and soul don't twist with age. They might become less innocent, but that knowledge has a purpose meant to channel a person into doing the right thing. Since Dorian doesn't acquire this wisdom from not aging naturally, he's unable to care about anyone else, or develop the reasoning skills showing what his actions do to other people, since they physically don't effect him. This all stems from the influence that Lord Henry inflicted upon him about youth.
Dorian Grey doesn't begin the novel as an evil character. He changes quickly as the novel progresses, from a charming boy, to a coldhearted narcissistic creature. He makes his full transformation at the end of the novel when he kills the artist of the painting, Basil, in cold blood. Deciding to completely eradicate his conscience he stabs the painting, the only evidence of his madness. This started with the seed of thought that youth will pass, and that the only things that matter are physical beauty, so Dorian sold his soul and watched his painting take away the evil from his face.
Great essay! You prove your point well and your writing is easy to read and interesting. Be careful you don't drift into summarizing the plot though; a couple of the sentences in your second paragraph might not be necessary. One specific thing I would do is to move your opening sentence of the second paragraph to your opening sentence of the first. It's a nice broad statement that still introduces the subject of your paper. Also, make sure everything ties back to your thesis statement. You wrote a lot about Lord Henry and Dorian Grey's changing morals though the novel, but your paper is about the portrait. Be sure to make the connections back to the prompt so it works holistically! Otherwise, really good essay.
ReplyDeleteNice job!
ReplyDeleteI liked how the details were used in the body paragraphs, and I liked that they fit the thesis very well. I felt like you did a good job at explaining your thesis as well, it's concise, yet it gets the point across. One thing that I felt could be changed was the last paragraph. The last paragraph is usually used to bring back the facts together into a nice rounded out conclusion. Your conclusion does do that, but I felt like it was a bit too wordy for this type of essay. It gives readers more details that are needed. Other than that, great job!
Ginger has made some effective peer review comments here--and some revisions based on her comments were in order. You set up a good structure with your thesis, but then don't clearly follow through in the essay--I really would have liked to see claim (topic sentences) more clearly focused on the portrait itself. Also, remember that the prompt specified that you were to show how the two purposes related to each other--your essay sort of discusses this, but you also need to establish this from the beginning, in your thesis. You also need to work on syntax--your language is very unclear and ungrammatical in places.
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