Book report The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Title The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, points to a key aspect




Escapist/Formulaic or Gothic/Escapist fiction
Imaginative fiction?




Plot  Exposition (When Lord Henry visits Basil and meets Dorian, the picture is
painted and Henry starts being friends with Dorian (talking with him about
thing, taking him to the opera etc)
 Rising action (Dorian breaks up with Sibyl and discovers that the picture is
changing, he also becomes obsessed with the yellow book)
 Climax (Dorian kills Basil, kind of the height of his evilness)
 Denouement (Dorian starts to question himself because of James but stays
evil, gets more stressed about people finding out)
 Conclusion (Dorian kills himself)
 Linear time events
 Foreshadowing (when the picture is just painted and Henry gives Dorian
the idea of eternal beauty he says that he would sell his soul for that, which
he eventually does, he also says it would be murder of Basil to rip up the
picture and eventually he commits suicide by ripping up the picture)
 Suspended revelation (you don’t know the picture holds his youth until
Dorian himself finds out halfway through the book)
 Plot-driven