2。2 Action Exposing Desperate Condition of Psychology 9

2。3 Portrait Exposing Contrast Between Impression and Reality 10

2。4 Characters Exposing Darkness 12

Chapter Three Exhibiting Hope through Death Images of Emotions 13

3。1 Weak Kinship Exhibiting Distorted Attitude Towards Wealth 13

3。2 Strange Friendship Exhibiting Serious Crisis of Trust 14

3。3 Impossible Love Exhibiting Huge Gap Among Social Classes 15

3。4 Emotions Exhibiting A Glimmer of Hope 16

Conclusion 18

Works Cited 20

 On Images of Death in The Picture of Dorian Gray

Introduction

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) is well-known as an Irish-born playwright, novelist, essayist and poet。 He has many comic masterpieces, such as Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)。 His only novel is The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) and he has many fairy tales, but the most famous one is The Happy Prince (1888)。 

The Picture of Dorian Gray has been discussed for many times from different angles。 Due to different analysis towards The Picture of Dorian Gray, we can easily find that the analysis is almost around Aestheticism and Freud’s theories according to the foreign scholars。 The British critic Peter Wilde has studied aestheticism for a long time, which makes a huge progress in literature。 Researchers became more rational from 1960 till now。 Malcolm Bradbury used “double-self” in his book The Modem British Novel (2001) to explain Dorian Gray, pointing out that Dorian and the picture are two sides of a person, Neil Mckenna published The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde (2003), trying to find out the archetype of Dorian Gray among Wilde’s friends and acquaintances。

In China, The Picture of Dorian Gray was opposed by people when it was published。 Then, thoughts were released with the end of Cultural Revolution。 The scholars usually discuss The Picture of Dorian Gray from the life of author, the plots of this novel。 People tend to take fair action towards this novel。 There are three aspects about this novel: One is the psychological angel, another is the angel of aestheticism, and the last one is the style of narrative。 The professor Wu Xueping has raised that people should discuss the novel from psychological angel。 Images of death have been discussed by some specialists; however, it doesn’t be studied thoroughly。           

The first part is about the introduction of The Picture of Dorian Gray。 The second part is the body of the thesis。 It emphasizes three main kinds of death images which are different from each other。 The first section is to discuss the sight images of death, which includes three main flowers: daisy, rose and poppy。 These flowers vividly show a tendency of hopelessness because of the decline of inside heart of main characters。 The second section is about the analysis of death images about characters。 It is also discussed from three aspects: language, action and portrait。 Language and action directly reveal the darkness of characters, and portrait has a contrast between impression and reality。 And third section is to discuss the images of emotions: kinship, friendship and love。 These reveal different aspects: distorted attitude towards wealth, serious crisis of trust and huge gap among social classes。 However, we can get a glimmer of hope from the last part due to the direct descriptions about feelings。 The third part of the thesis is the conclusion, which includes the hope he want to deliver hope in the thesis as well as the value to the contemporary society。