September 18, 2011—Open Prompt

OF COURSE I answer the first prompt wrong

2004, Form B. The most important themes in literature are sometimes developed in scenes in which a death or deaths take place. Choose a novel or play and write a well-organized essay in which you show how a specific death scene helps to illuminate the meaning of the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.

 Some may see the saying "be careful what you wish for" as a cliche, but it's wisdom is still present even in day-to-day life. What if one wished for eternal youth, and what if the outcome is neither beautiful nor decent but flagrant and fatal? Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray revolves around a wish made by the titular character to never grow old. Instead, for every action he takes, for every immoral decision he makes, the physical reprecussions are aborbed by a painting, his portrait. Dorian's life of vanity and indulgence, however, lead to violent deaths, including Dorian's own. Through these deaths, Wilde explores the damaging consequences of a wholly humanist life.

Through the first and perhaps most tragic death, Wilde examines the destruction of an innocent life by Dorian's superficiality. A young girl named Sybil kills herself because Dorian rejects his previous affection for her after she embarrasses him in front of his friends. Sybil was only thinking of Dorian at the time, and his rejection is too great for her to bear. She is the first victim, and her death leads Dorian to succumb to a complete lack of conscience. 

Dorian later stabs the portrait's painter and his own friend, Basil. With Basil's murder, Wilde shows how incapable Dorian is of taking responsibility, how that life can hurt those who care,  as well as how sins, whether the physical mark of them is there or not, can come to control the sinner. Dorian kept the evermore hideous painting hidden away, but in showing it to Basil, feels a white hot anger and targets the blame for the painting's ugliness on Basil, not his own lifestyle. In a moment of impulse, something Dorian is not a stranger to, he impales Basil with a knife. Dorian doesn't understand responsibility because he's never seen it on his own face in a mirror. His immorality accumulates to the point where he destroys one of the few who still care for him. Wilde shows how one can alienate their loved ones in leading an indulgent life. Furthermore, Wilde suggests that the painting actually gave Dorian that violent impulse. His hatred for Basil boils after he glances at the portrait. It is sudden and uncontrollable, showing how Dorian could never have escaped his actions, they follow him and influence him still.

Wilde's only novel ends when Dorian Gray stabs his own portrait in the heart. Under the supernatural circumstances, he stabs himself in the heart, and dies with the wretched appearance of his portrait. Dorian's death gives Wilde's final argument: an unchecked, superficial life leads to maddening self-loathing.

My forty minutes were up! I'll have to work on working faster.