Dorian Gray, Language and Style

Description

A Levels Dorian and Dickinson Mind Map on Dorian Gray, Language and Style, created by laurissafield on 04/23/2014.
laurissafield
Mind Map by laurissafield, updated more than 1 year ago
laurissafield
Created by laurissafield almost 11 years ago
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Resource summary

Dorian Gray, Language and Style
  1. Intertextual
    1. Quotes other texts
      1. Henry and Basil quote the King James Bible when they speak of the soul
        1. Sibyl feels the words of Juliet do not express her feelings, and so quotes Lady of Shalott
          1. "I have grown sick of shadows"
      2. Synaesthesia
        1. Use of one sense to interpret another
          1. Light is "shrill"
            1. Lord Henry can make Philosophy a woman with bubbles of wine staining her skin
              1. Prepares us for the confused/shifting perspectives of Dorian as his life begins to fall apart
              2. Moving narrative away from characters to focus on detail
                1. Dorian listening to Henry
                  1. Text shifts focus to "a furry bee...began to scramble all over the oval stellated globe of the tiny blossoms"
                  2. Images become increasingly threatening
                    1. As though Dorian's consciousness can no longer shut out what is happening to him
                      1. Flash of a policeman's lantern after the murder
                        1. Twitching of elderly addict imagining he is covered in red ants
                      2. Omniscient narration
                        1. Appears to tell us every aspect of his character's thoughts
                          1. Uses free indirect speech
                            1. Narrated in third person, consistent with the thinker
                              1. Gives extra distance inviting observing and judging - we hear what they wouldn't voice aloud
                        2. Wit
                          1. Spoken word by characters - provides contrast in pace and tone to slower prose of thoughts
                            1. Aristocratic world had rules - sincerity was not as important as playing your social part well
                            2. Cliches
                              1. Asserts the social/political authority of speaker rather than advance an argument
                                1. Using wit to inverse the cliche
                                  1. Asserts control over the code of the social circle
                                    1. "Moderation is a fatal thing. Enough is as bad as a meal. More than enough is as good as a feast"
                                      1. Generated laughter, creates a pause for reader to think
                                    2. Subtext
                                      1. Flirtation is the cover for the Duchess's real desire for Dorian
                                        1. Used to conceal sexual longing - important in the society where marriage is for the preservation of the class
                                          1. Public and visibly harmless
                                        2. Social Comedy
                                          1. Placed mainly towards the end of the novel
                                            1. Link the lively aristocrats to our sense that a tragic end cannot be long deferred
                                              1. Time is running out - widening suffrage, emancipation of women & rise of US as a world power will chance their lives
                                          2. Use of Music
                                            1. Wilde is creating his own hypnotic rhythm that stops at Dorian's death
                                              1. At every significant moment, Dorian is linked to music
                                                1. Innocent Dorian is linked to the sweetness of Schumann
                                                  1. Enticed away from grieving for Sibyl by the voice of a popular soprano
                                                    1. Plays a Chopin nocturne, which is a farewell to Lord Henry
                                                      1. Wilde's readers would know these well enough to 'hear' them
                                                        1. Dorian - both the player and listener, hypnotised by music, and using it to hypnotise the reader into following his life
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