Baker Junior’s essay “A tragedy of the Artist: The Picture of Dorian Gray”. Self’s changing of certain characters does not alter what they represent, for example Sybil Vane becoming Herman. The two characters are very different on the face of it but they both represent the continuing existence of a class structure (and provide a target for Dorian’s love. ) This point highlights the similarities between the author’s respective versions that are less obvious than the plot and names.

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The differences will be outlined next, the main focus of which will be the ambiguity with which homosexuality and the homosexual lifestyle is treated in Wilde’s version in contrast with Self’s explicit, open treatment of the same issue; the way in which Self has chosen to place more emphasis than Wilde on the 16 year time-frame in which the narrative takes place and Self’s addition of an epilogue. I will reference Koen Van Cauwenberge (The Ambivalence in Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ and its relation to Postmodernism), picking out his point about the gay stereotype only really coming into existence after Wilde’s writing.

If this is true, there could be less implied meaning than we think in the original novel, and Self’s adaptation could be seen as merely a response to his position as a modern reader of Wilde. I will use Self’s epilogue to argue against this point, however as it could be suggested as a comment on the need for Wilde to use the supernatural in his novel to retain the ambiguity. In relation to social context and the level of ambiguity, I will reference Sophie Harrison’s Review, ‘The Wrinkle Cure’ in which she suggests that something has been lost from Self’s adaptation due to his “insistence on spelling out all the nasty bits”.

I will argue using Jonathan Heawood’s Guardian review that, although Wilde’s novel is more vague (and perhaps therefore, ‘tasteful’) in it’s presentation of homosexuality, Self’s much more explicit adaptation received a surprisingly similar reaction from critics, suggesting that there is more of a connection between our time and Wilde’s than perhaps is first evident. Self’s own opinions on why he chose to present homosexuality and the time scheme in the way he did seem to suggest he is very much influenced by social context.

I will show that Self was very much aware of the similarity discussed in the last paragraph. Here I will reference Robert McCrum’s Interview with Self for The Observer and Self’s own article about his adaptation, “It’s a wild, Wilde World to look at both issues. Both writers set their version in a period of time that they themselves have lived through, but the connections with their own lives and their novels do not end there.

Using Self’s article from the previous paragraph, Neil Bartlett’s review ‘Picture of ill-health’ and Owen Dudley Edwards’ biography of Wilde, I will conclude that both authors have placed something of themselves into Wotton, but that Wilde explicitly references his own life throughout the book, whereas Self is less obvious about it. The essay will conclude with the decision that Wilde and Self’s versions differ in more than they share, but retain the same moral. I will decide from the evidence I have looked at in the writing of the essay that Self’s adaptation is borne of the social context in which he writes to a very great extent.

His modern views influence his position as a reader of Wilde’s text, and he is able to present what he finds implied there openly due to the time in which he lives, as illustrated by his epilogue. Having decided that Self was very influenced by the time in which he is writing, I will also suggest that the way in which Wilde chose to write his novel was also very much a response to his own social context. Bibliography Baker, Houston A. Jr. , ‘A Tragedy of the Artist: The Picture of Dorian Gray’, Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 24, No. 3. (Dec. 1969), pp. 49-355. Bartlett, Neil, ‘Picture of Ill Health’, review of Dorian, Guardian, (September 21, 2002) p. 26 Cauwenberge, Koen Van, The Ambivalence in Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ and its relation to Postmodernism, Universiteit Gent Germaanse talen, Belgium (1996) , [accessed 10th November 2005] Edwards, Owen Dudley. “Wilde, Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills (1854–1900). ” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. (Oct. 2005) [accessed 3rd Nov. 2005]

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