Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde - Essay Example

The composition of Dorian Gray is balanced between Lord Henry’s early influences on Dorian (the first ten chapters) and Dorian’s life as an adult (the last ten chapters). Each segment begins with an expository chapter. Major symbols in the novel include the portrait, which dominates the story as it reflects Dorian’s increasing fall into debauchery. Basil, the portrait maker, gives his reasons for never exhibiting the painting, The reason I will not exhibit this picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of my own soul.

(Chapter1, pg. 6) Basil does not want Lord Henry to meet Dorian. But still they meet and Dorian hears Lord Henry telling him his philosophy, The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the thing it has forbidden to itself, with desires for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. The “yellow book” reflects Lord Henry’s continuing authority on Dorian and seems to be a demonic vigor of its own. And there is another topic of the report - The James Whales Frankenstein (1931), a science fiction film from Universal Pictures directed by James Whale, remains an icon in the genre of horror movies.

There are more differences between the movie and the book than there are similarities. Frankenstein is a movie loosely based on the novel by Mary Shelley. Technically speaking, it was an adaptation from Peggy Webling’s play which was, in turn, adapted from Frankenstein, the novel. It does not imbibe the key elements present in the book.