Anti-Traditional Features In The Picture Of Dorian Gray

Oscar Wilde (1854—1890), Irish-born playwright, novelist, essayist and poet, associated with the nineteenth-century"art for art's sake"movement, is undoubtedly better known in his lifetime for his talent in literature. He is an important person in the period that English literature was transforming from the traditional style to the modern style. Though he is not completely a modernist writer, as a representative figure of"art for art's sake", he shows a great deal of modern awareness both in his ideas and his writing practice. And these features are expressed in his only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. The thesis discusses from the point of its anti-traditional features to express the modern awareness reflected in his only novel.The thesis analyzes from three parts. The first part claims its anti-traditional features in characterization. Oscar Wilde precisely analyzes the psychology of modern people, and thus opens a new visual field for modernist literature by extending the scope for art from the outer material world to the inner spiritual world. Though the characters are called"flat characters", they reflect Wilde's treatment to complicated psychology of human beings. It is right the theory of Freud about ego, superego and id. The second part mainly introduces Wilde's anti-traditional features in ideal for art. He emphasized that art should be creative, strange and beautiful and should break up traditional disciplines. His ideals on art value are that art is nothing with morality and life imitates art. The third part mainly analyzes the ornamental words and paradoxical language and the gothic plot. All these elements are borrowed by Wilde to express his dissatisfactory to the current society and the uniqueness in literary which is different from traditional literary features.Among all the modernistic features, the most important and the whole character are its anti-traditional features. Oscar Wilde possesses a keen sight and sees this; so in the novel, anti-traditional features are presented.