Reviews with content warning for Racism - The Picture Of Dorian Gray

You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.

Reviews tagging 'Racism'

The Picture Of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

162 reviews

kananineko's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I loved this! Great classic. Probably one of the most digestible bc of its relatively short length. My only complaint would be that some sections dragged in the middle to me (all the super long descriptions of what Dorian was learning)

Content Warnings

thequeercaseofmarius's review against another edition

4.75

dark mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Dark, bewitching, and so very gay.

‘Why is your friendship so fateful to young men?’

In The Picture of Dorian Gray; Oscar Wilde crafts a narrative of Queer love, desire, vanity, and fear, embodied in a twink who wishes to remain young and beautiful forever. Wilde’s only novel is one that is both frighteningly fantastical, but also harrowingly personal. In Dorian we see the picture of the dark version of ourselves; the Hyde to our Jekyll, and it is his ability to transform with each reader that makes The Picture of Dorian Gray so enduring as a staple of Queer Literature, and one of the bestselling titles in Penguin’s Classics series.

Wilde’s writing and descriptions are breathtakingly beautiful, so much so that I would find myself rereading the same sentences over and over again. Wilde’s genius and intellect is also evident in the text, and his use of Queercoding through historical and art references is very clever.

Our main cast of characters are so very gay, and it’s crazy because it’s almost like Wilde met my gay friends and acquaintances and wrote a book about us (I like to think that I am Basil). But I also see each character as a different side to the Queer experience; Basil being the Queer artist who represents the beauty and tenderness of love between men, Lord Henry as the witty sass Queen that gay men are often viewed as from the outside, and Dorian represents Queer fears and anxieties that most of us have experienced some point in our life. The result is one of the most ingenious Queer horror stories ever written.

The Picture of Dorian Gray should be a (not-so) straight five-stars, however it does contain some racism and anti-semitism that I can’t ignore. It is a book of it’s time, but I’m also aware of writers and people from Wilde’s time who tried their best at not being racist. I think it’s important to appreciate this novel for everything good about it, but also to recognise it’s faults rather than excuse them, so that we as the readers can grow as people.

‘Each man sees his own sin in Dorian Gray. What Dorian Gray’s sins are no one knows. He who finds them has brought them.’

-Oscar Wilde

Content Warnings

leniornot's review against another edition

3.75

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

ashybear02's review against another edition

2.0

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

honeyvoiced's review against another edition

3.25

dark

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

sfx_naike's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

mr_darcys_hand's review against another edition

4.5

challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I loved this. I don’t read a lot of classics, but this was fantastic. It was dark and gritty and challenging, and yet the prose was easy to understand.

The hardest thing about this book I think is the paragraphs on paragraphs of dense philosophy. So if you are alright with that you will enjoy this book.

This symbolism and themes of mortality and sin and beauty were so wonderfully explored, it was so darkly beautiful. It was peak gothic, and I can’t wait to read more of the Gothic period.

All the characters were wonderfully flawed and awful, Dorian was such a compelling character.

Content Warnings

jemappellecat's review against another edition

4.75

dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

literatebird's review against another edition

3.0

dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

hauntedboi's review against another edition

3.5

challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

More...