近来有朋友猜我是语文老师，我回复：“我是爱语文的英语老师。”自创公众号以来，笔者都以中文书写，且与专业背景无关（难不成已达学习最高境界——把所学的都忘掉了），于是有朋友提出建议，让笔者思考颇多，回顾了来时的路，决定有计划地分享一些关于英语学习的玩意儿。以下是笔者入门英语写作的读书报告，感谢大神Dave老师的指导，感谢当年组员的peer-editing，更感谢亲们的理性思考。（废话、碎话、还有错误哈，但仔细看看还是挺有收获的）
王尔德(Oscar Wilde)在英语文学界算得上是最睿智的文学家之一。为世界人民熟知的是他的剧本、童话和不计其数的经典语录，而《道林格雷的画像》（The Picture of Dorian Gray）是他一生唯一留下来的小说，我有幸完整地读完了这本好书，写了以下的读书报告。
A Book Report onThe Picture of Dorian Gray
As a Zen says, by theage of thirty we are all responsible for our face. Do you think that we shouldpay much attention to our physical appearance? Supposing that you had a chanceto trade, would you exchange your soul for external youth and beauty?
A young man in the novel,The Picture of Dorian Gray, exchangedhis soul for external physical beauty. The novel written by Oscar Wilde hasbecome a classic in the immortal literature world. It was first published in1890, and the vision I read was in 1964. The novel is not very long, justcontaining 221 pages. The book tells a story about a handsome but selfish man. Withthe evil influence from his friends, he greatly changed himself, from aninnocent beautiful young man to a sinful and horrible person. He experienced aterrible joy when he underwent an abrupt transition. Eventually he killedhimself because of the sins of his past.
In this book, there are three maincharacters. Obviously, the most important one is Dorian Gray. He was “awonderfully handsome young man, with his finely curved scarlet lips, his frankblue eyes, and his crisp gold hair” (Oscar Wilde, p.24). He was born in a veryrich family and was well educated, but he did not have a happy childhood. Hismother, Lady Margaret Devereux, was “an extraordinarily beautiful girl, andmade all of men frantic by running away with a penniless young fellow.”(OscarWilde, p.40) Both of Dorian’s parents died when he was still an infant. He wasbrought up by his apathetic grandfather, Lord Kelso. After Dorian stepped intosociety, he became more and more immoral and, at the end of the novel, killedhimself. Besides, another important person, Basil Hallward, was a devotedpainter. He posited that “an artist should create beautiful things, but shouldput nothing of his own life into them.”(Oscar Wilde, p.21) So he painted Doriana perfect portrait with “the abstract sense of beauty.”(Oscar Wilde, p.21)However, he was hated by Dorian Gray and had a very miserable ending. The thirdone is wicked. Henry Wotton had “a very bad influence over all his friends,with the single exception of Basil.”(Oscar Wilde, p.26) It was said that he wasthe root of evil; “he played with the idea and grew willful; tossed it into theair and transformed it; let it escape and recaptured it; made it iridescentwith fancy and winged it with paradox.” (Oscar Wilde, p.49) Though he was adreadful person, Dorian enjoyed talking with him. When Dorian met him at thefirst time, Henry said that “nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just asnothing can cure the senses but the soul.”(Oscar Wilde, p.29) He greatlyaffected Dorian.
Thereis a brief introduction. Henry thought high of Dorian’s exquisite youth andbeauty and it made Dorian couldn’t help feeling very proud of his physical appearance.After Basil’s wonderful portrait of Dorian was finished, Dorian thought it wasgreat, but he worried that he would grow old and ugly while the picture keptyoung and beautiful forever. He wished he would be externally young andbeautiful even on condition that he gave his soul. Finally, his wish becamereality. He was able to indulge his desires while the portrait took theresponsibility for his passions and sins. Dorian once fell in love with anactress and promised to marry her, but then he deserted her cruelly. She couldnot bear it and committed suicide. After this affair, Dorian went to see hisportrait and he discovered something strange. The picture had changed a little.The expression looked different from the original one. It seemed that there wasa touch of cruelty around the mouth. Dorian realized his wish had come true. Hecould keep young and beautiful all the time. Besides, he did not need to worryabout the consequences of his behavior, for the portrait would take theresponsibility. Later, Dorian killed some of his old friends, the artist whohad painted the portrait included. At last, Dorian became more and moretortured by the sins of his past. He killed himself on one night and theportrait was as beautiful as the one which had just been painted.
Oscar Wilde made up a typical character,Dorian Gray. Dorian represented a sort of people who had youth and beauty butan ugly and evil soul. They paid so much attention to the physical appearancethat they would give their souls if they exchange it for external youth andbeauty. Actually, the three main characters exactly indicate the three aspectsof human beings. According to Freud, personality can be divided into threeaspects, which work together to produce all of our complex behaviors: the id,the ego, and the superego. (Larsen, Randy J and David M.Buss.p282) It is citedthat “the id, is like a spoiled child—selfish,impulsive, and pleasure-loving. According to Freud, the id operates accordingto the pleasure principle. Because the id operates according to the pleasureprinciple, it does not listen to reason, does not follow logic, has no valuesor morals, and has very little patience. ”( Larsen, Randy J and DavidM.Buss.p282) In this novel, Henry played the role of the Id. He was totally ahedonist who just cared about his own feelings and sometimes even gave thefacts a twist. On contrary, the painter, Basil, represented the Superego, themoral part of the mind. He strived for perfection and strictly obeyed the rulesand principles. As Feud put it, “the superego is the part of the mind thatinternalizes the values, morals, and ideals of society.”(Larsen, Randy J andDavid M.Buss.p283) As for Dorian Gray,he was actually the Ego, which is “the plumber who works to redirect the pressureproduced by the id instincts into acceptable or at least less problematicoutlets.” “The ego is the part of mind that constrains the id to reality.” (Larsen,Randy J and David M.Buss.p282) Dorian paid too much attention to the Id. As aresult, he ignored the Superego. He was just addicted to stimulating his sensesby all kinds of immoral behaviors and finally he lost himself.
As Oscar put it in the preface, “themoral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but themorality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium.”(OscarWilde, p.9) The author wrote this novel by using an imperfect medium. Thisnovel has its failings. Its ending is finished in the imaginative atmospherewith uncertainty. Itis complicated forreaders to understand it completely. What is the main reason for Dorian’sdeath? His beauty and youth ruined him. He would have lived a normal lifewithout those two things he had wished. To him, beauty was a mask while youth amockery. They just brought him to fancy an unripe time, a time of shallow moodsand sickly thoughts. It was the external youth that had spoiled him to death. (OscarWilde, pp.217)
In my opinion, this book is really aclassic that is worth reading. I am amazed by Oscar’s creativity and his strikingwriting style. The plots are well organized. It raised a question. Does theimportance of physical beauty outweigh that of soul and inner peace? How can wedeal with the relationship among the id, the ego, and the superego? Nowadays,living in a competitive society, we feel extremely stressed facing hundreds andthousands of challenges and competitions. In order to catch more eyes, we paymore and more attention to appearance. Sometimes we even ignore our soul andinner world. This book reminds us to realize the significance of soul and innerworld. Only when we balance the outside and the inside can we live a life ofhigh quality.
References
OscarWilde.(1964) The Picture of Dorian Gray,, printed in 1964, by Airmont Publishing Company, Inc.
Larsen,Randy J & David M. Buss. (2005).Personality Psychology,by (2ndEd.) , published in 2005, by McGraw-Hill, abusiness unit of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
读这篇report，我仿佛看见了过去的自己，虽文章有纰漏有不足，但敢于尝试和挑战的勇气可嘉。初生牛犊不怕虎。我都不记得当时怎么一词一句读懂了这本书，或许根本就没有完全读懂，竟然还把弗洛伊德的理论用进来了。以此读后感为始，一是王尔德的文字功底了不得，he is a man of wits，学好英语可以见识到更多的大咖，欣赏到更多的美景；二是激励与鞭策，在成长的路上要勇敢，敢于挑战，敢于突破，敢于崛起；二是以这本书的故事为诫，内外兼修，养内涵方有才气。共勉。
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