The Rhetorical Construction Of The Picture Of Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Gray,as a representative work of aestheticism in the 19th century,is the only long novel written by Oscar Wilde,a British dramatist and novelist.This novel aroused violent controversies among critics at that time when it was published,and even was labeled as “poisonous book”,“immoral” and “evil”.However,Wilde was defending this book all the time,and he put forward that there was no moral or immoral distinction between books,only the difference between their writing styles.This work not only a novel but also a fable about art and life.And it well presents the concepts of what is beauty and ugliness,good and evil,art and life,morality and conscience,marriage and women.It is for this reason that this work can be regarded as a classic and last forever in the long history no matter how the times develop.Literature is the art of language,but language also is the main focus of rhetoric research.As a rhetorical act,the process of literary creation can also be viewed as a rhetorical process in which writers can not only express their feelings or ideas through their works,but also communicate with readers through texts.Therefore,the literary works,as one of the stages of the literary process,need to be completed together with writers and readers.Without readers’ participation,the value of works can not be completely realized.The reason why a literary work can be appreciated by readers not only depends on its characters and plots,but also the way it is depicted.The Rhetoric of Fiction exactly meets this requirement and points out that its research focus should be the interaction among writers,texts and readers,which undoubtedly provides us with some new perspectives for the study of fictions.Therefore,this paper will analyze the rhetoric construction of The Picture of Dorian Gray on the basis of Wayne Booth’s Rhetoric of Fiction.My study follows the principle of analyzing the text from the whole to the part and from the interior to the exterior.The interior elements of the text are first analyzed,such as the overall structure of the text,the choice of its language,the construction of its characters,the arrangement of its plots and so on,and then it moves to explore how the writer builds a bridge to communicate with readers through his works and completes his rhetoric activity by linking the text with the writer and readers.In the process,the influence of the writer’s creation and readers’ reception on the production of the work is bidirectional.The writer can influence readers through his language,characters,events and so on,while meantime he can be influenced by some expectations or characteristics of readers’.