The Picture Of Dorian Gray
(Oscar Wilde)
CATHARSIS
The word « CATHARSIS » was first used by Aristotle to define the effects a classical play should have. It means « purgation ». The goal IS to purge and clean the public of the play by showing him a representation, an embodiment of its own and unconscious passions. During the following centuries and especially in Modern literature (after the Middle Ages), the concept of catharsis was extended to a larger sense of « purgation ». Nowadays, it represents almost every form of embodiment of personal troubles in order to cancel them. Consequently, Mr. Hyde, as he is the incarnation of Dr. Jekyll?s passions, can easily be considered as a cathartic character.
Catharsis is the latin translation of the Greek ?Katharsis?. It is a sudden emotional breakdown or climax that constitutes overwhelming feelings of great pity, sorrow, laughter, or any extreme change in emotion that results in the renewal, restoration and revitalization for living. It represents the acme point of the story.
In literary aesthetics, catharsis is developed by the conjuction of stereotyped characters and suprising actions.
In contemporary aesthetics, catharsis may also refer to any emptying of emotion experienced by an audience in relation to drama. For example, Bertold Brecht?s theory, the absence of a cathartic resolving action would require the audience to take political action in the real world in order to fill the emotional gap they experience. That could explain the presence of cathartic stories like ?The Strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? and especially ?Picture of Dorian Gray? at that time. The Victorian Age was a period of extrem prudishness; strong moral values were intended. Everybody was afraid of moral diseases and unperfections and condamned them. That explain the pression that Jekyll feels upon his shoulders and his voluntee to create a person who can fulfill his own desire and thus liberate him from that kind of feelings. At the same time Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde became a cathartic story for Victorian people.
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