AJPV_LOND: London in literature






                                     Comparison and contrast:

                              Oscar Wilde: The picture of Dorian Gray

                              Hanif Kureishi: My Beautiful Laundrette














NELA FÁBEROVÁ

363346

16. 6. 2011

            I was thinking a lot about the topic for this final paper. However I didn´t want to
write about sexuality and social taboos, I chose this topic because I think that there is a lot to
write about. Two works that I am comparing are the novel The picture of Dorian Gray and the film My
Beautiful Laundrette. I chose the novel The picture of Dorian Gray because I read it earlier and it
infatuated me a lot. I know that there is also a movie based on this novel but I think that movie
can´t describe the atmosphere and the feelings as good as the book does. I know that it may seem
strange that I am comparing two different works but I believe that there are some similarities as
well as differences that I will try to analyse.

            I start with some basic information about these works. The picture of Dorian Gray is
the only novel written by Oscar Wilde. It first appeared in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in 1890
but it was convicted as immoral. In consequence, Wilde added a preface and several alterations and
this new version was published a year after, 1891. On the contrary, My Beautiful Laundrette,
directed by Stephen Frears from a screenplay by Hanif Kureishi, was released almost one century
after, in 1985. I think that this makes one of the biggest difference because however it was also
shocking, there weren ´t any problems with this film. From this, we can recognize the development
of the social taboos - in 19th century, when sexuality and homosexuality were mentioned but it was
still considered shocking and wrong but it slowly developped and  in 20th century, it was accepted
and considered almost normal and common and nobody was punished or even arrested for it.

            As I mentioned above, both works deal with homosexuality and sexuality in general. In
The picture of Dorian Gray, the main character is young and beautiful Dorian Gray. His friend and
author of Dorian´s portrait, becomes infatuated with Dorian, This relationship, we can consider as
homosexual. At first, Basil loves everything on Dorian but when Dorian starts to behave selfish and
doesn´t care about anything but himself, Basil worries about him. But Dorian doesn ´t feel the same
and he only takes advanatge of Basil´s feelings. We can see the degradation of Dorian´s personality
and his obsession with his beauty and youth. However, this homoerotic male relationship is a motif
in this novel, it stays only with obsession and thinking and nothing really happens between Basil
and Dorian.

            On the contrary, the film My Beautiful Laundrette goes far. Here, the main character is
Omar, a young man, who is starting his own bussines in laundrette. He meets his old friend Johnny,
who helps him with laundrette. Step by step, they start their homosexual relationship. But this
relationship is different than that between Dorian and Basil. There are several scenes that are
very erotic and homosexual sex is shown there. I think that it is caused by the century, when it
was released. But I am not saying that it was not crashing. In my opinion, when audience saw it in
the cinema, they were shocked and surprised.

            It needs to be said, that there is not mentioned that Omar or Dorian or Basil are
homosexuals. My opinion is that they are not homosexuals, they are just both young and handsome men
who starts to live on their own. They wants to be succesful and admired by the others but at the
same time, they are against the society and they do everything to break the social rules and norms.
And one more thing that is very important - they do everything what they want so I think that they
just want to show  the others that they can do it and they don´t need a permission from the public
and even from the government.

            But this homosexual relationships weren ´t the only one in these works. In The picture
of Dorian Gray, there is explained Dorian´s love to Sibyl Vane, a young actress. In My Beautiful
Laundrette, there is Tania, a young woman who flirts with both Omar and Johnny.

            I would like to compare these two works globally, to show the main differences. The
picture of Dorian Gray is gothic and philosophical novel as opposed to My Beautiful Laundrette,
which is a comedy-drama. The first is tragic and dark and there are three killings - Sibyl commits
suicide, Dorian kills Basil and himself. It ends tragically and shows the period really well - if
you behave badly and don´t respect the society and its rules, you also end badly. In contrast, the
second is rather optimistic and it ends omptimistically with scene where Omar and Johnny splashing
each other with water and they are topless, which implying thet their relationship continues.

            To sum up, I picked up these two works to show difference between two centuries. I also
wanted to show that although these works are different, they have something in common: they are
both shocking and marked the beginning of new period in literature and films, simply broke social
taboos and brought new air. I think that these works won´t be forgotten and bring overview of these
periods to our future generations.