Seeking an immortality through love : the reading of Oscar Wilde’s the picture of Dorian Gray and Angela Carter‘s the passion of new eve as appropriations of platonic ideals

Abstract

This essay explores the idea of the immortality of love as discussed in Plato's Symposium. Dealing in depth with Aristophanes and Diotima's ideology in the subject matter, it explores the origin of the contemporary notion of heterosexual, homosexual relationships and how this acts towards attaining immortality in the beauty that Diotima suggests should be the result of love. Using this as the fundamental claim, the thesis proceeds to analyse how authors utilise this notion of sexuality in producing the wholesome ideal of love. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and The Passion of New Eve by Angela Carter take precedence with both novels being read as appropriations of Plato's theory with a conclusion of how immortality is only truly attained in a stage that transcends the material classifications. Thus depicting that ideal reproduction of love is not by one whole but in fact of two which presents multiplicity and infinite possibilities of reproduction so as to attain immortality.