The Picture of Dorian Gray

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Lord Henry Watton pays his friend Basil Hallward a visit. Basil is an artist and his current project is to paint the portrait of Dorian Gray, a rich young lad whose beauty tantalizes both men. Henry persuades Basil to introduce him to his young friend. When the two finally meet, Henry entices Dorian with the allure of hedonism, all while giving him impromptu lectures about life through witty epigrams. Young and impressionable, Dorian feels the pressure of vanity and maintaining his youthful looks, prompting himself to wish that Basil’s portrait of him would take the toll of aging instead of him. Miraculously, the wish comes true and the portrait gets gradually corrupted while Dorian maintains his youth even 18 years after that fact. He explores the limits of his hedonism, seeking pleasure and vanity through different means, one of which is by having theater actress Sybil Vane fall in love with him only to break her heart in the end. As Sybil takes her own life out of heartbreak, her brother John promises revenge.

Dubliners

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A recently deceased priest’s indiscretion is discussed by people at his wake. Two boys skipping classes meet a middle-aged man who teaches them a thing or two about life. A staunch supporter of the Irish Revival gets her daughter involved as an accompanist at a badly-planned concert. An alcoholic falls down the stairs at a bar in drunken stupor; his family suggests a religious retreat. A failed writer gets a visit from his friend who has succeeded in the field in London. A young woman contemplates on what life would be if she ran away with a sailor. These are some of the many stories found in James Joyce’s Dubliners, which has been hailed as a milestone in Irish literary history at a time when the country was in the midst of a fierce quest for a distinct identity stoked by nationalism.

Gulliver’s Travels

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Towards the end of the 17th century, a surgeon’s apprentice by the name of Lemuel Gulliver decides to choose a life of adventure by hopping on a ship to explore foreign lands. His first trip gets him marooned on the island country of Lilliput, whose inhabitants do not exceed six inches in height. There he gets caught in a war between his host nation and the neighboring island of Blefuscu. Once fortune returns him to England, his thirst for travel has him sailing again. This time around he is abandoned by the ship’s crew at Brobdingnag, whose inhabitants stand 72 feet tall. There he becomes some kind of a circus animal, finding refuge at the royal palace, somehow being treated as the royals’ pet. Once his luck takes him back to Britain, once again he finds himself on board another ship. A pirate attack leads him to be rescued by the flying island of Laputa which is in rivalry with the grounded kingdom of Balnibarbi. Once back in his native country, he goes on yet another journey and this time ends up at the land of the Houyhnhnms, a race of intelligent horses ruling over Yahoos, which look like primitive humans.