In Oscar Wilde's, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wilde uses many historical concepts in his novel, three of them being Theatre, Art, and Literature. While some of these concepts were used to progress the story, others were used to influence the story itself. Wilde uses Shakespeare's, Romeo and Juliet, and his own view of art to develop the story. Along with using his theme, there is strong circumstantial evidence to suggest that Wilde's novel was …showed first 75 words of 1145 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1145 total…serve the difference, which was the central theme of his story. As stated earlier, it can be argued that Wilde did receive his inspiration from Stevenson's work. Noted above are numerous examples of how the two author's works actually paralleled each other. While no one can state with the utmost certainty that this parallel did occur since both authors have long since passed away, circumstantially speaking a strong case can and has been presented here.