Proposal Numero Dos

Alright, I've been working on cleaning up my proposal/final paper and I think I'm getting closer to a better finished product. I've changed the texts I'm using just slightly and I'm concentrating on a little bit of a different angle. So here are the texts I'm going to use for my paper.

The Picture of Dorian Gray-Wilde
Young Goodman Brown-Hawthorne
Edgar Huntly-Brown
Berenice-A Tale-Poe

I'm going to concentrate primarily on Wilde's text as it has the most support for my argument. So here it goes.

Throughout Wilde's work in TPODG there is a very clear example of influence and impressionism within the text. First, Dorian is influenced by Lord Henry then Dorian himself is able to influence others. Lord Henry acts as the foil to Dorian Gray which spirals the once "pure" adolescent into a corrupt and immoral being. The results of this contamination are visibly seen in the portrait of Gray and the protagonist becomes increasingly obsessed with the visible results of his sins and evil behavior which ultimately is the result for his demise.

The other texts will act primarily as further support that poor/evil influences and/or foils within the mentioned works lead to obsession which leads to an unhappy ending for the protagonists. For example:

In Edgar Huntly, Huntly himself becomes obsessed with avenging his friends death while being completely influence by Clithero's intense guilt. The obsession and influence nearly causes Huntly himself to lose his life but instead he is left feeling just as guilty as Clithero.

In Young Goodman Brown the protagonist is led astray from his path by the stranger in the woods causing Brown to begin to feel obsessively suspicious about his community and his wife leaving him to lead a miserable existence.

In Berenice, Poe's protagonist is influenced by opiates which causes him to brutally murder his love interest which leaves him left guilty and alone.

I know these are still really vague but I'm exhausted. Basically what I'm trying to argue is that the Foils, or variable influences to the protagonists, all are responsible for the constant/protagonists to become obsessed and or guilty and each is left which a negative result. Don't worry, I still plan on discussing the homoeroticism since Wilde's work is drenched in it, but really, you can kind of see it in all of the texts. Feel free to discuss with me how I can support that. Here are some outside sources that I have found.

"Poe and the Theme of Forbidden Knowledge" Jules Zanger
"Carnivalesque Freedom in Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown" S. Selina Jamil
"[Un]consciousness Itself Is the Malady": "Edgar Huntly" and the Discourse of the Other" Leonard Cassuto
"Come See About Me:Enchantment of the Double in "The Picture of Dorian Gray" Christopher Craft
"Aestheticism, Homoeroticism, and Christian Guilt in The Picture of Dorian Gray" Joseph Carroll
"The Strange Interest in Trivial Things: Seduction in Derrida and Dorian Gray" Forbes Morlock
"On the Discrimination of Influences" Andrew Elfenbein

I've really got all sorts of cool things to support my thesis, I just can't think of them right now because 2010 has been a crummy year (terrible excuse).