How to write a summary of a book

One of the main steps to summarize a text is to read it as many times as necessary. However, we cannot strictly follow this rule when summarizing a book. The previous steps that we follow before starting to write will be essential to make the process of summarizing a book agile and fast.

¿When and where? During reading, it is important to identify where and when the story happens.

¿Who are the main characters? In addition to the protagonists there will also be less important characters. During reading, you should pay attention to details such as the age and personality of each, and how the characters are related.

¿What is the knot and outcome? In each story there will be a problem and a solution.

Make an outline with the ideas you have underlined above. This step to summarize a book and make summaries of stories will be very useful when separating the main ideas from the secondary ones and to get a better idea of the order that you have to take when you summarize.

Once we have followed these tips for summarizing books, it is time to start writing the summary of a book. If you don’t know how to summarize correctly, it is always a good idea to inform yourself well before writing.

Book

The picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde

“The Picture of Dorian Gray” is a book written by Oscar Wilde and published in the year 1890. This is about a legend of eternal youth and the options that exist to make an evil pact, that allows the person to remain always young and beautiful. So the main character, Dorian Gray is caught up in his ambition and turns evil, only to achieve his beauty and eternal youth.

Contents

Characters from “The Picture of Dorian Gray“:

The main character is the young and beautiful model Dorian Gray, and is presented as a beautiful symbol of youth. We also find other characters such as the painter Basil Hallward, who makes The Picture of Dorian Gray, who ends up assassinating him for creating his own destiny towards death. Lord Henry Wotton, is a good friend of Basilio and was related to Dorian in the course of the plot. These three characters form the common thread of the story.

On the other hand, we find Silbila Vane, who is a very beautiful but very poor actress, and falls in love with Dorian, who causes her a lot of harm; James Vane, is the brother of Silbila and does not agree with the relationship of his sister and Dorian. But since he is a sailor he must go to Australia, he dies while hunting.

In addition we find other characters such as Mrs Vane, who is the mother of Silbila and James, and visualizes her daughter’s relationship with Dorian as an opportunity to get out of poverty; Alan Cambell is Dorian’s best friend, but decides to walk away when he sees Dorian become corrupted. This character helps burn Basil’s body after Dorian killed him; Kelso Gray is the grandfather of Dorian Gray; Margaret Gray is Dorian’s mother and dies when she gives birth; Lady Agatha, is the aunt of Lord Henry and wife of Lord Fermor; Lord Diego, is the servant of Dorian Gray.

Summary of the work:

The story begins when a painter named Basil Hallward models a handsome young man who met all his expectations and fulfilled his wishes without any prejudice or limits. He loved his model very much and spent admiring her beauty, and thought he would be very happy if he was always young and so full of life.

The desire of this painter made this model called Dorian more related to the theme of beauty and eternal youth. Which caused caused all kinds of crazy things to be carried out, starting from the simplest to the crime from one moment to the next. All this thanks to The Picture of Dorian Gray, since through him he maintained that splendid youth and beauty.

In the course of the plot, Dorian goes deep into his desire to preserve his youth and beauty and it can be seen that a tragic and bad end is approaching. The painter Basil portrays Dorian in a painting and saves it. Then he meets a friend of the painter named Lord Henry who he found very nice and they sit down to talk in the garden, and he makes a comment about The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Dorian marvels very much at the themes presented by Lord Henry, since he expresses that in this splendid life the only thing worthwhile is full youth and beauty, in order to find the meaning we find in him. Dorian wishes to maintain beauty as in the painting painted by Basilio.

Dorian realized that the beauty she had would pass over time. So he was able to sell his soul to the devil to preserve it, and the painting would age and he would always remain the same. This would leave him living with lust and acts of evil to fill that need, where his painting would age for him.
Then in the plot different events take place that mark his life.

She engages with Silbila but later in the relationship bad things happen where he offends her, and some time later she dies. Dorian feels that Basill is to blame for all his misfortunes and decides to murder him. Finally he realized that he had to eliminate that portrait that kept him young, since that way he could get rid of his ills.

So he seized the same knife with which he had killed the painter Basil, and only cries of pain were heard. When all the servants went up to the room, they could see that the painting was intact and on the floor there was an old man and when they saw his rings they realized that it was The Story of Dorian Gray, who redeemed his soul from hell.

Analysis of the work:

“The Picture of Dorian Gray” addresses the theme of youth and beauty, where a vain and hypocritical society that seeks only to pretend is highlighted. It also reveals the desire of a character to reach his eternal youth, which led him to commit murder, where he killed his painter and friend Basill. In the same way, he becomes so obsessed with maintaining his appearance that he destroys his love life with Silbila, who later dies.

In this work we finally observe the ambitions of the characters who seek their own interests and in the case of Dorian, they give their soul to the devil to obtain youth and beauty, which brings misfortune to his life and he becomes evil and aggressive. But the work turns out to be mysterious, where the reader must decipher the author’s implicit message to put together the puzzle of the story. Which makes this magnificent work full of mysteries more interesting.

Verbatim quotes from the work:

“Superficial loves and pain have a very long life, but normal and great loves are destroyed by fullness”
“There is only one thing in this world that bothers me more that they talk about me, and this is that they don’t”

“I believe a lot in all the things that can happen and these seem incredible to me”

“The only thing that attracts me to marriage is everything that it gives us, as well as getting away from deception on both sides”

“A smile is not an unfavorable start for friendship. Failure to do so if it’s a problem why are you looking for the end ”

“When people get older they realize that the only thing more important in life is not money”

“I learned over time that everything that one is completely sure turns out to be not true”
“I want the breath of our passion to reduce our consciousness to dust, because the ashes awaken again to pain”

Books summaries by categories

A Study in Scarlet – Arthur Conan Doyle

A World Without End – Ken Follett

Books summaries by author

How to write a summary of a book

Characters from “The Picture of Dorian Gray“:

Summary of the work:

Analysis of the work:

Verbatim quotes from the work: