Dorian Gray, Themes

Dorian Gray, Themes

1. Homoeroticism

   • "I was dominated, soul, brain and power by you"
   • "I worshipped you" - Basil
   • Homosexuality was a punishable offence in Victorian times
   • The novel was used against Wilde in his trials
   • "The love that he bore him - for t really was love - had nothing in it that was not noble or intellectual"
   • "There is too much of myself in it" - Basil about the painting
   • Novel reflects Wilde's attitudes?

2. Settings

   • Contrasting settings emphasised by being placed in chronological chapters
     • Eg, The Vane's house immediately juxtaposed by Lord Henry's house
   • Setting of Opium Dens
     • Reflects the state of Dorian's mind/soul
       • Links to theme of double life - he "dressed commonly" to go to dens
     • "sordid shame of the great city"
     • "Dens of horror"
   • CONTEXT: East end was rough end of London, whilst West End was opulent
     • Opulence of upper class reflected in setting
       • "Reclining in a luxurious armchair"
         • "Reclining" suggests relaxed
         • "luxurious" emphasises opulence
     • Lower class reflected by settings
       • "shrill intrusive light"
       • "dingy sitting room"

3. Youth and Beauty/Aestheticism

   • Perhaps Wilde is mocking the fickle nature of society who believe beauty is everything
   • Irony in: "Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man's face"
   • "The sense of his own beauty came on him like a revelation"
   • Intertextual links to "Adonis" and "Narcissus" - famed for their beauty
   • "Youth is the one thing worth having
   • "The man he had sought to kill had all the bloom of boyhood, the unstained purity of youth"
   • "He grew more and more enamoured of his own beauty"
   • "withered, wrinkled and loathsome of visage"
   • "it was his beauty that had ruined him"
   • "Better to be beautiful than good"

4. Influence/Corruption

   • Dorian over Basil
     • "He is all my art to me now"
     • "Some subtle influence passed from him to me"
     • "Our eyes met" - Romanticised description, emphasises Basil's idolatry
     • "As long as I live, the personality of Dorian Gray will dominate me"
   • Henry over Dorian
     • "Yellow book" represents a damaging influence
       • CONTEXT: Books considered immoral were bound in yellow
       • "For years Dorian could not free himself from the influence of the book"
     • "Entirely fresh influences were at work within him"
     • "Youth is the only thing worth having" - Dorian repeats Henry's words
     • "Basil could have helped him resist Lord Henry's influence"
     • links to Faust - Henry becomes the Mephistophelean Devil, corrupting Dorian
   • Dorian over others
     • "Why is your friendship so fatal to young men?"
     • "They say you corrupt everyone with whom you become intimate"

5. Class/Society

   • "Only swell people go to the park"
   • "the great aristocratic art of doing absolutely nothing"
   • "It would be absurd for him to marry so much beneath him"

6. Presentation of women

   • "She is a peacock in everything but beauty"
   • "tried to look picturesque, but only succeeded in looking untidy"
   • Sibyl juxtaposes the presentation of the other women in the novel
   • "nervous staccato laugh...from shrill lips"
   • women were supposed to provide the home. The actress is torn between work and domesticity
     • "I don't suppose you will want your wife to act"

7. Theatricality vs Reality

   • The Vane's
     • Mrs Vane sees their life as a series of tableau's
       • "in search of an imaginary gallery"
       • Believes Sibyl will have a happy ending with "Prince Charming", just as in all the melodramas
     • James Vane is the realism aspect of the two females
     • "You taught me what reality is"
       • Sibyl chooses reality over theatricality, as the two cannot co-exist
   • Dorian Gray
     • Watches and enjoys Basil's suffering as though he is watching a play
       • "the passion of the spectator"
       • "watching him with that strange expression one sees on those who are absorbed in a play"
         • Predatory reaction to Basil
       • Suggests Dorian is losing his sense of reality, along with his moralistic sense

8. Hedonism

   • Double Life
     • "Dorian Gray, dressed commonly"
     • "he was not really reckless...in his relations to society"
     • "terrible pleasure of a double life"
   • Henry preaches Hedonism but does not practice
   • "who searches for happiness? I have searched for pleasure"
   • Henry views Dorian as an experiment
   • "exquisite pleasure in playing with the lads unconscious egotism" - manipulative
   • "you never say a moral thing and you never do a wrong thing"
   • "the only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it"

9. Isolation

   • Dorian hides the portrait in the attic
   • Echoes isolation of Faustus
   • "One solitary star" in the sky on the night he hides it in the attic
   • "What had Dorian Gray had to do with the death of Sibyl Vane?" - referring to himself in the third person emphasises his isolation
   • "He hated to be separated from the picture that was such as part of his life"