Dorian Gray

Dorian Gray

"As soon as you are dry you shall be varnished and framed and sent home. Then you can do what you like with yourself"
1. Irony - contains the truth, as Dorian assumes a range of masks and identities
"petulant"
1. In his first meeting, he is "wilful" and "petulant"
2. Absorbs Lord Henry's ideas, and repeats them like a good child
3. "Now and then...he is horribly thoughtless, and seems to take a real delight in giving me pain"
  1. Is a child's awareness of its power over someone who loves it
4. For "sparing" Hetty he expects to receive instant gratification with a visible change in portrait
5. Never deals with pain of being thwarted - his power is sufficient to charm or blackmail
Virtue?
1. Virtue has become another mask to try on
  1. Virtue possible when it springs from an awareness beyond the self
2. Henry reminds Dorian he hasn't considered how Hetty would feel about being "spared"
3. "the only thing worth loving is an actress"
  1. Thinks about Sibyl's art in terms of how he feels about it, rather than how she achieves it
    1. Assumes he can become a part of it by engaging in a power struggle with "the Jew"
  2. Plans to establish her in the West End to reflect glory upon himself
    1. "the world would have worshipped you, and you would have borne my name"
      1. IRONY - Sibyl doesn't know his name
Perceived by Basil as uniquely gifted, and the key to a new subversive style of painting
1. Homoerotic desires
To Henry he embodies the individual who can renew the world by his ability to "live out his life fully and completely"
1. Idea of Hedonism
  1. Scientific/Psychological study
    1. "vivisecting"
      1. Graphic connotations
His body will never change - Invulnerability, but cannot grow
1. Can try on a series of masks, but can only understand knowledge, not understanding
2. Never takes on a role wholeheartedly so to give up his desires to play it
"he was not really reckless, at any rate in his relations to society"
1. Sexual relationships and expeditions into darker city are managed
2. His identities of blackmailer, seducer and murderer do not lead him to confront what he is becoming
  1. Feels terror, but not remorse
  2. Afraid that his conscience (portrait) will torment him all his life, but doesn't consider this is his just reward
  3. Roles of murderer/blackmailer not so different from historical identities he takes on
    1. Sees them as reflections of his own mentality
    2. Only interested in what he may have gained from his ancestors
Collector of experiences
1. Whether he has enjoyed them in his imagination, or real relationships/crimes
2. "I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them"
3. Can only repeat experiences, but they become a front to conceal the fate of Basil, and hide from James Vane, rather than enjoyment of the mask of manners
Women become a blur to him
1. Hetty is "wonderfully like Sibyl"
  1. Even though they have so little in common
2. Seeks out ugliness of slums as beauty lacks capacity to stir him
"The sense of his own beauty came on him like a revelation"
1. "curved scarlet lips, frank blue eyes, crisp golden hair"
"I would give my soul for that"
"brainless, beautiful creature"
"Dorian Gray had been poisoned by a book"
"more and more interested in the corruption of his soul"
"Why is your friendship so fatal to young men?"
"It was his beauty that had ruined him"
"What had Dorian Gray had to do with the death of Sibyl Vane?"
"Withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage"
"watching with the passion of the spectator"
"terrible pleasure of a double life"
"I cant bear the idea of my soul being hideous"
""Adonis"
"Narcissus"
"Music had first brought him and Dorian together"
"hideous hunger for opium began to gnaw at him"

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