Dorian Gray characters

Dorian Gray characters

1. Sibyl Vane

   • A poor, beautiful, talented actress - Dorian falls in love. Sibyl’s love for Dorian compromises her ability to act, as her experience of true love in life makes her realize the falseness of affecting emotions onstage.
   • "Love is more than money" - doesn't care about possessions - good morals
   • "shy and so gentle" - fragile like a flower - similar to Dorian in the beginning
   • "flowerlike face" - pure and innocent
   • "a pretty face"

2. James Vane

   • A sailor - dislikes the fact that his mum is trying to marry Sibyl to DG - doesn't want Sibyl to act
   • Always seeking for the truth about his father
   • Instinctive loathing for Dorian
   • He has strong morals and feels he has to wrong to the person that has wronged him

3. Mrs Vane

   • She encourages the marriage of DG and sibyl because of his wealth - this clouds her judgement - leaves Sibyl vulnerable
   • Faded actress
   • "a faded, tired-looking woman"
   • melodramatic - inability to shed the theatrics

4. Victoria Wotton

   • LH's wife - marriage is a process of continual deception
   • LH neglects her however she understands him better than he thinks
   • she finds interests in other men

5. Lady Narborough

   • Not beautiful - life is spent making the best of a dull marriage
   • faithful
   • highly educated and her intelligence allows her to play her sociall role well
   • Flirts elegantly - only a game

6. The Duchess of Monmouth

   • enthralled by DG and profoundly bored by her husband
   • "very clever" - politically aware
   • she pursues Dorian - too predatory for her own good

7. Alan Campbell

   • Male equivalent of Sibyl vane - talented - destroyed in the end
   • Musical interests - homosexual relationship?
   • DG uses him - science knowledge - blackmails him to clear up Basil's body
   • "Campbell felt dominated by him" - strong feeling - same effect on everyone

8. Adrian Singleton

   • Represents a whole group of young men who are disgraced when they fall under DG's influence.
   • Opium becomes a substitute for the world he has lost
   • This is the person DG would have been if his youth and beauty had not been protected