Lord Henry

Description

A Levels Dorian and Dickinson Mind Map on Lord Henry, created by laurissafield on 04/29/2014.
laurissafield
Mind Map by laurissafield, updated more than 1 year ago
laurissafield
Created by laurissafield almost 11 years ago
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Resource summary

Lord Henry
  1. Place in his family is cause for resentment, but also means he has rank without responsibility
    1. "my elder brother wont die, and my younger brothers never seem to do anything else"
    2. Scathing about faults of his class
      1. Seems to have little experience of life outside it - we only see him within the setting of a polite society
        1. Reflects Wilde's own views
        2. Regards less privileged as disposbale
          1. Death of a beater "does not do...It makes people think one is a wild shot"
            1. "The 19th century has gone bankrupt through an over-expenditure of sympathy"
              1. Form of social Darwinism - the weak should be allowed to die out
            2. "women love being dominated"
              1. Impervious to changes taking place in world
              2. Sees Dorian as a scientific experiment, though not his first
                1. "He had begun by vivisecting himself, as he had ended by vivisecting others"
                  1. Degree of violence in self-implied "vivisecting" has left him almost emotionless
                2. Attraction for Dorian lies in "there was nothing that one could not do with him"
                  1. Praises of his beauty suggest erotic longing, but rooted in power
                    1. Henry intends to dominate him until he has had his own ideas returned to him from Dorian's lips
                  2. Relies on power of words
                    1. At first his own, implanting a desire in Dorian by hypnotising him into believing it is already there
                      1. "You have had passions that have made you afraid, thoughts that have filled you with terror"
                      2. Then content to let the words of the "yellow book" work
                      3. Verbal fluency makes him dangerous
                        1. Is a hypocrite, pronouncing all influence bad whilst making Dorian his personal protégé
                          1. Makes Dorian into a distorting mirror image of himself
                            1. "the wonder of the spectacle" commenting on Sibyl's death is callous, but words about a stranger
                              1. Dorian then calls it "one of the great romantic tragedies of the age" - he assumes Henry's mask of detachment - shows Henry's power
                          2. Does not know what he has created in Dorian
                            1. "It is not in you to commit a crime"
                              1. Has no knowledge of Dorian's life in the opium dens
                              2. Plays Evil Angel to Dorian's Faust
                                1. Mortal - appears "wrinkled, worn and yellow"
                                  1. Attempting to persuade Dorian to stay, he can only offer the usual tired pleasures
                                    1. Vulnerable - realises his own vulnerability
                                      1. "It appears you are the young Apollo and I am Marsyas listening to you"
                                        1. Marsyas was flogged alive for competing with Apollo
                                  2. "He has a very bad influence over all his friends"
                                    1. "He played with the idea...let it escape and recaptured it"
                                      1. "Youth is the only thing worth having"
                                        1. "No civilised man ever regrets a pleasure"
                                          1. "You never say a moral thing, and you never do a wrong thing"
                                            1. "He would seek to dominate him"
                                              1. "Beauty is a form of genius - is higher"
                                                1. "Watching with a subtle smile"
                                                  1. "It was the man's own fault. Besides it is nothing to us"
                                                    1. "I should like to know someone who has committed a murder"
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