The Picture of Dorian Gray Chapters 16-20

Chapter 16

- Dorian is a man desperate to forget his sins

- He heads to opium dens (reciting Lord Henry’s anthem)

“To cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul.”

- He is tormented when he sees A. Singleton (which he has corrupted)

- He is called “Prince Charming” by a woman and is then attacked immediately after by James Vane

- uses his looks to get away from murder (question to group: is it alright to use your good looks to your advantage?)

Analysis

- James Vane is a character which Wilde added in his 1981 revision of the novel

- He is a physical incarnation of fear

- He brings literal meaning to the “escape” Dorian is seeking

- Poets Charles Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud (both alive around that same time)

- Dorian’s thoughts echo their beliefs

- descriptions of intense experience are the key to beauty, especially if they are grotesque and sordid

- Discuss the juxtaposition of the ugly and the beautiful → do they enhance each other or does ugly enhance the beautiful

- how does this juxtaposition work in the case of Dorian?

-Many years since Henry woke Dorian to his own beauty

“To cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul.”

-Remembering now shows

- How far Dorian has gone under Henry’s influence

-How shallow Henry’s influence and witticisms are

Q. Was Dorian successful in curing the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul?

Chapter 17

- Dorian entertains guests at Selby and they talk about love

- Comedy of Manners: revolves around the complex and sophisticated behavior of the social elite, among whom one’s character is determined more by appearance than by moral behavior.

- Wilde was famous for this comedy of manners

- Do you notice this in the witty dialogue?

- How

Pleasure v. Virtue:

"How can you say that? Romance lives by repetition, and repetition converts an appetite into an art. Besides, each time that one loves is the only time one has ever loved. Difference of object does not alter singleness of passion. It merely intensifies it. We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible."

-Life is full of only pleasurable moments and will lead to pleasant but sterile repetition

-So self centered becomes extreme narcissism

Dorian and Henry

-Dorian has never come up with anything of his own

-Says he follows Lord Henry

-Prince Charming:

-lives out of time like a fairy tale character, but his past still haunts him (James Vane)

Chapter 18

- the idea of conscience finally becomes real! If his conscience is powerful enough to create the image of James Vane, then was else could it do?... Before his conscience was seen as something pretty that could be dirtied (but only on the painting)

- When james Vane is shot, Dorian feels safe, but comes home with tears in his eyes

Q. Do you agree with Lord Henry’s idea that destiny is “too wise or too cruel” to send us omens?

- if you have read “The Alchemist” Coelho proposes otherwise

Q. The Picture of Dorian Gray represents the relationship between art and morality. To what extent is this true?

- I think it is correct because as his morality is corrupted, the painting changes

-Deadman death →symbolic of his own

-Very narcissistic view

“It is a bad omen, Harry. I feel as if something horrible were going to happen to some of us. To myself, perhaps”

-Dorian is saved by random events

-Wilde shows the reader that Dorian is no longer a power man →cowers in room weeping

-Class

-Wealthy shoots James and does not bat an eye

Chapter 19

- Dorian visits Lord Henry.Dorian tell him that he has decided to be virtuous. Henry commends his way of living (noting that he has not aged one bit) and tells him not to ruin it by being virtuous

- Lord Henry then asks Dorian, “‘[W]hat does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose’—how does the quotation run?—‘his own soul’?”

- Henry mocks the man and does not believe the soul is important but Dorian disagrees with him for once

Beauty and Art

“I would say, my dear fellow, that you were posing for a character that doesn't suit you. All crime is vulgar, just as all vulgarity is crime. It is not in you, Dorian, to commit a murder. I am sorry if I hurt your vanity by saying so, but I assure you it is true. Crime belongs exclusively to the lower orders. I don't blame them in the smallest degree. I should fancy that crime was to them what art is to us, simply a method of procuring extraordinary sensations.”

-Dorian’s beauty makes Lord Henry believe he’s incapable of crime

-Shows Henry’s shallowness

“what does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose—how does the quotation run?—his own soul'?”

"Don't, Harry. The soul is a terrible reality. It can be bought, and sold, and bartered away. It can be poisoned, or made perfect. There is a soul in each one of us. I know it."

-Henry is too shallow

-Shows a divide between the two

“Art has no influence upon action. It annihilates the desire to act. It is superbly sterile.”

-but that’s precisely why it has such an influence over action

-think of the portrait of an example of this→holds much influence over Dorian

Chapter 20

- he thinks that his decision to be virtuous may have amended the painting but finds it is not so

- do you think he made the decision to be virtuous out of vanity or out of desperation?

- he realizes his resolution is only an act of hypocrisy and seeks to destroy him

- Did you enjoy the ending? Do you like how old age switches from the portrait to the person? What does this say about art? What does this say about our connection to art?

-Destroys portrait of the himself bc it’s the last piece of evidence and afraid that it’ll haunt himself forever

Appearance v. Reality

-It’s temporary-- reality will always prevail

-How Dorian is found as an old hideous man in the end

Art v. Life

-Art enables his terrible life even as it hid it

-Breaks a mirror

-shows how he stops his self contemplation

-Misses impact of even his worst actions

-Yet in the art he can see the smallest line of hypocrisy

-Showing how great art can lift even the shallowest to new insights

“ Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.”

-Describes Dorian in the end

The Picture of Dorian Gray Chapters 11-15

Yellow Book

• Influences Dorian for years

• Treats life as an art form

• A life dedicated to the senses

• Concludes it has poisoned him

• Lives life with absolute freedom despite this book’s giant influence over him--paradox

Character v. Reputation

• Bad rumors circulate about Dorian

  • Nobody believes them bc of Dorian’s good look

    • Idea of beauty’s deceptiveness

  • Extremely dark reputation, does not stir him

  • Can only act this way--only the wealthy can be this self-indulgent

• Regulates compares himself to the picture to watch the corruption of his soul

  • Despite his escape via materialism, it keeps his fear of the portrait at bay

    • Stops traveling because he’s afraid someone would see it

  • Indulges himself to keep terror at bay--creating the one thing he fears

    • Illustrates obsession and addiction

    • Catholicism, Darwinism, embroideries, perfumes, jewels

      • Clustering in these together shows how these are all escapes

      • Very materialistic things

      • cultivate

• Hides the results but cannot stop others from talking about him

• Lord Henry

  • All influences are bad, but influences Dorian

Basil and Dorian

• Basil talks about how people are saying terrible things about him

  • Says reputation is important

  • Does not thing this is like Dorian

“I wonder do I know you? Before I could answer that, I should have to see your soul.”

• Says only god could see that

  • Dorian keeps a “daily diary of his soul”

• The dense fog is literal and symbolic

  • Both Basil and Dorian believe they are control but both are moving through a hazy world where neither sees as clearly as they think

    • Dorian does when rejects the importance of his reputation

      • Very harmful for himself

    • Basil when he talks about seeing Dorian’s soul

The Portrait

“One day you introduced me to a friend of yours, who explained to me the wonder of youth, and you finished a portrait of me that revealed to me the wonder of beauty. In a mad moment, that I don't know, even now, whether I regret it or not, I made a wish.”

• Basil acknowledges this after while and cries

• Basil says his sins must be so bad

  • Dorian cannot face his nature or any criticism

    • Kills Basil

      • Eliminating his chance for redemption and last bastion of goodness

• Gothic literature

  • Description of the room

• First time Dorian shows the painting

  • Shows that his appearance is a facade for what ugly (the portrait) which lies underneath

• Like a greek tragedy

  • Basil’s death

  • Sybil’s suicide

Allan Campbell

• Used to love music but after Dorian hates it

• Was friends with Dorian but then after while it all ended and Allan hates him

  • Severely distrusts him

"’It was a suicide, Alan.’/‘I am glad of that. But who drove him to it? You, I should fancy.’”

• Blackmails Campbell to dispose of the body bc Campbell does not want to help

  • Dorian and Campbell most likely had a homosexual relationship

Reputation and Beauty

• Goes to Lady Narborough’s party

  • Dorian does not eat thing

    • People think he is in love

      • So beautiful people associate him with love

“The husbands of very beautiful women belong to the criminal classes”

• Henry’s way of life is materialistic, shallow, and costs lots of money

  • Only for the wealthy

• Idea of reputation is overlooked by Narborough because “you are made to be good—you look so good”

  • Showing how beauty sheathes his soul

• The conversation between the two is dramatic irony

“‘Everybody I know says you are very wicked,; cried the old lady, shaking her head./ Lord Henry looked serious for some moments. ‘It is perfectly monstrous,’ he said, at last, ‘the way people go about nowadays saying things against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely true.’”

• Dorian is bored with life and wants everything to be over

  • Both Henry and Narborough believe he should marry

After the Death

• Dorian wakes peacefully and decides he cannot think too much about the events of last night or he’d go crazy

  • Sleeps well

    • Makes it appears that he lacks a conscience

• Goes paranoid

  • Reading poetry reminds him of poetry

• Dorian is festered by anxiety

• At Narborough’s party, Dorian does not eat thing

• When Dorian returns he returns to his hysteria

  • Takes opium to forgot his troubles

The Picture of Dorian Gray Chapters 6-10

Sybil

• Sybil is so pure that Dorian rejects Henry’s theories

  • Supports theme of art versus life

    • Very different things and can be mistaken for each other

    • Dorian confounds the two

“I am changed, and the mere touch of Sibyl Vane's hand makes me forget you and all your wrong, fascinating, poisonous, delightful theories.”

• Possibility Dorian won’t give in to Henry's influence

• Yet Dorian values Sybil as art just like Henry values him

  • Destroying Sybil shows how he gives into what Henry says

Basil v. Henry

• Very different viewpoints on marriage

  • Basil-- more traditional

  • Henry-- upset that it makes ppl less selfish

• Wilde uses the two to argue for and against the aestheticism movement

  • Henry argues using a philosophical argument for the philosophy

“Believe me, no civilized man ever regrets a pleasure, and no uncivilized man ever knows what a pleasure is.”

• Symbolic of long standing tension between nature and culture

“One's own life--that is the important thing. As for the lives of one's neighbours, if one wishes to be a prig or a Puritan, one can flaunt one's moral views about them, but they are not one's concern. Besides, individualism really has the higher aim.”

• Basil believes that living for oneself means one does not only pay financially but in other ways-- suffering

Theme of Art

• Art used to create a better world and escape surrounding

  • That what sybill does with her acting and thus she can no longer act when the world becomes good to her

    • Dorian let her feel real emotions acting let her escape to different realities

  • This is Sybil’s philosophy and the direct opposite of Henry’s

    • She believes in bigger grander emotions compared to Henry’s which ignores human emotion

“[B]efore I knew you, acting was the one reality of my life. It was only in the theatre that I lived. I thought that it was all true. I was Rosalind one night and Portia the other. The joy of Beatrice was my joy, and the sorrows of Cordelia were mine also. I believed in everything. [...] You had brought me something higher, something of which all art is but a reflection. You had made me understand what love really is.”

• The change is sybil causes Dorian’s love for her to be destroyed

  • She was only a performer to her-- does not lover her as a person

    • Dramatic Irony: similar to how the world treats Dorian-- as a beautiful rather than a person

“You have spoiled the romance of my life. How little you can know of love, if you say it mars your art! Without your art, you are nothing.”

Portrait

• The portrait reflects his aging and his moral actions

  • Showing the universe’s moral nature

  • It’s his conscience

• Shows sin while giving Dorian freedom from mortality

  • Shows how the conscience is ultimately influenced by mortality

“But the picture? What was he to say of that? It held the secret of his life, and told his story. It had taught him to love his own beauty. Would it teach him to loathe his own soul? Would he ever look at it again?”

• Painting is stored in the school room

  • Where he also stores the lessons of the paintings and the lessons of his childhood

    • Symbolic of how he refuses to acknowledge

  • Shows how refuses to use it to guide his character and become a better person

    • His soul belongs with his unused past

    • He tries to rid himself of his conscience

  • Basil could have saved Dorian from Lord Henry’s influence

“Basil could have saved him. But it was too late now. The past could always be annihilated. Regret, denial, or forgetfulness could do that. But the future was inevitable. There were passions in him that would find their terrible outlet, dreams that would make the shadow of their evil real.”

Reputation vs. Character

“For a moment, he thought of praying that the horrible sympathy that existed between him and the picture might cease. It had changed in answer to a prayer; perhaps in answer to a prayer it might remain unchanged. [...] He would never again tempt by a prayer any terrible power. If the picture was to alter, it was to alter. That was all. Why inquire too closely into it?”

• Dorian thinks about changing but does not

  • Demonstrates his change towards evil

  • Does not own up to changing and becoming a better person

• Shows Dorian emotions and opinions lean more toward pleasure

  • Changes due to Henry

“There will have to be an inquest, of course, and you must not be mixed up in it. Things like that make a man fashionable in Paris. But in London people are so prejudiced. Here, one should never make one's debut with a scandal.”

• Demonstrates how Dorian is an artistic creation run amuck

• The artistic expression allows him to explore his pleasures freely

• Dorian sees Sibyl as the literally embodiment of the characters who she plays

  • Kills when her reality is revealed

“I must admit that this thing that has happened does not affect me as it should. It seems to me to be simply like a wonderful ending to a wonderful play. It has all the terrible beauty of a Greek tragedy, a tragedy in which I took a great part, but by which I have not been wounded.”

• Shows Dorian influenced by Henry

  • Views this through an aesthetic perspective--mixes art with reality

“Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault./Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.”

• Fills in the rest-- the meaning of ugliness in a ugly thing

  • Dorian cannot see that in Sybil’s death

    • He’s severing himself from Sybil’s death with his ego

    • Dorian really has been influenced by Lord Henry has been corrupted by him

“She passed again into the sphere of art. There is something of the martyr about her.”

• Her death literally did--adds to the portrait

• Shows the transformation of Dorian into more of a work of art

Basil & Dorian

• Basil has physical attraction towards Dorian

  • Conversation discusses Basil’s inner nature rather than Dorian’s

  • Shows homoerotic relationships and their negative stigma at the time

    • Basil translates these feelings into his art

“The love that he bore him--for it was really love--had nothing in it that was not noble and intellectual. It was not that mere physical admiration of beauty that is born of the senses and that dies when the senses tire. It was such love as Michelangelo had known, and Montaigne, and Winckelmann, and Shakespeare himself.”

Yellow Book

• A Rebours by JK Huysmans

• Book represents the poisonous influence of Henry upon Dorian

  • Henry is responsible for the corruption of Dorian

• The book is reflective of his own being

  • A man obsessed with the sensory

  • Foreshadows Dorian taking up a hedonistic lifestyle