Goodbye Dorian, you will be missed(?)

As this is my last entry, I thought I would watch the movie version of the film, the 2009 edition with the heavenly Colin Firth.  I then ran out of time and couldn't find the movie anywhere, so here's Plan B.  I'm going to look back at my first blog post and reflect on how I viewed the characters after reading just a fourth of the story versus how I view it now.

Lord Henry Wotton:

Ah, the only surviving character of the first bunch I wrote about so long ago.  What I wrote of Lord Henry earlier still fits quite well with how he acts at the ending of the story.  He is still cunning, mischievous, and manipulative.  He is the one who convinces Dorian that Sybil Vane dying is actually a gift is disguise.  Something I found surprising is that after that very same conversation, though Henry is still important to Dorian, Wilde tends to leave him out of the story.  Henry shows up at parties, makes snide remarks to Dorian's guests about love and loss, but he isn't the forefront of the dialogue or manipulation of Dorian.  I believe this is because Dorian finds a way to corrupt himself, and does not look to Henry to convince him of himself anymore.  Though when Henry does come to convince Dorian in the final sequence before Dorian's apparent suicide, he fails to show the same persuasion he had over Dorian long ago.  Dorian even recognizes that Henry is some what of a poison to him and others.  Overall, I believe Henry is a character that does not seem to learn or grow in comparison to some of the others.

Basil Hallward:

Basil is very much unchanged after the story ends.  Of course he is dead, but that doesn't mean his character really changed much besides that.  He does seem more at ease when arguing with Dorian, but finds himself, in his final chapter, still only seeing Dorian as a pure, innocent man.  He is still soft spoken and rather anti-social.  He is jumpy and excitable, and finds the need to be quite melodramatic.  As Basil views Dorian's portrait after twenty years of Dorian's sinning, he quickly rushes to pray, exclaiming about how awful and "accursed" the portrait is.  Though Dorian kills him for this, I believe Basil is pure-hearted, and I recall Kendall and I being furious that Dorian would have killed him because he was the only character "that was tolerable".  Overall, much like I said earlier in my entry, after Henry and Dorian meet, Basil becomes almost irrelevant.  He is simply the creator of Dorian's portrait, which, I'll admit, drive the story.

Sybil Vane:

It was kind of funny looking back at this entry because I had stated that Sybil would probably become an important character.  But within the next quarter of the book, she was dead.  That doesn't mean that she did not become important, because she is actually the turning point in Dorian's attitude.  After confronting Sybil on how vain and poorly she acted, Dorian notices that the portrait of himself had changed.  This being his first sin, or the first one large enough to have recognition from the portrait, changes Dorian completely.  After moving past Sybil's death, with the help of Henry, Dorian is reckless, and this is partially because of Sybil's death that he comes to this state.  After Sybil's death, the story revolves around Dorian and his new found love of sins, and I think that is Sybil's real impact on the story.

Dorian Gray:

Dorian obviously is the character that grew the most throughout the story, though in a more negative way than anything else.  Overall, with Dorian's ability to sin as he pleases, he turns away from Henry, and tends to manipulate his own group of friends.  Basil speaks to how Dorian's new found friends end up ruined, as Dorian's influence causes recklessness.  What I find most intriguing is that even though Dorian spends most of the second half of the book corrupting those around them, he finds his own salvation in the end.  I think by taking to destroying the portrait, it is a way for Dorian to recognize his own destruction and use it as a way of redemption.  Of course this does not end well for him, as he "stabbed the picture" and ended up "a dead man, dressed in evening clothes, with a knife in his heart," (221).  What I thought was interesting, and maybe I'm going out on a limb here, is that when they found his dead body, they could not recognize him until they studied the rings on his fingers, as if his wealth and vanity were the only things they truly saw in him, and not his personality.

Themes, Themes, Themes

I have always found it difficult to identify themes, no matter what story I may be reading.  I find that I can pick out major ideas, but those are mostly one word thoughts and do not outline what the meaning of the work as a whole may be.  Like with Dorian's story, youth and vanity were major components, but it is difficult for me to pick out what Wilde means with those ideas.  So here is my best effort at identifying themes.

As I mentioned earlier, one of the major ideas Wilde brings up revolves around the ideas of youth and vanity.  More so I believe that the theme is that youth and vanity allow others to overlook problems, and they can blind us from the truth of a person.  As Dorian goes through his life, the painting that Basil painted is the object that ages rather than Dorian.  This meaning that Dorian's sins did not affect Dorian in a physical manner.  Even as James Vane threatens to kill Dorian for the death of his younger sister Sybil, Dorian is saved by the fact that he looks exactly as he did at the time of her death eighteen years earlier.  But the fact of the matter is that Dorian set about corrupting the people around him and faced no fault because he was not affected physically by his sins.  Most people who met him believed instantly that Dorian, being so youthful and beautiful, could not anything negative or criminal.  Basil even says this, stating "with your pure, bright, innocent face, and your marvelous untroubled youth -- I can't believe anything against you," (149).  The idea that youth, beauty, wealth can allow even the most sinful people to live freely is something I believe Wilde was speaking out against within his society.

Another theme I found was the powers of influence and how they affect characters in the story.  From the very beginning, Basil begs Harry not to influence Dorian, because Lord Henry can only have a bad influence on those around him.  From Lord Henry's first encounter with Dorian, the shift in Dorian's character is quite obvious.  His new found obsession with youth comes from Harry's influence and Dorian's obsession leads to the corruption of himself and is the original cause of the portrait taking on Dorian's sins rather than Dorian himself.  Even though Harry does play a large role in corrupting Dorian, and continues in the story to affect different characters, Dorian begins to do the same to his companions.  Basil came to him one night claiming that Dorian's friends "seem to lose all sense of honor, of goodness, of purity," (150).  This is because Dorian himself does not need to fear the consequences of his sins, because he will not be affected by them.  So as Dorian has the ability to do as he pleases, his influence on his friends is negative in a way that ruins them to the society they are living in.  This all helps to develop the theme that negative influence is powerful and harmful to people.

Overall, I believe Wilde was trying to criticize the upper class and the influence it has over the English society in the story.  Wilde may have been trying to speak towards the society he was living in, because the descriptions seen in the story would fit into the 1890s.  I believe that The Picture of Dorian Gray does still contribute to our society today.  Wealth and beauty still play a large role in how we view certain people and how we treat them.  A clear view of influence in today's society and the harmful role it can play can be seen looking into the presidential election.  A lot of conservative candidates are using the misunderstood stigma's of certain groups of people to strike fear into voters, and those voters believe the candidates are the best solution to their fears.  I believe Wilde's themes could help highlight the faults that even today's society faces.

"Murder! Good God, Dorian, is this what you have come to?"

I think that when someone can flow with the sentences, and become completely engrossed in a book as I have been with The Picture of Dorian Gray, it is hard to see it as something you would read in a classroom.  Not to say that the stories we read in class are boring, because they are interesting, but I have never found myself with my jaw-dropped as I found myself when Dorian stabbed Basil over and over, or as appalled with a character as I did later on when Dorian preceded to blackmail someone into chemically disposing of the body as to save his reputation.  The plot deceives the reader as to seeing the books true potential, and the books underlying themes are lost to the reader because of the thin layer of shock value storyline that Wilde has placed over the message of his novel, at least in my opinion.

Should Oliver Wilde's novel be graced as an Advanced Placement book, that is the question I face today.  As The Picture of Dorian Gray is on our list of possible summer reads, I thought this question would be easily answered, but I found myself struggling.  I thought that the plot was so clear and the motifs and allusions were not deeply placed in the text.  Therefore, I almost began writing about how this story should not be AP, but after the reading I just finished this evening, I found that I was very much wrong.  I find that the sentence structure is enough to become lost in, and the vocabulary, because it is written in the 1890s, would alienate most students.  So while my ideas have been that of a tug of war, I do believe Wilde's novel should be AP. 

As I mentioned earlier, I think that Wilde's sentence structure would be enough to make the book AP on its own.  His use of dialogue, which in most novels constitutes as a slight break for the reader (at least in my case), just manages to confuse me more.  He also ingrains deeper meanings into most of his chapters, so there is no such thing as a simple conversation.  Kendall was joking with me that Dorian managed to just say "I am afraid it is rather heavy," and how that was probably the shortest piece of dialogue we had encountered yet.  And even that sentence had a hint of irony within it to pick up on.  So even though I still have doubts that the allusions and motifs are too easily identified for AP students, I believe Wilde recovers with his ability to create fluid sentences and vocabulary.  But not to bash the allusions and motifs, they are also helpful to credit the story with a deeper meaning as well.  I mean, last week I completely skimmed over some of the allusions that Kendall picked up on, so it would definitely be a challenge for students who are not reading closely enough.

For me, I could easily use this novel on an AP exam, and thinking through the prompts we have encountered this year, Wilde's novel could be applied to most of them.  Because there are so many characters, and they all have very different histories and personalities, there would be a variety of things to connect the prompts too.  I find that also, as we mostly speak towards literary devices and characterization, Wilde seldom uses subtle literary devices, or he loses them in the dense text, but he has other ways to characterize characters, be that dialogue or motifs.  Overall, Dorian Gray makes quite the compelling argument to why this story should be AP.

"So I have murdered Sybil Vane."

I find that Oliver Wilde's writing style is unique to the other novels I've read from the 1800s.  As seen with Jane Austen, her writing contains long, fluid sentences that have a variety of vocabulary that I struggle to understand.  The contrast between her and Wilde is that Wilde writes in more contemporary sentences.  His descriptions are very basic, very straight to the point.  His dialogue is the only part of the novel where the sentences become confusing, especially with the dialogue of Lord Henry.  The only real struggle with Lord Henry is that everything he says sounds like an iconic speech, and I feel like I need to mark each monologue he has.  For example, as if an American president at a rally, he says to Basil, "the basis of optimism is sheer terror.  We think that we are generous because we credit our neighbor with the possession of those virtues that are likely to be a benefit to us," (76).  Though that is what I find beautiful about the style Wilde uses to write, the fact that I find myself having to decipher his meaning and trying to pick and choose what is crucial to the story, and what is just white noise. 

Probably the most important stylistic devices Wilde uses are his allusions and motifs.  For one, as Sybil Vane is an actress in Shakespeare, there is a lot of allusion to his work.  As Dorian mourns for the death of Sybil, who appears to have committed suicide after Dorian broke off their engagement, Henry takes the time to describe how she was never truly alive because she never played herself.  "She was Desdemona one night, and Ophelia the other; that if she died as Juliet, she came to life as Imogen," (103).  As I spent an entire summer trapped in a dorm full of Shakespeare students, I tend to skip over these allusions as Wilde weaves them into his work with ease.  But the allusions he makes to Shakespeare and other playwrights, like Ford, Webster, and Tourneur, all helped to place Sybil and her death almost into a play.  As she was an actress, her life itself was simply "a strange lurid fragment from some Jacobean tragedy," (104). 

My favorite device though, is Wilde's use of motifs.  Maybe it is because I've been taking English with Mrs. LaClair for so long, but the flower motif Wilde uses was very clear from the beginning to me.  Though he favors roses, especially when addressing Sybil, he speaks to a wide variety of flowers.  Just the opening scene from the novel speaks to roses, "the heavy scent of lilacs" and "the honey-sweet and honey-colored blossoms of a laburnum," (5).   Lord Henry connects flowers to immortality in a way, as he explains to Dorian while sitting in the garden, that all the flowers around them will grow again next year, and the year after that.  Though flowers are entwined throughout the story, it is evident that Sybil is always compared to a rose. Almost every sentence to describe her actions or beauty use roses.  To describe a simple blush of Sybil's cheeks, Wilde uses the phrase, "a rose shook in her blood and shadowed her cheeks.  Quick breath parted the petals of her lips," (62).  I find that Sybil is connected to a rose because of her youth, as she is just seventeen.  Even after her death, Dorian proclaims that even though he essentially murdered her, "the roses are not less lovely for that," (99).  It seems to me that the fact that the rose was not less lovely was because Sybil was still young even in death.  The flower motif I believe Wilde uses to speak towards the importance of youth to the characters, and I feel as if it will grow to mean even more further on in the story.

Also, a quick update on the story as I didn't really speak much to the plot besides Sybil's death, but Dorian's painting has changed since Sybil's death.  Mostly it was his cruelty towards Sybil that caused a change in the painting's expression.  Just thought I should let you all know that little bit of information.

Basil Is An Herb, Not A Name

The preface of Oliver Wilde's story begins with the simple sentence; "the artist is the creator of beautiful things".  This idea plays more of a role in Wilde's installment than I was expecting.  It is from a piece of art that all of the main characters find their first footing in the plot.  Reading this story, I was expecting there to be fantasy and oddities not found in the real world, as the blurb on the back of the book deceived me to believe. But, to my dismay, there was no fantasy involved.  Though even with the lack of witchcraft (so far at least), Wilde manages to use his words to create a sort of magic.  I can honestly say I've never feared before that I would run out of sticky notes, but reading the first sixty pages of The Picture of Dorian Gray made me feel like I would.

Without further ado, in order of appearance, the characters:

Basil Hallward:  

Basil is a painter, who when the story opens is finishing a painting of a young man we learn later is none other than Dorian Gray himself.  Basil is fascinated by Dorian, seeing him as a muse, claiming that Dorian is "absolutely necessary" to him and his artwork.  Basil is very focused, and as Harry claims, a great artist is quite boring because they put all of their spirit and energy into their art.  Something that is interesting about this idea is that Basil believes quite the opposite, seeing art as an abstract ideal, though he himself follows in suit of Harry's ideas of a true artist.  I say that because of the fact that Basil would rather not have the portrait of Dorian shared, as so much of Basil's love for Dorian is put into the painting.  This meaning that though Basil believes art should be an abstract art, he contradicts himself with the painting of Dorian. Basil is truly the only tolerable character in my opinion, because of how soft-spoken he is, and how his ideas aren't as severe as the ideas of Harry and Dorian.  Though Basil is introduced first, once Lord Henry and Dorian meet, he seems to fade more into the background, as both of his counterparts are less interested in him. 

Lord Henry (Harry) Wotton:

Lord Henry is the most cunning character in the story, and he knows it.  He has the wisest ideas, and most of them, at least in the company of Dorian, revolve around youth, and the short amount of time that we are given.  Though Basil points out his negative influence, begging him not to corrupt Dorian, Lord Henry goes against his wishes entirely, as his first conversation with Dorian is one that awakens Dorian to the world around him more so than he'd like. Henry goes as far as to say that "he would seek to dominate [Dorian] - had already, indeed, half done so.  He would make that wonderful spirit his own."  This basically sums up Lord Henry's thoughts on his so called friends.  He seems more fascinated with the idea of ruining someone than actually knowing them.  He speaks of youth, love, and fidelity, as short term ideas, that being faithful to a single person is more shameful than loving many people for short periods of time.  I do not like Lord Henry.  He is vulgar, shameless, and he abuses his friendships for his advantage because he understands that he can easily manipulate them.

Dorian Gray:

Dorian Gray will, I'm assuming, become the main character.  Though he does not dominate the story as Lord Henry does in the opening four chapters, he is crucial.  He is described as an Adonis, with beautiful blond locks, smoldering eyes, the whole nine yards.  Though he is introduced as Basil's companion, he immediately becomes obsessed with Lord Henry after meeting him.  He also is obsessed with his own youth and beauty, which only occurs after he is influenced by Lord Henry to see youth as a necessity to cherish.  After that, the rest is history, as he makes enemies with his own portrait, as he "is jealous of the portrait...if the picture could change, and [he] could be always what [he is] now," he would be much happier. Dorian can be described as an ignorant character, as he is younger, and does not yet understand what Lord Henry is doing to him, and he follows his words almost like a dog does a bone.  Dorian also finds a love interest towards the end of the reading, Sybil Vane, though he barely knows her.  Just as I dislike Lord Henry, I do not care for Mr. Dorian Gray. His ignorance and arrogance mixed together create a man that is not appealing to me, nor to many others I would say.

Sybil Vane:

Sybil Vane is a young actress who happens to be apart of a horrid theater that Dorian happens upon one night, and from there on out he visits each night for her and her alone.  She is Juliet one night, Imogen the next, Rosalind after that.  Dorian rarely see's her as her true self, a 17 year old girl, which Lord Henry congratulates him for, as if she is more appealing as all of her many characters than as her true self.  Though she play's a minor role in this portion of the text, by the end of the last chapter, Dorian announces his engagement to her, so I assume she will soon be important.