SOURCE IDEAS:
“England is bad enough, I know, and English society is all wrong. That is the reason why I want you to be fine. You have not been fine. One has a right to judge of a man by the effect he has over his friends. Yours seem to lose all sense of honour, of goodness of purity. You have filled them with a madness for pleasure. They have gone down into the depths. You led them there. Yes: you led them there, and yet you can smile, as you are smiling now. And there is worse behind. I know you and Harry are inseparable” (183)
“Was it really true that one could never change? He felt a wild longing for the unstained purity of his boyhood— his rose-white boyhood, as Lord Henry had once called it. He knew he had tarnished himself, filled his mind with corruption, and given horror to his fancy; that he had been an evil influence to others, and had experienced a terrible joy in being so; and that, of the lives that had crossed his own, it had been the fairest and the most full of promise that he had brought to shame. But was it all irretrievable? Was there no hope for him? (248).
SYNTHESIZING COMMENT/ANALYSIS:
These two passages, nearing the end of the novel, bring up themes of English society, corruption/influence, mirroring/doubling within Dorian and Harry, as well as this final hope/question of redemption and a correction of one’s past. The first quote I found interesting as it brings in a lot of commentary and critique of their society and the feelings at the turn of the century — also remembering ideas in the past chapters about corruption from books, which side of town was desirable or seedy and how people based their judgments off of one’s appearance and social actions. I liked the contrast to the first quote we see in this second excerpt, where Basil told all this to Dorian right before he saw the portrait, and only after Dorian murders does he begin to feel remorse and wish to atone. The questioning we see from Dorian and his rationale as he moves from the influences of Harry to Basil is intriguing.
QUESTION:
In terms of monsters, this shifting moment toward acknowledging his monstrous behaviors and deeds is something to think about further when we look for people to blame. I wonder what we, and readers at the time, could look to and grapple with regarding this idea of corruption and pleasures. Does Dorian perhaps represent this middle ground, swayed by both Basil and Harry…but which proved stronger and why? Dorian is his own person, unlike what we saw with Jekyll and Hyde; is Wilde’s choice to portray Dorian more as a blank slate, maybe reminiscent of critiques made way back in Frankenstein?
Leave a Reply