Witticisms

1. People often try to escape death yet death is the ultimate escape.

2. People say practice makes perfect yet they also say nobody's perfect. Go figure.

3. Love is the heart working over the mind, reasoning is the mind working over the heart, and your soul is the culmination of the heart and mind in a harmonious union.

4. The person you love the most often times is the person that is the hardest to love.

5. Love is the union of intimate intentions and irrational actions.

6. For all the virtues in the world the vices always seem more prevalent.

7. The world is a colorful place but too many people look at it with a black and white perspective.

8. Stupidity is not a measure of quantative knowlege but a measure of how one applies their knowledge in their life.

9. Life is hard, get use to it and it might get better, run away from it and it will get worse.

10. Love is like the seasons, it starts off as barren and cold, then it blossoms and becomes warm, after that its hot and steamy, then it becomes mature and beautiful, finally it whithers and dies. (Winter to spring to summer to autumn to winter)

Chapter 15 and 16

Quote: "As Dorian Gray drove back to his own house, he was conscious that the sense of terror he thought he had strangled had come back to him. Lord Henry's casual questioning had maded him lose his nerve for the moment, and he wanted his nerve still" (Wilde 186).

Explanation: Here Dorian Gray is discussing the fear and horror he felt after Lord Henry had asked him about what he did the night of Basil's murder. He feels the anxiety of being reminded of the deadly night in which he thought he would never have to think about again. He makes the assumption that after getting rid of the body he would be able to get rid of the sin and the guilt but he is just reminded of this sin because of Lord Henry. So once again he must try to bear with his sins and the fruits of his life of pleasure. But he has no desire, let alone the means, to deal with the sin for he has lived this pleasurable life for a long time. And he will most likely be unable to thwart off bearing his sin for "the dead linger sometimes. The man up-stairs will not go away" (174).

Quote: "To cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul [...] He had often tried it, and would try it again now. There were opium dens [...] where the memory of old sins could be destroyed by the madness of sins that were new" (189).

Explanation: And as it is becoming glaringly obvious that Dorian must deal with his sin sooner or later, Dorian chooses to try to avoid it. It is choice based on the fact that he has never trully grappled with his wrong doings and errors. And now when one of his mistakes comes to haunt him he chooses to take the easy way out and try to run away from it, rather then deal with it. He tries to use the one thing he knows best to help him forget his woes, pleasure: "he was determined to forget" (189). But he nows that his sins are catching up to him, he knows that he must deal with them but he has no idea how to deal with them: "He was prisoned in thought [...] he wanted to escape himself" (193).

Vocab:
Bulwark: an embankment built around a space for defensive purposes
"He jovially termed it- was shown to be the proper bulwark of Society" (185).

Incorrigible: impervious to correction by punishment
"Isn't he incorrigible?" (183).

Chapter 14

Quote: "It is impossible for you to refuse now. I tried to spare you. You will do me the justice to admit that. You were stern, harsh, offensive. You treated me as no man has ever dared to treat me-no living man, at any rate. I bore it all. Now it is for me to dictate" (175).

Explanation: Dorian is speaking to Campbell, explaining to Campbell how he had tried to spare him, how he tried to not be aggressive, but Campbell had forced him to. And he clearly stresses that Campbell is the only "living man" to have attempted to deny Dorian of his wish. He is clearly making a comparison of Campbell to Basil. They are alike in the sense that they do not appease Dorian to his every whim. But in the end both succomb to Dorian's desires: Basil to stop discussing the corruption of Dorian's soul and Campbell to burn Dorian's body and any evidence pertaining to the murder. So as of yet Dorian has had every whimsy he has had fullfilled; whether it be through his charm, blackmail, and if necessary murder.

Quote: "Your life? Good heavens! what a life that is! You have gone from corruption to corruption, and now you have culminated in crime. In doing what I am going to do, what you force to do, it is not of your life that I am thinking" (176).

Explanation: Campbell is responding to Dorian who says, "Alan, you have saved my life" (176). But Campbell brings up the point what type of life is he really saving? Is he saving a life that is worth saving in the first place? Dorian's life is filled with corruption upon more corruption with murder and blackmail topping it all off. Dorian has only known a life where his every capricious desire is met, where every person succombs to his will. He has lived a life of greed, vanity, and pride. He has never had to trully grapple with his sins, his vices, and his misdeeds. Buddhism says the meaning of life is to "end suffering by detatching oneself from cravings and conceptual attatchments" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meaning_of_life). Judaism say life is to "serve the one true God and to prepare for the world to come" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meaning_of_life). And Christianity teaches that man's purpose is "to glorify God and love him forever [...] love the lord our God with all our hearts, with all our souls, with all our strength, and with all our mind; and our neighbors as ourselves" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meaning_of_life). All of these religions preach of bettering ourselves so that we may care for others and we see Dorian has failed to do this; thus most of life, his precious youthful life, has been wasted and is not worth saving now.


Vocab:

Taper: diminish gradually

"He glanced at his own white taper fingers" (167-168).



Entreat: ask for or request earnestly

"I entreat you, Alan" (174)

Chapter 12 and 13

Quote: "How quickly it had all been done! He felt strangely calm, and, walking over to the window, opened it, and stepped out on the balcony" (Wilde 163).

Explanation: Dorian has just killed Basil and is now conveying his serene state of mind, as if nothing had happened. He seems to have no remorse and no regret for killing one of his closest friends. The reader can thus take this as a symbol of how far Dorian has been corrupted. He has gone to the point where he indulges every pleasure he feels: "Dorian Gray glanced at the picture, and suddenly an uncontrollable feeling of hatred for Basil Hallward came over him, as though it had been suggested to him by the image on the canvas, whispered into his ear by those grinning lips [...] He rushed at him, and dug the knife into the great vein [...] crushing the mans head down on the table" (162). 

Quote:  "Years ago, when I was a boy [...] you met me, flattered me, and taught me to be vain of my good looks. One day you introduced me to a friend of yours, who explained to me the wonder of beauty" (160-161).

Explanation: Here Dorian is addressing Basil and the fact that he first became aware of his beauty and met Henry a man of bad influence. He is acknowledging his vanity and is also linking it to Basil, claiming that Basil is the reason why he is so vain. His argument is that he first introduced him to the idea of his beauty and introduced him to people with bad ideas that corrupted him. This may be a motive for why Dorian had killed Basil.

Vocab:

Debauchery: excessive indulgence in sensual pleasure

"Did I teach the one his vice and the other his debauchery" (155).

Ignoble: not honorable in character or purpose

"It was some foul parody, some infamous, ignoble satire" (160).

Chapter 11

Quote: "He grew more and more enamored of his own beauty, more and more interested in the corruption of his own soul. He would examine with minute care, and sometimes with a monstrous and terrible delight, the hideous lines that weared the wrinkling forehead or crawled around the heavy, sensual mouth, wondering sometimes which were the more horrible, the signs of sin or the signs of age. He would place his white hands beside the coarse bloated hands of the picture, and smile. He mocked the mishapen body and the failing limbs" (131).

Explanation: Here Dorian Gray is looking at the portrait of himself and at his reflection through the mirror. The narrator explicitly explains the differences that Dorian notes between the two images. The first immediate thought that comes to mind is that he enjoys looking at the differences between the images. But looking deeper into the quote one comes to the conclusion that he does not find joy from the differences of the pictures he instead enjoys the carefree pleasure that he experiences, which is shown through the contrast of the images. The images serve as a manifestation of the pleasures he enjoys without fear of reprimand: "The portrait was to bear the burden of his shame; that was all" (Wilde 109).

Quote: "For the canons of good society are, or should be, the same as the canons of art. Form is absolutely essential to it. It should have the dignity of a ceremony, as well as its unreality, and should combine the insincere character of a romantic play with the wit and beauty that makes such plays delightful to us. Is insincerity such a terrible thing? I think not. It is merely a method by which we can multiply our personalities" (146).

Explanation [opinion]: I think that canons of good society should be totally seperated from the canons of art. I agree that society should have form and structure so that everyone can easily follow it, but I disagree that it should have unreality as well as insincereity. These elements are used by authors to capture our imagination and they do this because they are so radical to us. That is what makes plays and movies so enticing, for they speak of amazing and unthought of ideas and reactions to a situation that are more likely unsuited and inappropriate for normal life. Therefore canons of society should be different and seperate from the canons of the art.

Vocab:
Sojourn: a temporary stay
"An inn that is but suitable for the sojourn of a night" (136).

Enamored: marked by foolish or unreasoning fondness
"He grew more and more enamored of his own beauty" (131).

chapter 9 and 10

Quote: "He regretted that he had not told Basil the true reason why he had wished to hide the picture away. Basil would have helped him to resist Lord Henry's influence, and still more poisonous influences that came from his own teperament" (Wilde 122).

Explanation: Dorian is showing some regret for the decision he has made to live the life of pleasure. Thus there is still some resentment of the direction he is headed, because he says that Basil could have helped him to avoid "Lord Henry's influence [and the] poisonous influences that came from his own temperament" (122). But instead of trying to withdraw from this immoral life, he chooses to continue because he believes that "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" (123).

Quote: "The love that he bore him-for it was really love- had nothing in it htat 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 Michael Angelo had known, and Montaigne, and Winckelmann, and Shakespearer himself" (122).

Explanation: Dorian is explaining the love that Basil has for him. It is partially a love for his physique, "It was not that mere physical admiration of beauty that is born of the senses" (122). So there is physical attraction which is characteristic of homosexuality. But he also references another type of  love that Basil has, a love that is characterized by Michael Angelo, Montaigne, Winckelmann, and Shakespeare; all of whom had homosexual feelings that they shared and depicted through their art. He like them showed his homosexual feelings through his work. Thus Dorian is saying that Basil has traits that can be considered gay.

Vocab:

Misanthrope: someone who dislikes people in general

"He had absolutely notihing to do, almost died of ennui, and became a confirmed misanthrope" (113).

Reverie: absent minded dreaming while awake

"As he passed from chapter to chapter, a form of reverie, a malady of dreaming, that made him unconscious of the falling day and the creeping shadows" (129).

chapter 8

Quote: "It had made him conscious how unjust, how cruel, he had been to Syble Vane. [...] the portrait that Basil Hawward had painted of him would be a guide to him through life, would be to him what holiness is to some, and conscience to others, and the fear of God to us all" (100).

Explanation: This excerpt is explaining Dorian's mind set at the beginning of the chapter, when he is free of Lord Henry manipulative reach. Dorian has become more conscious of his actions and how awful he was to Syble Vane. And he notes that the picture serves as a physical symbol of his moral compass , his conscience. And Dorian makes a committment to being a decent person with good intentions, to being a good moral agent. But when Lord Henry visits Dorian, Dorian is again corrupted by Lord Henry's bad influence, and his former disdain for henry, "Yes, it was better let Lord Henry in , and [...] to quarrel with him [...] [and] to part" (100), becomes respect and reliance, "I am awfully obliged to you for all that you have said to me. You are certainly my best friend. No one has ever understood me as you have" (108).

Quote: "He felt that the time had really come for making his choice. Or had his choice already been made? Yes, life had decided that for him-life, and his own infinite curiousity about life. Eternal youth, infinite passion, pleasure subtle and secret, wild joys and wilder sins-he was to have all these things. The portrait was to bear the burden of his shame; that was all" (109).

Explanation: Here Dorian finally makes the decision to live a life of pleasure and temptation, he will give in and fullfill every thought, desire, and hunger. Though he says that it is due to some other force and his curiousity. Yes after talking with Lord Henry he finally changed and is now fully subjected to Lord Henry's testing  of Lord Henry's morals but Dorian references the portrait saying that it would "bear the burden of his shame" (109), meaning he has some some shame for giving into this pleasurable  life yet chooses to do so anyways and he is shifting the guilt that comes from it to the painting. Thus he is making the decision to change, he is to blame for any bad consquences that are to come.

Vocab:

Abject: of the most contemptible kind

"I say nothing about the social mistake, which would have been abject"(104).

Affinity: kinship by marriage or adoption; not a blood relationship

"Was there some subtle affinity between the chemical atoms" (99).

chapter 7

Quote: "There were no signs of any chnage when he looked into the actual painting, and yet there was no doubt that the whole expression had altered. It was not a mere fancy of his own. The thing was horribly apparent" (Wilde 94-95).

Explanation: The narrator is explaining Dorian's perception of how the portrait of himself is changing. He first believes the image is changing noting that "there was a touch of a cruelty in the mouth" (94). But he goes on to conclude "The picture had not changed" (96). Ergo, the painting was not changing but he was. The painting represented the man he was, and the changes that were taking place in him. The portrait is the gateway to his soul as his soul was the inspiration for the portrait: "I won't tell you that [...] his beauty is such that Art cannot express it. There is nothing that Art cannot express [...] his personality has suggested to me an enitrely new manner in art, an entirely new mode of style" (12).

Quote: "For every sin that he committed, a stain would fleck and wreck it fairness. But he would not sin. The picture, changed or unchanged, would be to him the visible emblem of conscience. He would resist temptation. He would not see Lord Henry any more-would not, at any rate, listen to those subtle, poisonous theories that in Basil Hallaward's garden had first stirred within him the passion for impossible things" (96).

Explanation: "Dorian is realizing his change and is beginning to make a committment to not change any further. And he clearly recognizes that Lord Henry is part of the reason he is changing, for Lord Henry had "subtle, poisonous theories." So the first step towards stopping his change is to commit himself to become free from Lord Henry's influence, which may prove difficult because Lord Henry was the symbol of all the pleasures in the world that Dorian had never encountered. And like all temptations it is hard to resist, and that will be difficult for throughout the book Lord Henry has been teaching Dorian to feed his temptations with immoral pleasures. So whether Dorian follows through with his committment to avoid Lord Henry and to prevent the change himself is uncertain, though it is quite certain that it will most likely be uphill battle for Dorian.

Vocab:
Listlessly: in a listless (lacking zest or vivacity) manner
"And began to eat them listlessly"(93).

Ardent: characterized by intense emotion
"The quivering, ardent sunlight showed him the lines of cruelty round the moth as clearly as if he had been looking into a mirror after he had done some dreadful thing" (94).

Chapter 5 and 6

Quote: "And I don't forgive you for being late for dinner" (79). -Lord Henry

Explanation: Lord Henry is talking to Dorian Gray and showing his displeasure in Dorian's lateness. Yet Lord Henry is always late which he says is due to his priniciple, "his principle being that punctuality was the thief of time" (48). Henry thus is a hypocrite for he holds Dorian accountable for being late when he himself upholds a principle that dictates he should always be late. One can assume therefore that some of the rules and prinicples that he creates and lives by are only a ruse to get what he wants, showing his self excessive nature. And this nature fuels his unsatiable desire to find answers to his questions on immoral things which he uses Dorian to test. So Dorian therefore is a guinea pig to Lord Henry prideful search to feed his gluttonous appetite for knowledge.

Quote: "I wish I had, for as sure as there is a God in heaven, if he ever does you any wrong, I shall kill him" (73). -James Vane

Explanation: James is speaking to his sister, Syble, about Dorian Gray and how he will kill Dorian if Dorian was ever to hurt her in anyway. This is similar to those father/brother figures that people often encounter in a family. But this also shows James underlying concern and love for Syble and her well being. He will go as far as to kill a man in her defense. This may play a role in the future of the story if Dorian mistreats Syble because of his moral turmoil caused by Lord Henry.

Vocab:

Incorrigible: impervious to correction by punishment
"You are quite incorrigible, Harry" (81).

Tableau: any dramatic scene
"She felt sure that the tableau was interesting" (66).