Dorian Gray Quotes

Question 1

How does chapter 1 link to chapter 19?

Answer 1

“Open door heavy scent of the lilac” (chapter 1). “I don’t think there have been since lilac since…” (chapter 19). Cycle is complete - lilacs come back in all their past glory and Dorian is about to die. Lilacs symbol of innocence and first

Question 2

Foreshadows plot twist’s Basil Howard disappearance

Answer 2

“Basil Hallward, whose sudden disappesarance some years ago caused, at the time, such public excitement” (chapter 1)

Question 3

theme = appearance vs. reality

Answer 3

“He is Narcissus” (chapter 1) combines Greek perfection with romantic passion. Every implication of something more personal in attraction.

Question 4

How is physical appearance shown to be a key factor in chapter 1?

Answer 4

“Fatality about all physical and intellectual distincrtion…faltering steps of kings… my art… Dorian Gray’s good looks” (chapter 1 Basil). Physical and intellectual excellences are often the downfall of those who posses them. Rings true throughout novel. Portrait before meeting Dorian himself - reputation for physical beauty preceeds him and is more important to his character than any other attribute. Dorian Gray’s apparent perfection is destroyed by his weakness of mind and naiiveness, which becomes the downfall of his soul as his mind is opened to sin and Hedonism by Lord Henry Wotton.

Question 5

What’s hidden is more interesting than known

Answer 5

“I have grown to secrecy…I have shown in it the secret of my own soul” (chapter 1)

Question 6

Representation of damaged flower

Answer 6

“Lord Henry…plucked a pink-petalled daisy from the grass” pulling daisy apart symbolises his role throught the novel as a manipulator and destroyer of beauty for his own amusement (chapter 1)

Question 7

Paradox and sublime

Answer 7

“on the verge of a terrible crisis… strange feeling that Fate had in store for me exquisite joys and exquisite sorrows” (chapter 1 Basil)

Question 8

Foreshadowment in chapter 1

Answer 8

“Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one” Lord Henry leaves Basil’s studio that day, carrying Dorian off with him, they are laughing “Don’t spoil him…your influence would be bad”

Question 9

Irony in chapter 1

Answer 9

“An artist should create beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them” - links to aestheticism. ironic as Wilde portrays his homosexualty in the novel

Question 10

Romance between Basil and Dorian in chapter 1

Answer 10

“idolatry… quite a romance…the personality of Dorian Gray will dominate me”

Question 11

Femine characteristic in chapter 2

Answer 11

“mouse…graceful wave of the hand…hellenic ideal”

Question 12

Where is the key turning point for Dorian Gray in chapter 2

Answer 12

“How sad it is! I shall grow old…” Transgression in his nature from innocence to self-involved worldliness. Perhaps his “true-self”

Question 13

Fautisan chapter 2

Answer 13

“If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old… I would give my soul for that” - Faust theme: sell soul to devil. Despair is the only sin unpardonable sin because it kept the sinner from asking for God’s help.

Question 14

Beauty, youth, and innocence…

Answer 14

have a power over the worl that is almost metaphysical in its intensity “Beauty is a form of Genius - is higher than Genius… divine right of soverignty… degenerate into hideous puppets” (chapter 2)

Question 15

Uncle George intodced in chapter 3

Answer 15

“deus ex machina” resolve difficult plot twists. Dorian’s romantic background contribute to the fairy tale motif. Provides a fountain of information of Dorian Gray

Question 16

Lord Henery’s influence on Dorian (chapter 3)

Answer 16

“fashioned” - molding; Dorian becomes Henery’s proteige “Lord Henry, I wished you would me how to become young again…dreadfully demoralizing” Lord Henry portrayed to have all the answers/devil “But I thought you had promised Basil Hallward to go and see him”

Question 17

How is doubling portrayed in chapter 3 and 4?

Answer 17

“Talking to him was like playing upon an exquisite violin” Lord Henry
“little flower-like face, a small Greek head..wild passion of violins” Sybil is a double of Dorian “flower-like lips” (chapter 5)

Question 18

Aestheticism and decadence in chapter 4

Answer 18

“the study of jewels… study perfumes…ecclesiastical vestments… yellow Chinese hangings… agate of India made him eloquent.” regarding consumer culture in the Victorian Era and Orientalism. Degradation of Dorian’s activities, the facades of society and art that fill the characters’ cover up of the immorality of the streets outside and Dorian is able to keep up a double life. The dual existence of the painting and the original expands into the whole of Dorian’s world. This sense of eclecticism transformed a dull, mundane domicile into one that
represented the merging of East and West, though in the privacy of one’s home rather than on a
diplomatic scale

Question 19

Gender quote chapter 4

Answer 19

“no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals

Question 20

Foreshadowment in chapter 4

Answer 20

“Romeo and Juliet” - fateful, tragic story of young love, echoes loss of innocence (Lord Henry and Dorian at the gardern)

Question 21

Lord Henry’s misogny

Answer 21

“Ordinar women never appeal to one’s imagination… one knows their minds as easily as one knows their bonnets… no mystery” (chapter 4) Lord Henry: disparagement of women - active misogny. Dorian and Sibyl’s relationship is superficial and immature illustrating a burgeoing independence.

Question 22

How has Dorian and Basil’s relationship altered

Answer 22

“Dear Basil! I have not laid eyes on him for a week… sent me a portrait… little jealous” (chapter 4). No longer creditied eith its success. Taken beauty out of Basil, shadow of his own creation

Question 23

Dorian’s display of idolatry

Answer 23

“Sibyl Vane is sacred…put her on a pedestal of gold and worship her…Sibyl Vane was a psychological phenomenon” (chatper 4) Dorian whole-heartedly devoted himself to artistic ideals, mistaken for reality.

Question 24

Class is synonymus with race

Answer 24

“He was a gentlemean, and he hated him for that, hated him through some curious race-instinct for which he could not account.”

Question 25

Shakespeare

Answer 25

“Find my wife in Shakespeare’s plays?” (chapter 5) layers of costume cover real Sybil and Dorian’s affection. Dorian attracted to the romance of Shakespeare, Art provides an ideal not a reality.

Question 26

Imagery of gold

Answer 26

“You must admit, Harry, that women give to men the very gold of their lives” (Dorian chapter 6) “on a pedestal of gold… to see the world worship the woman who is mine” - confirms Lord Henry’s ego driven philosophy of women as ornaments

Question 27

Lord Henry’s influence in chapter 8

Answer 27

“wonderful ending to a wonderful play… terribly beauty of a Greek tragedy” Lord Henry’s ability to make Sibyl’s death a trivial matter in Dorian’s mind demonstrates that his cynicism and his power to influence Dorian have reached new heights. Transgression. Lord Henry portrayed as demonic and Dorian blindly does his bidding.

Question 28

Morality

Answer 28

“I want to be good. I can’t bear the idea of my soul being hideous.” Sybil is a symbol of purity and beauty, and her death is the death of those things, as well as the death of Dorian’s chance to reclaim them for himself. Sybil’s death makes it impossible for him to go back (chapter 8)

Question 29

Henry consolidates Dorian

Answer 29

“I wish I had such an experience… charmingly artificial… less real… The moment she toughed actual life, she married it, it married her, and so she married it” Both Henry and Dorian use artfulness to paint over the gruesome nature of Sybil’s death. She becomes as unreal in death as she was, onstage, in life. She might as well be Juliet again. And artistic death, of course, is no real death at all.

Question 30

Antithesis to Lord Henry

Answer 30

“I can’t tell you how hart-broken I am about the whole thing” (Basil - chapter 9)

Question 31

Influence

Answer 31

“Doran Gray smiled to himself…. succeeded, almost by chance, in wrestling a secret from a friend… wild devotion… something tragic in a friendship coloured by romance..” (chapter 9) When he gets Basil to admit his secret without having to reveal his own, he feels pleasure at having manipulated the situation so completely to his own advantage. His decision at the end of the chapter to hide the painting reveals his commitment to a life of vanity and self-gratification.

Question 32

Basil experience Dorian’s change

Answer 32

“Realism of the method or the mere wonder of your own personality” (Basil -chapter 9) Basil’s initial attraction to Dorian, his initial reason for wanting to capture Dorian in a painting was due to Dorian’s artless, unselfconscious beauty. Basil wanted to turn Dorian into art because Dorian was natural.

Question 33

Sybil and Dorian compared to Dorian and Basil

Answer 33

“There is something fatal about a portrait. It had a life of its own.” (Dorian - chapter 9 Dorian requests that Basil do a portrait of Sybil). The image of Sybil to Dorian is now the artistic ideal that Basil once saw in the boy, which introduces a morbid similarity between the two relationships. The levels of image and representation that now fill their conversation blur the line between copy and original. Basil’s love of his painting is barely separable from his love for Dorian himself.

Question 34

The attic

Answer 34

was “a playroom when he was a child” and “a study when he grew somewhat older.” The room is already a vault hiding his past, and it will now hide the degradation of his conscience, as well. This room becomes a symbol of the purity of youth and concern for morality that Dorian consciously rejects. (chapter 9)