TPODG: AO1 (themes and quotes)

main themes of TPODG

• cruelty and violence

• the supernatural

• supremacy of youth and beauty

• aestheticism, the superficial nature of society

• power, influence and manipulation

• homosocial spaces/environments and homoeroticism

• hedonism

• morality, sin and redemption

• portrayal and treatment of women

• class bondage

cruelty and violence

“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.”

She looked at him in horror. … They cut the air like a dagger. (JV) CH5

 

“you have killed my love. You used to stir my imagination. Now you don’t even stir my curiosity. CH7

You are shallow and stupid. … You are nothing to me now. CH7

 

“So I have murdered Sibyl Vane,” … “murdered her as surely as if I had cut her little throat with a knife.” CH8

"She had no right to kill herself. It was selfish of her.” CH8

 

suddenly an uncontrollable feeling of hatred for Basil Hallward came over him CH13

The mad passions of a hunted animal stirred within him CH13

supernatural

'The wind shook some blossoms from the trees, … moved to and fro in the languid air.' CH1

• Disruption in nature when DG is mentioned

 

Soul and body, body and soul—how mysterious they were!  CH4

 

that his own beauty might be untarnished, and the face on the canvas bear the burden of his passions and his sins; CH7

 

And yet the thing would still live on. It would be always alive. CH10

 

“So you think that it is only God who sees the soul, Basil? CH13

It was some foul parody, some infamous ignoble satire. CH13

 

It would kill this monstrous soul-life, and without its hideous warnings, he would be at peace. CH20

Supremacy of youth and beauty, aestheticism, the superficial nature of society

'whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to bear the burden of a beauty so flame-like as theirs' CH1

• 'flame': hell, temptation, mortality

• 'burden of a beauty' foreshadowing

'Dorian Gray's good looks - we shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly.' (LH) CH1

 

All the candour of youth was there, as well as youth's passionate purity. One felt that he had kept himself unspotted from the world.' CH2

• Purity, virtue

 

“Oh, she is better than good—she is beautiful,” CH5

 

Once, in boyish mockery of Narcissus, he had kissed, … those painted lips that now smiled so cruelly at him. CH8

 

You only taught me to be vain.” (DG)

“Well, I am punished for that, Dorian—or shall be some day.” (BH) CH9

 

with your pure, bright, innocent face, and your marvellous untroubled youth—I can’t believe anything against you. (BH) CH12

 

He was withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage. CH20

Power, influence and manipulation

'As long as I live, the personality of Dorian Gray will dominate me.' CH1

 

'Talking to him was like playing upon an exquisite violin. … There was something terribly enthralling in the exercise of influence.' CH3

He would seek to dominate him [Dorian] - had already, indeed, half done so.'` (LH) CH3

 

She is everything to me in life. (DG abt SV) CH4

Dorian Gray leaped to his feet, with flushed cheeks and burning eyes. “Harry! Sibyl Vane is sacred!” CH4

 

 Prince Charming rules life for us now.” CH5

She did not listen. She was free in her prison of passion. Her prince, Prince Charming, was with her. CH5

 

your personality had the most extraordinary influence over me. (BH to DG) CH9

I was dominated, soul, brain, and power, by you. (BH to DG) CH9

 

For years, Dorian Gray could not free himself from the influence of this book. CH11

 

 You have filled them with a madness for pleasure. They have gone down into the depths. You led them there. (BH to DG) CH12

 

“You told me you had destroyed it.”

“I was wrong. It has destroyed me.” CH13

 

sick with a wild terror of dying, and yet indifferent to life itself. CH18

The consciousness of being hunted, snared, tracked down, had begun to dominate him. CH18

 

It would kill the past, and when that was dead, he would be free. CH20

Homosocial spaces/environments and homoeroticism

'I have put too much of myself into it.' CH1

'What you have told me is quite a romance, a romance of art one might call it,' CH1

 

“It was not intended as a compliment. It was a confession." (BH to DG) CH9

The painter’s absurd fits of jealousy, his wild devotion, his extravagant panegyrics, his curious reticences CH9

There seemed to him to be something tragic in a friendship so coloured by romance. CH9

 

Why is your friendship so fatal to young men? CH12

hedonism

'A beautiful woman risking everything for a mad passion. A few wild weeks of happiness cut short by a hideous, treacherous crime.'  CH3

 

For there would be a real pleasure in watching it. (the portrait) CH8

 

"That book you sent me so fascinated me that I forgot how the time was going.” CH10

 

The hideous hunger for opium began to gnaw at him. CH16

Morality, sin and redemption

she is absolutely and entirely divine. CH4 (Sibyl)

 

You must have a cigarette. A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. CH6

 

The picture, changed or unchanged, would be to him the visible emblem of conscience.  CH7

 

Dorian Gray had been poisoned by a book. CH11

 

Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man’s face. It cannot be concealed. (BH) CH12

“This is blasphemy, Dorian!” CH12

 

“It is the face of my soul.” CH13

“Christ! what a thing I must have worshipped! It has the eyes of a devil.” CH13

You have done enough evil in your life. My God! Don’t you see that accursed thing leering at us?” CH13

 

The moon hung low in the sky like a yellow skull. CH16

Memory, like a horrible malady, was eating his soul away. CH16

He wanted to escape from himself. CH16

“There goes the devil’s bargain!” she hiccoughed, in a hoarse voice. CH16

 

A cry of joy broke from his lips. CH18

 

The thing was still loathsome—more loathsome, if possible, than before— CH20

But this murder—was it to dog him all his life? Was he always to be burdened by his past? Was he really to confess? Never. CH20

It had been like conscience to him. Yes, it had been conscience. He would destroy it. CH20

Portrayal and treatment of women

'My dear Dorian, it is quite true. I am analysing women at present, so I ought to know.' CH4

Ordinary women never appeal to one’s imagination. (DG) CH4

 

Besides, women were better suited to bear sorrow than men.  CH7

 

“I am afraid that women appreciate cruelty, downright cruelty, more than anything else. CH8

We have emancipated them, but they remain slaves looking for their masters, all the same. They love being dominated." (LH to DG) CH8

 

“A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.” (LH) CH15

 

“Women are not always allowed a choice,” CH17

Class bondage

The joy of a caged bird was in her voice. CH5

This young man might be rich. If so, marriage should be thought of. CH5

“He is a gentleman,” said the lad sullenly.

“A prince!” she cried musically. “What more do you want?”

“He wants to enslave you.”

“I shudder at the thought of being free.”

“I want you to beware of him.”

“To see him is to worship him; to know him is to trust him.”

“Sibyl, you are mad about him.” CH5 p55-6

 

Beautiful sins, like beautiful things, are the privilege of the rich.” CH6

 

“But think of Dorian’s birth, and position, and wealth. It would be absurd for him to marry so much beneath him.” CH6

 

My love! My love! Prince Charming! Prince of life! CH7

 

no less than nine large-paper copies of the first edition, and had them bound in different colours, (gross consumerism) CH11

 

Of course, you have your position, and your wealth, and all that kind of thing. But position and wealth are not everything.  CH12

 

"Do you think this girl will ever be really content now with any one of her own rank? " (LH to DG) CH19

opium dens CH16

The twisted limbs, the gaping mouths, the staring lustreless eyes, fascinated him.

 

A cold rain began to fall, and the blurred street-lamps looked ghastly in the dripping mist. 

 

There were opium dens where one could buy oblivion, dens of horror where the memory of old sins could be destroyed by the madness of sins that were new.

 

The moon hung low in the sky like a yellow skull. 

 

the streets like the black web of some sprawling spider

post-murdering Basil CH14

The sky was bright, and there was a genial warmth in the air. It was almost like a morning in May.

 He looked like a boy who had been tired out with play, or study.

 

as though he had been lost in some delightful dream.

The dead man was still sitting there, too, and in the sunlight now. How horrible that was! Such hideous things were for the darkness, not for the day.

the old schoolroom CH11(?)

had been specially built by the last Lord Kelso for the use of the little grandson whom, … he had always hated and desired to keep at a distance.

 

He recalled the stainless purity of his boyish life, and it seemed horrible to him that it was here the fatal portrait was to be hidden away. 

 

Upon the walls of the lonely locked room where he had spent so much of his boyhood, … the terrible portrait whose changing features showed him the real degradation of his life (CH11)

Dorian Gray

Why, my dear Basil, he is a Narcissus,' CH1

 

All the candour of youth was there, as well as youth's passionate purity. One felt that he had kept himself unspotted from the world.' CH2

• Purity, virtue

 

You were the most unspoiled creature in the whole world. Now, I don’t know what has come over you.  (BH to DG) CH9

 

For years, Dorian Gray could not free himself from the influence of this book. CH11

Dorian Gray had been poisoned by a book.  CH11

 

Why is your friendship so fatal to young men? CH12

“This is blasphemy, Dorian!” CH12

 

 suddenly an uncontrollable feeling of hatred for Basil Hallward came over him CH13

The mad passions of a hunted animal stirred within him CH13

 

He looked like a boy who had been tired out with play, or study. CH14

 as though he had been lost in some delightful dream. CH14

 

The hideous hunger for opium began to gnaw at him. CH15

Memory, like a horrible malady, was eating his soul away. CH15

He wanted to escape from himself. CH15

“There goes the devil’s bargain!” CH15

 

He was withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage. CH20

Lord Henry

'You never say a moral thing, and you never do a wrong thing. Your cynicism is simply a pose.' (BH to LH)  CH1

 

'He has a very bad influence over all his friends, with the single exception of myself.' CH2

• Manipulative, corruptive

'And he had such a beautiful voice.' (DG about LH) CH2

 

 You have a curious influence over me. (DG to LH) CH3

Basil Hallward

'I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of my own soul.' (BH about portrait) CH1

'As long as I live, the personality of Dorian Gray will dominate me.' CH1

'it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself.' CH1

• (BH about meeting 'someone whose mere personality was so fascinating')

• Vampiric

 

The painter’s absurd fits of jealousy, his wild devotion, his extravagant panegyrics, his curious reticences CH9

 

There seemed to him to be something tragic in a friendship so coloured by romance. CH9

Sibyl Vane

She was the loveliest thing I had ever seen in my life. You said to me once that pathos left you unmoved, but that beauty, mere beauty, could fill your eyes with tears. CH4

She is everything to me in life. CH4

There is something of a child about her. CH4

Dorian Gray leaped to his feet, with flushed cheeks and burning eyes. “Harry! Sibyl Vane is sacred!” CH4

 From her little head to her little feet, she is absolutely and entirely divine. CH4

 

 Prince Charming rules life for us now.” CH5

She did not listen. She was free in her prison of passion. Her prince, Prince Charming, was with her. CH5

A rose shook in her blood and shadowed her cheeks. Quick breath parted the petals of her lips. They trembled. Some southern wind of passion swept over her and stirred the dainty folds of her dress. CH5

The joy of a caged bird was in her voice. CH5

 

“Oh, she is better than good—she is beautiful,” CH6

 

she flung herself at his feet and lay there like a trampled flower. CH7

 

The curves of her throat were the curves of a white lily. Her hands seemed to be made of cool ivory. (semantic field of death) CH7

 

There is something of the martyr about her. CH9

James Vane

“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.”

She looked at him in horror. He repeated his words. They cut the air like a dagger. The people round began to gape. A lady standing close to her tittered. CH5

 

Don’t forget that you will have only one child now to look after, and believe me that if this man wrongs my sister, I will find out who he is, track him down, and kill him like a dog. I swear it.” CH5

 

“and Sibyl Vane was my sister. She killed herself. I know it. Her death is at your door. I swore I would kill you in return. CH15

Alan Campbell

that indefinable attraction that Dorian seemed to be able to exercise whenever he wished (what brought him and Allan together) CH14

As he read it, his face became ghastly pale and he fell back in his chair. (Allan) CH14

"Alan Campbell’s suicide." CH19

the portrait

the mask of his shame. CH8

 The portrait was to bear the burden of his shame: that was all. CH8

Once, in boyish mockery of Narcissus, he had kissed, … those painted lips that now smiled so cruelly at him. CH8

 

And yet the thing would still live on. It would be always alive. CH10

the hideousness of age was in store for it. CH10

 the fatal portrait was to be hidden away.  CH10

 

It was some foul parody, some infamous ignoble satire.  CH13

“You told me you had destroyed it.”

“I was wrong. It has destroyed me.” CH13

 It has the eyes of a devil.” CH13

Don’t you see that accursed thing leering at us?” CH13

 

It would kill the past, and when that was dead, he would be free. CH20

It would kill this monstrous soul-life, and without its hideous warnings, he would be at peace. CH20

in the eyes there was a look of cunning and in the mouth the curved wrinkle of the hypocrite.  CH20

It had been like conscience to him. … He would destroy it. CH20