growing older

general points

in order to explore change within both novels

• explores moral decay vs social decay

• supernatural leads to arrested development

• as characters age, they start to exert more control over others (go from being victims to perpetrators)

‘This portrait would be to him the most magical of mirrors’

• 1 → TPDG

• m alliteration introduces supernatural conceit, shifting from realism to gothic fantasy

• subverts expectation of mirrors traditionally reflecting outward appearance

‘monstrous and loathsome’ vs ‘pure, bright, innocent’

• 1→ TPDG

• symbolises dorian’s hidden sins

• dichotomy of outward youth and appearance and his inner corruption as metaphor for moral corruption

‘great white clock’ ‘twenty to nine’

• 1→ TLS

• literary allusion to great expectations

• links Ms Havisham’s desires to stop in time w the Ayres family, clinging onto past life

• both authors use supernatural inanimate objects to emphasise decay

‘scuffed and split at their seams’, ‘cracked steps’, ‘ancient paper was drooping from the walls’

• 1→ TLS

• semantic field of disrepair to symbolise decline of edwardian upperclass

• ageing of HH representative of social decay

• however → waters use visual imagery roots ageing in realism contrasting Wilde’s fantasy deferral of ageing

‘voice like cobwebs’ ‘lace mantilla’ ‘several shawls’, ‘she looked pale

• 1→ TLS

• semantic field of ghostly imagery

• Mrs Ayres presented as stereotypically feminine and delicate to represent edwardian upper class

• gothic imagery emphasises Mrs ayres’ ageing and demise. anachronistic emphasis to present edwardian death

repetition of ‘you are the same’

• 2→ TPDG

• LH’s perception emphasises D’s unnatural change

• D’s stasis is coveted

• ambiguity of verb ‘are’ emphasises lack of emotional development

anaphora of ‘she’

• 2→ TLS

• (she talks, she whispers)

• susan symbolises a pathological grief and maternal arrested development

• gothic ambiguity → is she real or projecting trauma?

• refusal to let spirit of susan go emphasises Mrs Ayres emotional stagnation

• similar to D → both trapped and haunted by past they refuse to let go of (D with vanity and hedonism)

symbolism of acorn

• 2→ TLS

• Dr Faraday’s obsession with ambition symbolises his own arrested development

• cyclical structure → starts with him coveting/ hiding in the house, ends with him walking through same halls

‘I would give everything! yes, there is nothing in the whole world that I would not give! I would give my soul for that!’

• 2 → TPDG

• exclamatory language

• obsession with youth and aestheticism leads to denial of time

• he clings to the belief that beauty and pleasure are the highest goods, and every time he attempts to better himself, he always reverts back and thus has no emotional growth

• his physical beauty allows him to refuse responsibility

Portrait locked away gothic symbolism for lack of development

• 2→ TPDG

• gothic theme of boundaries

• allows him to avoid growth and accountability

• both novels use gothic doubling to present arrested development (D→ external youth + internal decay, F + HH → outsider w decaying aristocracy, S+MA → emotional grief)

‘Why is your friendship so fatal to young men?’

• 3→TPDG

• Basil’s adoption of the interrogative tone emphasises the damage that Dorian is doing to other young men, by influencing and morally corrupting them

• arguably, dorian acts in a way which highlights the underlying desires of hedonism, and references Augustine’s view of the human condition to sin.

‘the only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it’

• 3→TPDG
  paradoxical epigrams characterise LH as an influencing character motivated by hedonism and his amorality

• juxtaposes basil’s idealism, which ultimately influences dorian

• acts as a catalyst for d’s moral corruption

use of first person narration

• 3→ TLS

• as novel develops, you grasp Dr F’s influence

‘drove to the house of Harold Hepton, the Ayres solicitor’, ‘be serious Caroline’

• 3→ TLS

• motif of overstepping emphasises his manipulation and influence on the Ayres’ view of the house

• ultimately emphasises the desparation and sense of entitlement F feels regarding HH, which is ultimately rooted in his ambition to climb the previously rigid social class, which had been enabled due to the labour govt decision to repeal the 1927 trade union act in 1946.

• as growth with house, control over them grows

‘My father was a scoundrel then!, ‘Sibyl has a mother, I had none’

• 3→TPDG:

• exclamatory lang →Mrs Vane is portrayed to have similar struggles as a single mother, concerned for the wellbeing of her family

• establishes Mrs Vane as an orphan in the Victorian era, where unparented children suffered on the fringes of society, and unmarried mothers were considered an affront to morality, often ostracised from society.

‘oddly self-conscious’, ‘uncharacteristic, feminine gesture’

• 3→ TLS

• semantic field of awkward flirtation

• show the dissonance between new-wave feminist women and the nuclear family ideals of post-war English society, where women were pressured into leading domestic lives, forgoing their financial and social freedom come the return of troops from WW2, ultimately hinting that a mother’s desire to marry off her daughter is ill-placed.