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The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890-1)

Picture
T     The Picture of Dorian Gray
A     Oscar Wilde
G     Novel, Gothic horror, Comedy of Manners


The Full Text:
1.
 the-picture-of-dorian-gray.pdf
2. Lit2Go.(https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/113/the-picture-of-dorian-gray/)

Sparknotes: 

https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/doriangray/facts/

​
What is Gothic Literature? PowerPoint: gothic_literature.pptx

The Victorian Era: 

https://www.history.org.uk/primary/resource/3871/victorian-britain-a-brief-history

Victorian Morality: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_morality

                                                           The Life and Legacy of the Author
​

Oscar Wilde, in full Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde (1854-1900), was an Irish wit, poet, dramatist, and novelist. While The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) is the only novel Wilde wrote, he also penned such witty plays as Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). He is often celebrated as the figurehead of the late 19th-century Aesthetic movement that argued art should serve not morality but beauty. This literary and artistic movement is also known as the art for art’s sake movement. However, he was also vilified for his homosexual relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas and was imprisoned from 1895 to 1897. His artistic aspiration and espousal of decadent life style further aided his downfall.  

In May 1897, upon his release from prison, Wilde went to France, hoping to reclaim himself as a writer. However, Whilde managed to complete only one work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), a poignant indictment of brutal injustice and abysmal conditions of the prison. Despite constant financial problems, he maintained, as George Bernard Shaw said, “an unconquerable gaiety of soul” that sustained him until the last day of his life. He died suddenly of acute meningitis brought on by an ear infection. In his semiconscious final moments, he was received into the Roman Catholic Church, which he had long admired.
​
Many Victorian authors and readers were fascinated with Gothic horror and the supernatural. For example, both Emily and Charlotte Brontë melded the elements of the supernatural with their narratives in Wuthering Heights (1847) and Jane Eyre (1847).In addition, shortly before Wilde wrote The Picture of Dorian Gray, a Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson wrote a very enduring Gothic novella about dissociative identity disorder: Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886). Wilde blends Gothic elements and split personality issues in The Picture of Dorian Gray in order to challenge Victorian hypocrisy and at the same time to espouse the aesthetic movement. 

To say Oscar Wilde is a controversial figure is a gross understatement: there had been no persona like Oscar Wilde, and after him, there are only pallid imitations of him. Wilde burnt his life's candle to provide a literary antidote for Victorian hypocrisy. 
​ ​

Chapter 1: The Copy of Beauty 
Time: summer, 1890
​Space: Basil Hallward's atelier; London, England 

 
1. Why does Wilde introduce Dorian Gray as a portrait before introducing him as a person?
 
2. The plot development of this novel is often deliberately delayed. Why do you think Wilde slows down the present rather than scurries to the future? 
 
3. Even such a pious poet as John Milton could not resist lionizing his Lucifer while writing Paradise Lost. In The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wilde endows Lord Henry Wotton, the devil's darling, with scintillating allure and wry epigrams. Why do you think some writers glorify their archenemies? 

​(an epigram is a concise, clever, often paradoxical statement).  
 
Wilde Syntax:
dorian_gray_exposition.pdf
​

Chapter 2: DG's Narcissistic Awakening 
Setting: Basil Hallward's atelier
​
1. Complete the grammar X-ray vision exercise: 
​grammar_x-ray_picture_of_dorian_gray_chapter_2.docx

2. What does Basil Hallward expect from his  relationship with Dorian Gray? In comparison, what does Henry Wotton desire from the young man?

3. Is it possible for the protagonist to make a Faustian bargain and escape any repercussions?
​
(Note: Faust, a folkloric character in a classic German legend, is a scholar who is highly accomplished yet becomes discontented with his life and its limitations. Thus, he makes a pact with the Devil, Mephistopheles, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Faust and the adjective “Faustian” imply a situation in which an ambitious person surrenders moral integrity in order to achieve power and success. Its moral lies in the fact that Faustus is unable to repent and is rent into pieces at his deathbed.) ​

Teacher sample of Grammar X-ray Vision: 
teacher_analysis_grammar_x-ray_picture_of_dorian_gray_chapter_2.docx

Chapter 3: ​​Lord Henry Wins over Dorian Gray
Setting: Lord Fermor's place; Lady Agatha's mansion
Plot: ​Lord Henry traces Dorian Gray’s parentage and idolizes Dorian Gray as the offspring of “Love and Death”; Society dinner at Lady Agatha's (a slice of comedy of manners)

 
Lord Fermor appears only once in this novel. What role does he play in this chapter?

How does Lord Henry manipulate the Duchess? Why does the narrator compare him to the Pied Piper of Hamelin? (see https://www.drkaylee.us/cultural-capital.html)

Lord Henry thoroughly dazzles his fellow British nobles. Other than narcissistic self-interest, what or who is his ulterior motive in charming the crowd in such a way? 

Close reading exercise: 
close_reading_exercise_dorian_dray_chapter_3.docx

  

Chapter 4: "Prince Charming" and an Actress 
​Setting: a month later; Lord Henry Wotton's mansion
Plot: ​Dorian Gray  meets Lady Wotton; confides his romantic infatuation to Lord Wotton; informs his engagement to Sibyl Vane


What is the narrator's attitude toward Lady Wotton? Incorporate at least three textual examples in your response.

How did Dorian Gray happen to meet Sibyl Vane? What aspects of the actress impassion Dorian? What do you predict about this impetuous romance? 

How does Lord Henry trivialize Dorian's idealism about romance and women? 

Chapter 5
Setting: the Vane household and its vicinity

What has Mrs. Vane in her "shallow secret nature" (46) been hiding from her son?

In what ways does Mrs. Vane's life give an ominous warning to Sibyl's romance? 

What does James "Jim" Vane pledge to do? And what does this foreshadow for Sibyl's future?
 

How does the narrator portray old women such as Victoria Wotton and Mrs. Vane? How is Sibyl Vane different from these old and/or married women? 

Chapter 6
Setting: the same evening as in Chapter 5; a private dining room at the Bristol

Is marriage a sacrament or contract of convenience? 

How does Lord Henry espouse his hedonistic philosophy?

In what ways does Lord Henry undermine Basal Hallward's moralistic authority? ​

Characterization Prompt:
excerpt_dorian_gray_chapter_6.docx
Be mindful in incorporating textual evidence and providing citations
.


Chapter 7
Setting: Theater--dark alleys in London--Dorian's dwelling

Why does Dorian spurn Sibyl Vane and break off his engagement? How does Dorian's disrespect of love and honor affect his morality? And how does this event affect his portrait? 
 
  
Analyze Dorian Gray’s relationship with his portrait: Does the painting reflect Dorian's morality? Or does it tempt Dorian to disregard moral accountability? 

Close Reading Exercise: dorian_versus_the_painting.docx


Chapter 8
Setting: Dorian's residence; the next afternoon

Why do you think the painting did not regain its original beauty even after Dorian claims he will marry Sibyl?

Lord Henry uses his “forked tongue” in whitewashing Dorian's conscience. After annotating the four select paragraphs (sleight_of_the_tongue.docx), analyze how Lord Henry plays on Dorian's egotism and succeeds in freeing him from any form of moral accountability.


After carefully annotating the select paragraphs (road_to_perdition.docx), discuss Dorian's attitude toward the painting and predict how this critical moment may affect Dorian's future.  

Chapter 9
Basil comes for solace and moral support--yet, alas, good is often too slow and too late because it goes uphill (while evil is fast because it goes downhill). 
First, Basil arrives too late. To make it even worse, there is a compromising secret that Basil confides in Dorian. How does this confidence affect their friendship?  
Close reading: dorian_gray_chapter_9.docx

Chapter 10
Dorian ensconces his secrets (the portrait and his involvement in Sibyl's suicide) safely away.
Illustrate the location and mood of the schoolroom using more than three selections of detail. 

What is the difference in outlook in "liking" and "being fascinated"? 
Close reading: dorian_gray_chapter_10.docx

Chapter 11
The intervening 18 years that Dorian spends in ennui and emptiness

Chapter 12
18 years later (the eve of Dorian's 38th birthday)
Basil Hallward confronts Dorian about his social reputation. ​
Close reading: dorian_gray_chapter_12.docx

Chapter 13
The wee hours of Dorian's birthday; the secret attic of Dorian's mansion

Why do you think Dorian kills his former friend? 

Close reading: dorian_gray_chapter_13.docx

Chapter 14
Dorian's birthday; Alan Campbell is summoned to Dorian's house
The air of ignominy and intrigue thickens because the scandalous information Dorian uses in blackmailing Alan Campbell goes unspecified. Similarly, by glossing over the scientific procedure of vaporizing the body, the author accentuates the horror and loathing that Dorian's actions evoke in the reader.

Dorian destroys not only Basil Hallward but also Alan Campbell. What are the specific crimes Dorian commits against Alan Campbell? 
 
​Close reading: dorian_gray_chapter_14.docx

Chapter 15
Setting: the same evening after the body is vaporized; a society dinner at Lady Narborough.
a novel of manners--"if you are not at the table, you are on the table"; Dorian exhibits defensive aggression toward Lord Henry and craves for opium-induced oblivion

In what ways does the author satirize the mores of the time during the dinner? What do you think the author imply by "
Fin de siècle"( meaning the end of the century in French)? 

Chapter 16
Setting: a midnight journey to a house of ill repute at a seaport
Dorian seeks a cover of anonymity in an opium den in vain 
  
Dorian Gray was eager to make a Faustian bargain if it were to give him an eternal youth and beauty; however, eighteen years later, Dorian seeks the cover of darkness and is drawn to the stimulation that sin and squalor give him. How does the author's diction establish Dorian's descent into shame and secrecy in the following passage: dorian_gray_chapter_16.docx? 
 
How do the specters of the past--Adrian Singleton, the "mad cat," and James Vane--start to haunt Dorian in this chapter? 

Chapter 17: Hedonistic Rechristening  
Setting: within the conservatory in Shelby Royal (Dorian's country house)
A slice of novel of manners
​Close reading: dorian_gray_chapter_17.docx

Chapter 18: Devil's Darling
Setting: a hunting day in Shelby Royal

Chapter 19: The Last Confessional 
Setting: the next spring in Lord Henry's house
Close reading: dorian_gray_chapter_19.docx​

Chapter 20: Poetic Justice 
the denouement 

Setting: late night in Dorian Gray's mansion
The resolution: dorian_gray_chapter_20.docx
​

 A 300-word Persuasive Essay Prompt:
Charles Simmons once said, “Live only for today, and you ruin tomorrow.” Do you agree with the statement?  Present an explicit statement of your opinion on this topic and provide at least two examples from The Picture of Dorian Gray that support your position. 

Picture
​AP Essay Prompts
A
Many works of literature contain a character who intentionally deceives others. The character’s dishonesty may be intended either to help or to hurt. Such a character, for example, may choose to mislead others for personal safety, to spare someone’s feelings, or to carry out a crime. Choose a novel or play in which a character deceives others. Then, in a well-written essay, analyze the motives for that character’s deception and discuss how the deception contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole. 


B
It has often been said that what we value can be determined only by what we sacrifice. Consider how this statement applies to a character from a novel or play. Select a character that has deliberately sacrificed, surrendered, or forfeited something in a way that highlights that character’s values. Then write a well-organized essay in which you analyze how the particular sacrifice illuminates the character’s values and provides a deeper understanding of the meaning of the work as a whole. 

AP Sample Essays: student_sample_essays.pdf


The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)

A Comedy of Manners
Why do Cecily and Gwendolen insist her fiancé's name should be Ernest?
What social convention or custom does the play satirize? 
To what extent does the playwright challenge and satirize the Victorian double standards and gender expectations?
Identify foreshadowing devices.
What is the dramatic device that resolves the impasse in Act 3? 
Research what DEUS EX MACHINA is and discuss the denouement of the play using this concept. 

Act 1
tiobe_act_1.pdf

Act 2
tiobe_act_2.pdf

Act 3
tiobe_act_3.pdf

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