For Friday: Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chs.6-11

John Singer Sargent, Repose (1911)

REMEMBER: No class on Wednesday (I'll be out of town)

Read the next few chapters, through Chapter 11, and consider some of the following questions--and this time, we will have an in-class response!

* Note how "eyes" are discussed or mentioned in the book; why are eyes so significant in a book about art and appearances?

* How is Basil contrasted with Lord Henry? What makes Basil more "good" and why does Dorian respect him more--even as he admits, he has learned much more from Lord Henry?

* What does Lord Henry meant when he says "don't waste your tears over Sybil Vane. She was less real than they are?" (meaning Juliet, Rosalind, etc.)

* Why did Sybil disappoint Dorian and destroy his love? What ideal did she fail to live up to? And how, in her death, did she restore that ideal?

* Why does Sybil perform so badly in the play? What is her ideal?

* How does Wilde indulge in many of the ideas of race and class that we saw in Stevenson's Olalla? Do you feel he is mocking these conventions--or playing into them?

* Why are secrets important in this novel just as they were in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? Who and what is being protected?

Comments

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