PODG Ch. 7 and 8

Stephen Simmons
Ap English/Mr. George
3/14/10
PODG

"The quivering, ardent sunlight showed him the lines of cruelty round the mouth as clearly as if he had been looking into the mirror after he had done some dreadful thing"(94).

The alteration of Dorian's portrait is something that we are obviously going to see more of and represents Wilde's way of developing Dorians character further. The portrait also represents Dorian's conscience and acts as a "self examination." " The picture, changed or unchanged, would be to him the visible emblem of conscience"(96) Since the beginning of the novel, Dorian has changed drastically, constantly changing his views and principles on life. However, this chapter represents his undecided nature very clearly. In the beginning of the chapter, Dorian is overcome with love and wishes to marry Sibyl, and shortly after wants nothing to do with her because she performed poorly in the theatre. However, after going home and "checking" himself, Dorian decides that it would be in his best interest to marry Sibyl, as he planned to do previously. Unfortunately, this would not have been possible because Sibyl died for which Dorian fest no remorse. The point is that Dorian is very undecided, maybe even to the point of corruption, and now that he is beginning to turn away from Henry and distance himself gradually, despite his lingering influence in Dorian, such uncertainty can not be good.

"What did it matter what happened to the colored image on the canvas? He would be safe. That was everything"(110).

Perhaps I was mistaken, the influence of Lord Henry in Dorian will simply never fade away. Their relationship is like a lobster trap. Dorian represents the lobster, lured in by the pleasurable odor of fish, or in his case, the empowering feeling of obtaining everything, and unable to escape. Lord Henry represents the trap, cleverly luring his victims in with fancy language and promise. Although it may have seemed earlier that Dorian and Harry were growing apart, this is not the case. Dorian is capable of thinking and operating independently as we have seen, but is constantly influenced by Harry into believing that he is not. In correspondence to influence, one main characteristic that should be noted in Dorian in this chapter is selfishness. Although this characteristic was recently adopted by Dorian, I have a feeling that it is here to stay. His goal is to have beauty, wealth, and everything that his heart desires, and as we have learned from Sibyl, he will do anything and accept anything that he needs to in order to achieve those things.