PODG Ch. 9-10

Stephen Simmons-Uvin
Ap English/Mr. George
3/17/10
PODG Ch. 9-10

"When she knew its unreality, she died, as Juliet might have died. She passed again into the sphere of art"(113).

The sphere of art, where all great works come together in one vague genre of masterpieces, and where fiction has no bounds, is constantly referred to in this novel, especially when speaking of Dorian. His carelessness and inability to become an independent human being is what separates Dorian from a fictional world and a world of non-fiction. There have been many examples of "art" in this novel from paintings to books, but one form of "art," the most magnificent and bountiful form of art, has seemed to connect the fictional world with the real world: humans. As I had said previously, art has no bounds and humans are all unique pieces of artwork, and the world is our gallery. Some of us dance, some of us play sports, and some of us create robots and preach to the people every Sunday. We, as humans, are very different from one another, but we all coexist on this one gargantuan mixing tray called earth, where our "world" is separated from that of the literary arts, and from the paintings, and the sculptures. As rational human beings we are able to distinguish a difference between Romeo and Juliet and the real world, and are able to respect plays and paintings for what they are because they will always be plays and paintings. I personally believe that Dorian does not posses the ability to distinguish fiction from real life, and that he is stuck between a collision of the two, which is why he is unable to think like a rational human being and show compassion. "It is the spectator...that art really mirrors,"(2) and Dorian is on messed up guy.

"The mere cadence of the sentences...made him unconscious of the falling day and the creeping shadows"(129).

Henry's influence will simply never pass and it will eat away at Dorian's poor juvenile soul until it consumes him. The introduction of this "yellow book" initially seemed to me like the end of Dorian, seeing that it was given to him by Lord Henry. However, it seems as if Dorian finds great amusement in the "book with no plot," almost as much amusement and excitement that he did in Basil's portrait of Dorian. This also reminded me of the Preface where it states that, "There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book,"(1)which is something that I completely agree with. Then what do we call books that influence its reader, and preach disturbing messages, and contradict what we know to be the very meaning of moral? We call them, influential and persuasive, which are two words that could doom Dorian or instill in him a continuous flame of corruption.