Zoe Neff’s Reviews > The Picture of Dorian Gray > Status Update

"He seized [the knife] and stabbed the picture with it. There was a cry, and a crash." Dorian wanted the picture destroyed as it was so horrible to see and be reminded of the terrible sins he's committed, so he stabbed it. I find it so ironic that his last sinful act killed himself, as well as the fact that he didn't have the foresight to predict the consequences of stabbing his own soul. He had beauty, not genius.(F

Dorian has killed Basil, and I'm wondering if this represents Dorian's abandonment of the thought of redemption, as finally the character that had been representing good and purity has been killed by the most evil person in the book. Dorian was offered the chance to redeem himself many times but he never seized it. A part of him wanted to be how he was. (F)

"Is insincerity such a terrible thing? I think not. It is merely a method by which we can multiply our personalities."

I disagree with Lord Henry's postulation here. Sincerity is the basis for truth and morality, and to be sincere truly allows others to trust you. Multiplying your personalities is dishonest and dishonorable in my opinion, and really a mark of someone who doesn't like the person that they are. (F)

"There was the huge Italian cassone, with its fantastically painted panels and its tarnished gilt moldings in which he has so often hidden himself as a boy"

Cassone: an elaborately carved chest
(V)

"Noiselessly, and with silver feet, the shadows crept in from the garden." (F)

"Harry, why is it that I cannot feel this tragedy as much as I want to? I don't think I am heartless."
I do for sure since he basically swore his soul over to the painting so that he could be young and beautiful for the rest of his days. It's no surprise that he doesn't feel the loss of his supposed true love, although I suspect that his falling in love so soon after losing his soul was some commentary from Wilde(I

"...women were better suited to bear sorrow than men. They lived on their emotions. They only thought of their emotions. [...] Lord Henry had told him that, and Lord Henry knew what women were." This is just straight up sexist, and it makes me all the more furious at Lord Henry for even existing. Dorian is being corrupted, slowly but surely, and his portrait will take the brunt of the physical changes. (P,F)

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

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/69610/...

This photo illustrates how I imagine the first change in the painting to be. (V)

"There is always something infinitely mean about other people's tragedies" (F)

"If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that, for that, I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my own soul for that!" I think that this actually worked, that Dorian traded his soul for eternal life (P)