Blog 4: Do Looks Make You Beautiful?

Does the portrait represent that beauty is everything?  Basil fell in love with how his painting of Dorian turned out. I know some attractive people who are wicked and ugly on the inside just like Dorian. Did the narrator make it a point to show that just because you are good looking does not mean you are beautiful/handsome? Vanity, mortality, and romance was portrayed in this novel. Dorian was a young rich man. Dorian saw himself as a handsome man who did the right thing. Once Dorian knew he could do wrong and he was not aging it was like a test for him. Dorian no longer cared who he hurt. Dorian was portraying himself to be a good man. After Harry cast his speech about how great it would be to always be young and beautiful. Dorian mirroring an image into a portrait of himself. He saw his true reflection of how evil and horrible he has become. 

Are you who you say you are? Are you who you portray yourself to be? Why would Sibyl kill herself? Why would one want to hurt oneself over love? Sibyl was depressed, she was a poor pretty woman who was making her life dream of an actress.  Sibyl felt like her career was ending once she knew how it felt to be in love. The only thing she knew was she was in love and she exposed herself to Dorian and he ended their relationship. Dorian realized he F$%^ up and wanted to make amends. The picture did not improve and he could not bear to look at how ugly he had become and he stabbed the portrait not knowing he would end himself. Dorian laid dead on the floor when his servants found him.

At first I thought Dorian Gray was going to live forever. Dorian accomplished a lot in his life. Dorian also made conscious decisions which he did not see reflected in his portrait when he did wrong. He only did the right thing to see if his reflected portrait would improve, but because he did it for him and not the girl he stayed ugly.

Dorian destroyed his beauty when he thought his outer beauty was what mattered most. Dorian’s beautiful soul was placed in his portrait as a handsome young man. Dorian Gray was influenced by Harry who had Dorian concerned about his beauty. Dorian wished for himself not to grow old he traded his soul to the devil. “How sad it is!” murmured Dorian Gray with his eyes still fixed upon his own portrait. “How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June…. If it were only the other way! 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 soul for that!” (Wilde 9)  My mom My mom has always told me, “Be careful what you wish for, because you might just get it. Dorian wished for something, but did he mean it. Who would really want to live forever young? 

Dorian was drawn to evil. When Dorian visits his portrait he notices the aging and changes, but he is still untouched. Was Dorian untouched? Dorian wished to be young, did he get what he really wanted? To end up mean and alone. His love killed herself from his harsh break up that she no longer thinks she has that same skill, because she can not act in love when she’s actually in love. She can not pretend to observe her colleagues anymore when she knows the truth. Dorian soon regretted what he did and went to apologize. That’s when Harry informed Dorian.. Sibyl poisoned herself after a failed performance and telling Dorian she  Dorian claimed he did not want to be with her anymore, because he was in love with her acting. His portrait became a reflection of his own wrong behavior. Again he became harsh looking to view the next time he visited his painting. Dorian did not want to hear what Basil had to say about the painting and Dorian killed him. 

The Authorial Audience would be for someone who thinks beauty is everything. Someone who wants to be mean and incontrol. Dorian said, “I am less to you than your ivory Hermes or your silver Fuan. You will like them always. How long will you like me? Till I have my first wrinkle, I suppose.” (Wilde 9) When you love someone sometimes you do not have to like them. No person is perfect. Every relationship will vary. Life changes, arguments happen, but you do not have to like someone to love them. My mom tells me often she does not like how I treat her. She will tell me she doesn’t like me today, but she loves me.  I compared this book in the beginning to a vampire book, because in the book most vampires are very knowledgeable, because they have lived so long they are skilled in a lot of different things. Dorian thought because he was good looking it didn’t matter what he did like his good looks would let him get away with wrong doing.