Welcome back everyone! It seems like we didn’t waste any time getting back into the swing of things. I felt like I was a little thrown off by this book after all the novels that we have read previously. Not only was the style of writing quite different, but also I felt like I was waiting throughout the whole novel for some sort of indication that Stephen was gay! I was expecting him to fall for one of the boys in his class or even the priest, after the last couple of our novels that we read centering on homosexuality it was strange to have a main character that was straight again. I don’t know about the rest of you, but that through me off. Anyways, to the analyzing...
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man can be seem in many ways as James Joyce’s autobiography. The similarities between Stephen and Joyce are quite obvious in that they both were born and raised in Ireland, both had a father with many debts and continual financial instability and both even went to the same school, Clongowes Wood College, where they both suffered from sicknesses. On a more personal level both men felt isolated in the company of their classmates, never really fitting in, and always feeling as though they were alone. Making a faux autobiography about his life, Joyce was able to place his views on politics and religion into the story, which were not only very prevalent in Ireland at the time, but were also very important in his family. Joyce was also able to incorporate his beliefs on the importance of art and its ability to form people’s identities and shape their thoughts, which was very different from the message that Wilde was trying to get across in The Picture of Dorian Gray, believing in “art for art’s sake.”
One of the main themes that I found to be prevalent throughout the novel pertained to the influence that the females in the story had over Stephen’s actions and thoughts throughout his life. Whether it was the Virgin Mary, prostitutes, Emma, or his mother, the women were placed in a superior standpoint in his life, but as the story progresses and Stephen grows, we begin to see how their influence on him changes.
While towards the beginning of his life the Virgin Mary was seen by Stephen as his main object of devotion, believing “The glories of Mary held his soul captive,” (112) towards the end of the story Stephen’s view of her dramatically changes and she seems to have lost the control that she once had over him. “He crossed the bridge over the stream of the Tolka and turned his eyes coldly for an instant towards the faded blue shrine of the Blessed Virgin…” (175) This change in Stephen marks the moment he turns his back on the church and toward the world. Once the struggle between religion and art is over, Stephen’s view of women begins to gradually change, finding that prostitutes no longer entice him and his mother no longer pushes him. Women that he once viewed as idealized superior beings he know sees as who they really are, mere human beings just like himself.
I have to admit that one thing about the story that really bothered me took place in the second chapter when Joyce made unannounced leaps in time from present time to the past. I felt like I was getting a mental whiplash from these unexpected time shifts! Although, once I understood what was happening I found it kind of interesting how Joyce toyed with the approach of portraying Stephen’s stream of consciousness. This method of showing how Stephen really thought made the whole experience of seeing things through his perspective more believable, while also helping the reader to understand the fact that we are reading from the point of view of Stephen’s consciousness, Stephen’s misperceptions, and not from the point of view of an objective reality.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
“The Gay Artist as Tragic Hero in The Picture of Dorian Gray” Literary Criticism
“To have a capacity for passion and not to realize it, is to make oneself incomplete and limited.” (67) This statement made by Oscar Wilde in his essay “The Critic as Artist” is one by which many can be characterized in the novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” but to none so much as to the character of Basil Hallward. Throughout “The Gay Artist as Tragic Hero in The Picture of Dorian Gray” the author, Henry M. Alley, brings to light the passion and struggles behind whom many believe to be ‘the principle hero’ of the story, Basil Hallward.
“We take pleasure in the beauty of a statue, shall not then the living fill us with delight?”(2) This quote made by Aristotle does an excellent job of putting into words the internal struggle that Hallward faces until his untimely death. Hallward was indecisive on whether or not he should experience life, being too caught up in the perfect world of art. “Basil has no romances, no loves, no intimate relationships at all. When he dies, his absence is noted by his many friends but not grieved. His associations with the natural, with the web of life, and with vitality itself are in the context of art, not experience.” (4) This passage makes it clear that Hallward’s inexperience in life, resulting from his homophobia, led to a life of little consequence. “The choice of silence and an impossible love is Hallward’s own.” (5) Hiding behind his art and letting his homophobia control his life, there is no one to blame for Hallward’s tragic life but himself.
In Dorian’s final act of stabbing the portrait, a manifestation of his own internalized homophobia; he unwittingly ended up stabbing himself, becoming his own nemesis and ending his own life. In an act of poetic justice the corruption that embodied Dorian was killed and the beauty of the portrait was restored to life. “Hallward emerges again as the envisioner of that depicted youth and perfection, and so his manifestation of homoerotic love stands vindicated at the end, even while the accent must also fall upon his tragic inability to experience it carnally in his own life, or transcend his own worship of external beauty.” (6)
Both stabbings executed by Dorian were done out of his own internal homophobia. While the first stabbing resulted in the death of the man who loved him, the second stabbing resulted in the resurrection of the portrait to its original beauty. By restoring the beauty to the portrait, Dorian inadvertently restored Hallward’s expression of ‘homoerotic love.’ This act of poetic justice is bittersweet however when looking back on the talented artist’s tragic existence, which stemmed from what some believed to be his ‘hamartia’ or character flaw of being a sensitive gay man, whom through his own homophobia was unable to experience life outside of his art. “He is killed while he is still in the midst of his denial.” (6)
A claim made in the essay by Liebman stated, "The moral order that Basil believes in does not exist. At the end of Dorian Gray, the stage is strewn with the bodies of the innocent" (305). Who does Liebman believe to be innocent? Does he believe Dorian to be innocent? I understand that he mean to incorporate Sybil Vane, Basil Hallward, and Alan Campbell into the bodies of the innocent scattered across the stage, but Dorian is the one to die in the final scene. If he does mean to incorporate Dorian into the group of ‘innocent’ I am curious as to on what grounds he has for calling Dorian innocent, because from what I understand of the book Dorian could be said to be one of the main villains in the story.
When is comes to the question of whether or not Basil Hallward should be considered the hero of the novel, I find myself in agreement with Alley. Although I found that the authors reasoning behind calling Hallward ‘the principle hero’ was based primarily around his struggle with his identity as a gay man, I do agree that his intentions throughout the novel were to protect Dorian and ultimately save him from the corruption of his soul. This fact was clear to Dorian who believed that after Sybil’s death “Basil would have helped him to resist Lord Henry’s influence, and the still more poisonous influences that came from his own temperament. The love that he bore him – for it was really love – had nothing in it that was not noble and intellectual. It was not that mere physical admiration of beauty that is born of the senses, and that dies when the senses tire.” (P. 101)
One question that I have for Alley is in regards to a statement made in his essay, “Driven forward by his desire to consummate his love for Dorian, Hallward, in an equal and opposite way, pulls back, put off by the creatures which "are subject to generation and decay." (2) This statement directly contradicts the aforementioned passage from the novel in which it states that Hallward was truly in love with Dorian and not merely attracted to his beauty. If my understanding of the passage from the novel is correct, how can Hallward be completely in love with Dorian for more than his looks, while still aversive to Dorian’s eventual deterioration in beauty?
“Like the painter himself, Wilde began to hide away from the world the very sort of homoeroticism he sought to share with it.” (7) Hallward and Wilde were very much alike in the fact that they both tried to hide from the world their homosexuality. Both the painter and the writer were comparable in how they expressed their true feelings, through their art, which was probably the basis for their strong beliefs in aesthetics. Unfortunately their belief in aestheticism was the main factor in both their downfalls. In the case of Hallward, “Aesthetics put him into the danger zone of Dorian’s rage but not far enough to allow himself to come to a realization and seek refuge.” (6) Hallward’s love for Dorian and his beauty blinded him from Dorian’s true identity, leading to his death by the hands of Dorian. While, in the case of Wilde, “his plummet into penury, imprisonment, and isolation ultimately creates a ruin far more heartbreaking than Dorian’s murder of himself and the lovely and idealistic Hallward.” (7) Wilde’s novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray” was one of the main pieces of evident used against him in his trial, resulting in his imprisonment. The parallels in the tragic ends to both Hallward’s and Wilde’s life give a higher meaning to a statement Wilde made about Hallward and himself, “Hallward is what I think I am.” (3)
Work Cited:
• Henry M. Alley, "The Gay Artist as Tragic Hero in The Picture of Dorian Gray"
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 11.2 (2009)
• Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” New York (2006)
• Wilde, Oscar. "The Critic as Artist." The Portable Wilde. Ed. Richard Aldington and Stanley Weintraub. New York: Penguin,
1981. 51-137.
• Aristotle. Aristotle on the Art of Fiction: An English Translation of Aristotle's Poetics. Ed. L.J. Potts. Cambridge: Cambridge
UP, 1968.
“We take pleasure in the beauty of a statue, shall not then the living fill us with delight?”(2) This quote made by Aristotle does an excellent job of putting into words the internal struggle that Hallward faces until his untimely death. Hallward was indecisive on whether or not he should experience life, being too caught up in the perfect world of art. “Basil has no romances, no loves, no intimate relationships at all. When he dies, his absence is noted by his many friends but not grieved. His associations with the natural, with the web of life, and with vitality itself are in the context of art, not experience.” (4) This passage makes it clear that Hallward’s inexperience in life, resulting from his homophobia, led to a life of little consequence. “The choice of silence and an impossible love is Hallward’s own.” (5) Hiding behind his art and letting his homophobia control his life, there is no one to blame for Hallward’s tragic life but himself.
In Dorian’s final act of stabbing the portrait, a manifestation of his own internalized homophobia; he unwittingly ended up stabbing himself, becoming his own nemesis and ending his own life. In an act of poetic justice the corruption that embodied Dorian was killed and the beauty of the portrait was restored to life. “Hallward emerges again as the envisioner of that depicted youth and perfection, and so his manifestation of homoerotic love stands vindicated at the end, even while the accent must also fall upon his tragic inability to experience it carnally in his own life, or transcend his own worship of external beauty.” (6)
Both stabbings executed by Dorian were done out of his own internal homophobia. While the first stabbing resulted in the death of the man who loved him, the second stabbing resulted in the resurrection of the portrait to its original beauty. By restoring the beauty to the portrait, Dorian inadvertently restored Hallward’s expression of ‘homoerotic love.’ This act of poetic justice is bittersweet however when looking back on the talented artist’s tragic existence, which stemmed from what some believed to be his ‘hamartia’ or character flaw of being a sensitive gay man, whom through his own homophobia was unable to experience life outside of his art. “He is killed while he is still in the midst of his denial.” (6)
A claim made in the essay by Liebman stated, "The moral order that Basil believes in does not exist. At the end of Dorian Gray, the stage is strewn with the bodies of the innocent" (305). Who does Liebman believe to be innocent? Does he believe Dorian to be innocent? I understand that he mean to incorporate Sybil Vane, Basil Hallward, and Alan Campbell into the bodies of the innocent scattered across the stage, but Dorian is the one to die in the final scene. If he does mean to incorporate Dorian into the group of ‘innocent’ I am curious as to on what grounds he has for calling Dorian innocent, because from what I understand of the book Dorian could be said to be one of the main villains in the story.
When is comes to the question of whether or not Basil Hallward should be considered the hero of the novel, I find myself in agreement with Alley. Although I found that the authors reasoning behind calling Hallward ‘the principle hero’ was based primarily around his struggle with his identity as a gay man, I do agree that his intentions throughout the novel were to protect Dorian and ultimately save him from the corruption of his soul. This fact was clear to Dorian who believed that after Sybil’s death “Basil would have helped him to resist Lord Henry’s influence, and the still more poisonous influences that came from his own temperament. The love that he bore him – for it was really love – had nothing in it that was not noble and intellectual. It was not that mere physical admiration of beauty that is born of the senses, and that dies when the senses tire.” (P. 101)
One question that I have for Alley is in regards to a statement made in his essay, “Driven forward by his desire to consummate his love for Dorian, Hallward, in an equal and opposite way, pulls back, put off by the creatures which "are subject to generation and decay." (2) This statement directly contradicts the aforementioned passage from the novel in which it states that Hallward was truly in love with Dorian and not merely attracted to his beauty. If my understanding of the passage from the novel is correct, how can Hallward be completely in love with Dorian for more than his looks, while still aversive to Dorian’s eventual deterioration in beauty?
“Like the painter himself, Wilde began to hide away from the world the very sort of homoeroticism he sought to share with it.” (7) Hallward and Wilde were very much alike in the fact that they both tried to hide from the world their homosexuality. Both the painter and the writer were comparable in how they expressed their true feelings, through their art, which was probably the basis for their strong beliefs in aesthetics. Unfortunately their belief in aestheticism was the main factor in both their downfalls. In the case of Hallward, “Aesthetics put him into the danger zone of Dorian’s rage but not far enough to allow himself to come to a realization and seek refuge.” (6) Hallward’s love for Dorian and his beauty blinded him from Dorian’s true identity, leading to his death by the hands of Dorian. While, in the case of Wilde, “his plummet into penury, imprisonment, and isolation ultimately creates a ruin far more heartbreaking than Dorian’s murder of himself and the lovely and idealistic Hallward.” (7) Wilde’s novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray” was one of the main pieces of evident used against him in his trial, resulting in his imprisonment. The parallels in the tragic ends to both Hallward’s and Wilde’s life give a higher meaning to a statement Wilde made about Hallward and himself, “Hallward is what I think I am.” (3)
Work Cited:
• Henry M. Alley, "The Gay Artist as Tragic Hero in The Picture of Dorian Gray"
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 11.2 (2009)
• Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” New York (2006)
• Wilde, Oscar. "The Critic as Artist." The Portable Wilde. Ed. Richard Aldington and Stanley Weintraub. New York: Penguin,
1981. 51-137.
• Aristotle. Aristotle on the Art of Fiction: An English Translation of Aristotle's Poetics. Ed. L.J. Potts. Cambridge: Cambridge
UP, 1968.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Sibyl Vane And Her Prince Charming From Hell
Wow! I think that we can add Oscar Wilde to the “He-Man Woman Haters Club” (The Little Rascals reference). I am not going to lie I was a little offended by some of the ways in which he both spoke about and portrayed women in the novel. I am not a feminist or anything, but man am I glad to not have been his wife. Talk about a low self-esteem. If you did not know that Oscar Wilde was gay before reading the story then you probably figured it out by the end. Not only was it blatantly obvious in the way that the men in the novel had an almost homoerotic relationship throughout the novel, but also in the way in which Wilde portrayed women. In the novel Oscar Wilde projects his misogynistic views through the character of Lord Henry Wotton. Having prior knowledge of Oscar Wilde’s homosexuality, I was quite shocked to discover that he was married. It is easy to presume that Wilde’s views of women were influenced by his loveless marriage, greatly marred by his homosexuality. Wilde expresses his views of marriage in the statement made by Lord Henry, which said, "married life is merely a habit, a bad habit." (178)
One of the main themes in the story was centered on aestheticism and the belief that art exists for the sake of beauty alone. This theme was introduced into the story through the character of Lord Henry, who upon meeting Dorian Gray used his influence to pollute Dorian’s mind with such beliefs. Dorian’s aesthetic views, adopted from Lord Henry, are first apparent in his relationship with Sibyl Vane. A beautifully gifted actress in a rundown theatre, Sibyl Vane was not the source of Dorian Gray’s love as much as her art and acting were. Dorian mesmerized by her brilliant performances mistakes his love for the actresses work for his love for Sibyl herself. This point was very much apparent when after Dorian finished praising Sibyl’s work and all her different roles, Lord Henry asked Dorian, "When is she Sibyl Vane?" and Dorian replied "Never." (48) This line makes it very clear that it was the roles that she played that Dorian was in love with and not Sibyl herself. If that was not clear enough, when Dorian and his friends go to watch Sibyl’s play after Dorian proposes to her, her dreadful performance leads to Dorian calling off the engagement and wishing never to see her again, stating “Without your art you are nothing.” (75)
The character of Sibyl Vane was a very…well dull one in the novel, but she also happens to play the main female role in the story. Even though she knew nothing about Dorian, not even his name calling him Prince Charming, she claimed to be completely in love with him. This love led her to act horribly in her final play because, as she told Dorian, she preferred real life to art and that her art, her passion, has lost all meaning to her because nothing compared to real love. This going against everything that Dorian believed in, he rejected Sibyl leading her to commit suicide. Sibyl’s ability to throw away her art and her life for a man that she knew nothing about seemed a little overdramatic and ridiculous to me, but then again the author was not exactly trying to portray women in a good light.
Sibyl Vane, while very one-dimensional, played a very important role in the story. Her relationship with Dorian and her ultimate suicide was a key factor in Dorian’s first turn to a life of crime and cruelty. Her death triggers the first change in Dorian’s portrait, revealing to him the consequences of his earlier pledge to give his soul in exchange for eternal youth. Sibyl Vane was Dorian’s last chance for salvation before Lord Henry’s influence completely took him over and led him to a life of sin. “When I am with her, I regret all that you have taught me. I become different from what you have known me to be. I am changed, and the mere touch of Sibyl Vane’s hand makes me forget you and all your wrong, fascinating, poisonous, delightful theories.” (67) While this statement by Dorian was true, it was also quite paradoxical it that his infatuation with Sibyl was based off of what Lord Henry had taught him about aestheticism and his philosophy to place beauty and self-pleasure above consideration for others.
(I didn’t get into the later events of the novel because I didn’t want to spoil the ending for those of you who hadn’t finished the book yet.) ☺
One of the main themes in the story was centered on aestheticism and the belief that art exists for the sake of beauty alone. This theme was introduced into the story through the character of Lord Henry, who upon meeting Dorian Gray used his influence to pollute Dorian’s mind with such beliefs. Dorian’s aesthetic views, adopted from Lord Henry, are first apparent in his relationship with Sibyl Vane. A beautifully gifted actress in a rundown theatre, Sibyl Vane was not the source of Dorian Gray’s love as much as her art and acting were. Dorian mesmerized by her brilliant performances mistakes his love for the actresses work for his love for Sibyl herself. This point was very much apparent when after Dorian finished praising Sibyl’s work and all her different roles, Lord Henry asked Dorian, "When is she Sibyl Vane?" and Dorian replied "Never." (48) This line makes it very clear that it was the roles that she played that Dorian was in love with and not Sibyl herself. If that was not clear enough, when Dorian and his friends go to watch Sibyl’s play after Dorian proposes to her, her dreadful performance leads to Dorian calling off the engagement and wishing never to see her again, stating “Without your art you are nothing.” (75)
The character of Sibyl Vane was a very…well dull one in the novel, but she also happens to play the main female role in the story. Even though she knew nothing about Dorian, not even his name calling him Prince Charming, she claimed to be completely in love with him. This love led her to act horribly in her final play because, as she told Dorian, she preferred real life to art and that her art, her passion, has lost all meaning to her because nothing compared to real love. This going against everything that Dorian believed in, he rejected Sibyl leading her to commit suicide. Sibyl’s ability to throw away her art and her life for a man that she knew nothing about seemed a little overdramatic and ridiculous to me, but then again the author was not exactly trying to portray women in a good light.
Sibyl Vane, while very one-dimensional, played a very important role in the story. Her relationship with Dorian and her ultimate suicide was a key factor in Dorian’s first turn to a life of crime and cruelty. Her death triggers the first change in Dorian’s portrait, revealing to him the consequences of his earlier pledge to give his soul in exchange for eternal youth. Sibyl Vane was Dorian’s last chance for salvation before Lord Henry’s influence completely took him over and led him to a life of sin. “When I am with her, I regret all that you have taught me. I become different from what you have known me to be. I am changed, and the mere touch of Sibyl Vane’s hand makes me forget you and all your wrong, fascinating, poisonous, delightful theories.” (67) While this statement by Dorian was true, it was also quite paradoxical it that his infatuation with Sibyl was based off of what Lord Henry had taught him about aestheticism and his philosophy to place beauty and self-pleasure above consideration for others.
(I didn’t get into the later events of the novel because I didn’t want to spoil the ending for those of you who hadn’t finished the book yet.) ☺
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