ornamental line

The Shadows of Art


"The painted scenes were my world. I knew nothing but shadows,
and I thought them real'" (84).
Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)



Points for Reflection

O. Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) chps 5-8

  1. Lord Henry states that “‘acting . . . is so much more real than life’” (77).  Does what we learn of Mrs. Vane in chapter five suggest that her preoccupation with acting and the stage brings her more in touch with “reality” than her non-acting son?
  2. is Dorian Gray correct about Sibyl Vane—is she always inhabiting another character and never quite herself (54)? Does she live in a world of fantasy?
  3. do Lord Henry’s cynical comments about women dovetail with or deviate from his general attitude towards love?
  4. does it surprise you that the author of "The Happy Prince" also wrote The Picture of Dorian Gray? What attitude towards philanthropy is Lord Henry advancing thus far?
  5. whose perspective on love, women, and marriage carries the most authority within this novel?  Can anyone’s ideas be dismissed as invalid because misogynistic or romantic, sexist or naïve?  Consider the ideas of Lord Henry Wotton, Basil Hallward, Dorian Gray, Sybil Vane, and the narrator.
  6. why is Sybil unable to act well anymore?  What do her words suggest about the relationship between Art and love?
  7. does the atmospheric beauty characterizing Wilde’s description of London in early morning (86-87) prepare us, tonally, for the revelation that confronts Dorian when he turns into bedroom?
  8. what about Dorian’s current lifestyle—his living quarters—bears witness to the influence of Lord Henry on his life?
  9. trace the fluctuation of Dorian’s emotions across chapter eight, with close attention to the verbs used by the narrator to describe Dorian’s changing affect—both at the intersections of Dorian’s dialogue with Lord Henry, and during the interior monologues that precede and follow Lord Henry’s visit (92-103).  What force ultimately has the strongest influences on Dorian’s state of mind and heart?
  10. do you find Lord Henry’s continuous animadversions against women to be misogynistic and sexist, or comic?
  11. does Wilde configure the soul on a relatively static quantity akin to one's personality, or as a malleable substance that both circumstances and free will can alter?


young woman draoped in white with a bleu cloak descends stairs and approaches a room filled with garments
The Property Room (1879)
Arthur Hughes

Dr. Paul Marchbanks
pmarchba@calpoly.edu