Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Reading Comments for The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde



Like Jekyll and Hyde, The Picture of Dorian Gray differed from what I expected based on movie versions I had seen.

Like many of the books written during this time period, the viewpoint wanders considerably. The story starts in the viewpoint of the painter, Basil Hallward. It changes to the viewpoint of a friend of Basil’s, Lord Henry, and finally we see the story through the eyes of Dorian Gray. After that, Wilde head-hops and changes point of view, sometimes within a paragraph.

Film versions tend to take the viewpoint of the main character and lessen the male-centric orientation, as did the film versions of Jekyll and Hyde.

As far as gender issues go, we know that Oscar Wilde was gay and we are now aware that his perspective colors the story. Obviously, readers of the time didn’t pick up on the homoerotic overtones in this book, because if they had it surely would have been banned.

Granted, the gentlemen of that time were rather foppish, perfuming their handkerchiefs, burying their face in lilacs and exhaustively reading poetry. In the text they call it “Dandyism.” But the men in this book are so completely absorbed in each other, one wonders.

Basil’s first description of Dorian is that of an infatuated schoolgirl. “Every day. I couldn’t be happy if I didn’t see him every day. He is absolutely necessary to me.” And “Now and then he is absolutely thoughtless. He seems to take delight in giving me pain.”

Basil tries to prevent Lord Henry from even meeting Dorian, then when he cannot prevent it, Dorian’s strong reaction to Lord Henry cuts Basil to the quick. Dorian says to Lord Henry, “ ‘…let our friendship be a caprice,’ he murmured, flushing at his own boldness.” And “For days after I met you, something seemed to throb in my veins.”

This book is also about the self-denial imposed by modern society. Lord Henry says, “The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial that mars our lives.” The nature of this self-denial is never spelled out. It would seem that there is little that these privileged males have to deny themselves.

Lord Henry constantly derides women, most of all, his wife. When Dorian becomes infatuated with a woman, both Basil and Lord Henry are dismayed and try to talk him out of it. Sibyl Vane is more of an icon of idealized beauty to Dorian than she is a real woman, and once she shows her imperfections (in giving a bad acting job in front of his friends, due to her love for him) he discards her like a used doll. She has ruined his illusion of her.

After that he goes back to the company of men. “…entertaining the fashionable young men of his own rank who were his chief companions.”

Basil asks, “Why is your friendship so fatal to young men?” He gives a laundry list of young men whom Dorian has defiled.

Then there’s the matter of Dr. Alan Campbell whom Dorian blackmails into helping him dispose of Basil’s body. What is in the mysterious letter about Campbell that Dorian threatens to expose? We never know the specifics. One can only guess.

Ultimately, Dorian is a narcissist. He is self-centered, not only in not wanting to age. That’s the least of it. His entire life is an attempt to amuse himself. He has little use for anything that bores him or isn’t directly about him, and he is only interested in Sibyl when he can show off her talent. Dorian never thinks about doing anything for anyone other than himself. In the end, his narcissism does him in.

I also think it’s interesting to see, in the Norton Critical Edition, the differences between his first serialized draft and his final published version. He made small changes within the text, but he mainly dropped in whole chapters (and at one point added five), in order to extend the text and add depth to his characters. Some of it seems gratuitous and would never be accepted today, such as Wilde’s extensive descriptions of the interests Dorian immersed himself in to forget about Sibyl’s death, and some extensive cocktail party scenes that serve little else than displaying Wilde’s ability to inject wit.

The ornate style Wilde uses perfectly defines the era in which Dorian lives. He writes about privileged classes who have a lot of time on their hands to pursue the arts, read poetry, have extended discussions about philosophy. His flowery, overly descriptive language completely drew me into the spirit of the period.

Also, as noted in Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin de Siecle, societies tend to become more decadent toward the end of each century. The Picture of Dorian Gray was published in 1891, so the depiction of the self-indulgent lifestyle as reflected in Oscar Wilde’s use of language is true to the period.


Works Cited:

Showalter, Elaine. Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin de Siecle. New York: Viking, 1990. Print.


Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray, a Norton Critical Edition. New York: WW Norton & Company, 2007. Print


Painting: Narcissus by Waterhouse

Monday, August 24, 2009

My Very Image by Sally Bosco - An homage to Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867)


On a steaming August day, I hurry to the International Mall past the outdoor shops of the Baystreet entrance. On my left, people spill out of the Cheesecake Factory waiting for a hallowed reservation. On my right, posers loll in the fake café society of the Blue Martini. My goal is the promising refuge of the air-conditioned food court. I enter and feel the heavenly burst of mock arctic. Haagen-Dazs and Sbarro oddly flank a Fit 2 Run store.

Shoppers dressed in sparkly Custo Barcelona tank tops and Banana Republic shorts walk by trancelike with a look of single-minded determination to consume at all costs. I feel strangely trippy the way I do in dreams at times, as though I can’t quite get my mind to work. Yet, I know this is no dream. I am on a mission to meet my friend to help her purchase some kicks for her upcoming cruise.

I notice the Cinnabon shop looming in front of me like a portal to the gates of hades. The scent of buttery cinnamon reels me in. Fog rolls out from in front of the counter as the cheerful, brightly dressed attendant beckons me. “Would you like to try some Cinnabon sticks today? Or maybe some Classic Bites?” Suddenly it seems like the most important thing in the world for me is to indulge in one of the cloying calorie-bombs.

“I’d like the Classic. Warm dough, filled with your legendary Makara Cinnamon, topped with freshly made cream cheese frosting,” I say as cheerfully as possible.

“Please, have a seat in our waiting area.” The attendant waves her hand toward some molded orange booths.

I grin to myself as I snatch some extra napkins and make my way into the small eating area. Sun visors, purses and backpacks look out of place hanging on yellow plastic hooks on the walls.

As I walk into the eating area, I notice people with ravenous looks on their faces, their hands outstretched to the waitress zombie-like wanting more and more of the deadly treats. It is obvious that the people around me have transformed their bodies into amorphous Jabba The Hutt shapes in order to better absorb the sugary delights. All have credit cards laid out in front of them like passports to hell: American Express, Mastercard, Visa and Discovery, all instruments of their death wishes. It is obvious that most of them have murdered their souls in pursuit of junk food.

After a few minutes the waitress walks up to me with a steaming object the size of a small animal on a cardboard tray. But I look up and notice that something is wrong with her face. It leers at me, skeletal with empty eye sockets as it extends the deadly offering to me.

Just as I am about to imbibe, I realize I need to escape that infernal place. “Sale for the next ten minutes at the Ann Taylor Shop,” a loudspeaker blares.

I sprint down the mall barely in control of my movements. Everything is off-kilter. The storefronts are tilted and the people look distorted. Some have tiny heads on huge bodies. Some are elongated like poles or are short and squat like fireplugs. The fountains that usually spout pretty turquoise streams, spew noxious-smelling green bile.

I know that my friend is waiting for me at the Ann Taylor Shop. That’s when my iPhone beeps and I pull it out of my purse, only to see this eerie text: “I’m dying to shop at the Gucci Store. Meet me there.”

“Dying I’m dying I’m dying,” echoes over and over in my brain while I pass leering refugees from a Diane Arbus photo. The trees in the mall are sticklike and devoid of life, the artificial flowers wilted.

I notice the Gucci Store looming in front of me like a portal to the gates of hades. The scent of posh perfume reels me in. Fog rolls out from in front of the counter as the cheerful, brightly dressed attendant beckons me. “Would you like to try on some tapered slacks today? Perhaps a leather jacket?” Suddenly it seems like the most important thing in the world for me to indulge in one of their ridiculously priced creations.

“I’d like a Classic Gucci bag in the flora print that Gucci has made famous around the globe,” I say as cheerfully as possible.

“Please, have a seat in our waiting area.” The attendant waves her hand toward some plush leather chairs.

I grin to myself as I snatch some perfume and make my way into the luxurious waiting area. Hats, purses and overnight bags look out of place hanging on yellow plastic hooks on the walls.

As I walk into the waiting area, I notice people with ravenous looks on their faces, their hands outstretched to the clerk zombie-like wanting more and more of the deadly clothing. It is obvious that the people around me are thin as wraiths, their ribs and collar bones poking out from under their clothing, bony mannequins in the theater of decay. All have credit cards laid out in front of them like passports to hell: American Express, Mastercard, Visa and Discovery, all instruments of their death wishes. It is obvious that most of them have murdered their souls in pursuit of fashion. My friend is among them, dressed in a perky Ann Taylor sundress with gold Gucci sandals. But her face looms gaunt and skeletal above her designer threads. I see that she is too far gone to help.

After a few minutes the clerk walks up to me with a luscious object the size of a football covered in a floral pattern. But I look up and notice that something is wrong with her face. It leers at me, skeletal with empty eye sockets as it extends the deadly offering to me.

As I listen to the hip-Eurostyle muzak that is intended to make me purchase more items than I require, the memory of the Cinnabon shop floods into my mind, I think that I must be in some kind of trance to have been brought from one form of death to another, the second of which seems even more sinister than the first.

I quietly slide out of the store, firmly resolved to do business with neither of them. Fate has something else in mind for me, however, because now all of the shops contain skeletal figures that beckon me in. Deciding that there is no escaping, I take up the position I will serve out for all of eternity, ironically as a counter person at Forever 21.

# # #

Painting is Circe Invidiosa by John William Waterhouse.

Monday, August 10, 2009

The Influence of the Doppelganger in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde


It’s well known in German literature that meeting the doppelganger portends a person’s imminent death. Meeting his doppelganger was definitely not a good thing for Dr. Jekyll.

Our first foreshadowing of the etheric double in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (written by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1886) is seen in the characters of Mr. Utterson and Mr. Enfield. While Mr. Utterson, an attorney, was “a man of a rugged countenance, that was never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse.” Mr. Enfield on the other hand, is a well-known man about town. It is Mr. Enfield is the first one who sees Mr. Hyde’s “odd doorway.” Enfield reflects more of the shadowy side of life as seen in Mr. Hyde, while Mr. Utterson reflects the outgoing personality of Dr. Jekyll.

When we switch to the story as seen through Dr. Jekyll’s eyes, he talks about his dual nature: One side wanting to be a sober citizen, the other wanting to give itself over to a “gaiety of disposition.” These two sides of his personality continually struggle. He creates a formula that at first makes him feel very happy and reckless, but “tenfold more wicked.”

This infers that Jekyll feels that the split has come as a result of repression of his true nature due to social conventions rather than from some evil beast within him that must escape. The more Dr. Jekyll tries to repress his true nature, the more Mr. Hyde becomes violent.

As Webber states in The Doppenganger, Double Visions in German Literature, even though Jekyll and Hyde never actually meet each other, there is a scene in which Jekyll sees his reflection as Hyde in the mirror and is startled. “I stole through the corridors, a stranger in my own house; and coming to my room, I saw for the first time the appearance of Edward Hyde.”

The concoction also, for some reason, makes him short. “The evil side of my nature, to which I had now transferred the stamping efficacy, was less robust and less developed than the good which I had just deposed.” Because that side of his life was so much less developed than the serious part, “Edward Hyde was so much smaller, slighter, and younger than Henry Jekyll.” But evil had left an imprint of deformity and decay.

“In my eyes it bore a livelier image of the spirit, it seemed more express and single, than the imperfect and divided countenance I had been hitherto accustomed to call mine.”

In this case, it’s the repression of the Victorian era that has caused Dr. Jekyll to manufacture his own doppelganger in order to express the uncontrolled side of his personality. Unfortunately in those times, that was punishable by death.

Works Cited:

Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Webber, Andrew J, The Doppenganger, Double Visions in German Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996

Was Dr. Jekyll gay or just a repressed Victorian?


I think that Showalter’s assertion that The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is actually a tale of latent homosexuality is interesting and quite possibly true. It definitely made me read the story differently. I looked into Stevenson’s life and found that he was rather a sickly man with a domineering wife. Since he was famous from his serialization of Treasure Island, it was true that he had the admiration of a great number of men. He also was reported to have feminine sensibilities. Around that time male homosexuality was finding favor in the more artsy circles, such as that of Oscar Wilde. It was also very much punishable by imprisonment. And it’s true that when you go back and read the story with that in mind, there are all kinds of gay inferences.

I somehow don’t think Stevenson said to himself, “I think I’ll write this story and hide all kinds of homosexual references in it so that people will analyze it for hundreds of years to come thereby giving me literary immortality.” Rather, I think that he may have had those tendencies secretly embedded in his personality, and when he decided to write a thriller, it came out of his subconscious. I’d venture to guess that if a critic of the times had suggested it, he’d have been horrified.

In reading this book, after having seen movie adaptations of it, I was surprised to find that there are actually no women at all in the book. Yes, all of the characters in the book are men, but I can see the “men’s club mentality,” that upper class males had their sanctuaries, furnished with leather clad club chairs, where they could drink brandy, smoke cigars and be free of female influence. This can be seen in many books from the era such as in that of Jules Verne or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Also, women in Victorian times were not allowed to freely roam the streets or go out by themselves, so their inclusion in the book might have limited the action.

But I think the story is more than that. It reflects the Victorian sensibility that you’d better be careful if you let out the hedonistic side of your personality, because if you do, surely all hell will break loose and you’ll be ruined and possibly die.

Dr. J states, “Even at that time, I had not yet conquered my aversion to the dryness of a life of study. I would still be merrily disposed at times; and as my pleasures were (to say the least) undignified, and I was not only well known and highly considered, but growing toward the elderly man, this incoherency of my life was daily growing more unwelcome.”

He creates Mr. Hyde initially as a way of blowing off steam, of escaping the confines of Victorian society. “I was the first that could thus plod in the public eye with a load of genial respectability, and in a moment, like a schoolboy, strip off these lendings and spring headlong into the sea of liberty.”

Since, in those times, reckless pleasure had to be punished, it all goes horribly wrong. Dr. Jekyll starts losing control of the transformations as Mr. Hyde takes a stronger hold over him. Then Hyde kills a man of high position. Dr. Jekyll vows to be rid of his evil side, and for a while, he fills his life with altruistic acts. But after a time, the evil side creeps back, and he transforms into Mr. Hyde without the special potion.

It begins to take more and more of the antidote to turn him back into Dr. Jekyll. As though in fear of his own death, Mr. Hyde starts playing diabolical tricks on Dr. Jekyll: destroying his papers and artwork, scrawling rude things in his books. Then the antidote stops working, and Dr. Jekyll kills himself. Again, the lesson is that no good can possibly come of an uncontrolled life of self-indulgent pleasure.

Also, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was published at the same time that the public was whipped up into a frenzy of terror about the Jack the Ripper murders. Stevenson tells us that the shadowy beast isn’t some unknown creature that roams the streets; rather, it comes from inside of us.


Works Cited:

Showalter, Elaine. Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin de Siecle. New York: Viking, 1990. Print.

Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Comparison of “The Sandman,” by E.T.A. Hoffmann to “Dread” by Clive Barker

When comparing Clive Barker's “Dread” to E.T.A. Hoffmann’s “The Sandman,” the first stylistic element that strikes me is that the through-plot of “The Sandman” is not as direct as that of “Dread.” When I was reading “The Sandman,” at times I had to go back and figure out what had happened, because the time frame isn’t exactly linear. “The Sandman” begins with two letters written by the protagonist, Nathaniel. One is to his friend, Lothaire that details a series of dark forebodings he has had going back to his childhood when he was told of a horrible entity called the Sandman. The next one is from Clara, telling Nathaniel that he sent the letter to her by mistake. The last one is from Nathaniel to Lothaire apologizing for his mistake. This seems like clumsy construction to me. The letters were a stylistic device used at the time, but I think the plot would have been better served in being told in a linear fashion.

“Dread” is constructed with a dramatic structure that is more fulfilling to people in western society, because we’re used to our television shows, movies and plays being composed of the three-act structure with rising conflict, climax and resolution.

Both stories deal with the philosophy of fear. In “Dread” an omniscient narrator begins the story with a few paragraphs about how we relish our misery. Stephen, a philosophy student, gets a bad feeling from the enigmatic Quaid, but at the same, he is fascinated by the man’s obsession with “ the things we fear… the dark behind the door.” “There is no delight the equal of “Dread.” As long as it’s someone else’s,” the narrator tells us. In “The Sandman” Nathaniel goes into detail about his childhood fears of the mythical Sandman. As a child, he refused to believe his mother when she told him that there is no Sandman, it’s just a tale to make children go to bed. But he wants to torture himself, so he pursues the question until he gets the response he wants from the nanny, who tells him the Sandman is an evil man who throws sand in children’s eyes in order to make them bleed, then steals their eyes to feed his own children. At that point, he’s satisfied and is able to pursue that horror into adulthood.

Both have a shift in viewpoint. In “The Sandman,” the story starts out in Nathaniel’s viewpoint by way of the letters. It then shifts to his friend Lothaire’s viewpoint, and he becomes the narrator. The story goes from Lothair’s perspective to a third person point of view. The viewpoint then switches to Nathaniel when we experience his obsession for Olympia.

In “Dread,” we start out with the narrator, switch to Stephen’s third person point of view. When we find out that Stephen is imprisoned and stretched out on a rack, the point of view momentarily switches to that of Quaid, and we see the infared photos and experience Quaid’s reaction to them.

Everything that happens in “Dread” is realistic; there is nothing supernatural involved. In “The Sandman,” I think it’s questionable. Coppelius could have had Nathaniel mesmerized into believing in his evil sorcery. On the other hand, it could truly be black magic.

In “The Sandman,” Nathaniel is sure that Coppelius is evil. Everyone else is trying to convince him that he’s not, that the evil is in Nathaniel’s head, then we find out it isn’t. The evil is real. In “Dread,” Stephen has a gut feeling that Quaid is dangerous, but tries to convince himself otherwise.

The plot of “The Sandman” would have to be altered to be palatable to a 2009 audience. Even given the fact that the story is set in Germany in the 1800’s, it’s difficult for us to believe that anyone could be fooled into thinking that a wooden automaton is a real girl, even if we were hypnotized.

Both stories give us an immediate feeling of foreboding. We know that something creepy is going to happen from the first paragraph. They both end tragically. Nathaniel is dead and Stephen is out of his mind.