The First Page of the Novel, Which Usually

Beloved is a novel that speaks about several issues. It reflects the harsh reality of being a black mother and voices the positions of daughters, The first page of the novel, which usually plays host to a dedication of sorts, is inscribed grandmothers, fathers, male friends, neighbours, community and the mother herself. Sethe's actions are measured and weighed against with the ominous "Sixty Million and more." The words refer to the estimated number of numerous atrocities, destructions, and possible responses to them. The text therefore deliberately centres on the historical fact that there were Africans who died in the Middle Passage between Africa and North America. The slave black women during slavery who suffocated their babies rather than allow them to be offered up to destruction by slavery. In other words, the trade was notorious for its dirty, crowded ships, into whose cellars Africans were forced to spectre of Beloved, the living embodiment of Sethe's mother love and painful past of enslavement which she represents is never really lie for periods of up to twelve weeks. The reference and the implication of a dedication destroyed. That past is allowed to dissolve into mythology and history of the community. are more than enough to set the theme of slavery firmly into the reader's mind. Morrison draws the attention of people to the crucial position of black women in the U.S. In an interview with Nellie Y. McKay (1983), she said that she thinks black women are in a very special position regarding black feminism as an advantageous one, white women generally define The epigraph, a passage from the Bible (Romans 9:25) is a statement by Hosea quoted black women's role as the most repressed because they are both black and female, and these two categories invite a kind of repression that is by Paul in a sermon on the ultimate sovereignty of God. We do not know, claims Paul, pernicious. But in an interesting way, black women are much more suited to aggressiveness in the mode that feminists are recommending, whom the Lord has chosen to save. Thus, until the final judgment, the Lord may call a because they have always been both mothers and labourers, mother and worker. The history of black women in the states is an extremely person "beloved, which was not beloved," (i.e. who was not made to be saved). By citing painful and unattractive one but there are parts of that history that were conducive to doing more rather than less, in the days of slavery. We a New Testament passage which repeats with little difference an Old Testament one, think of slave women as women in the house, but they were not, most of them worked in the fields along with the men. They were required to Morrison creates uncertainty about the relationship between past and present. The do physical labour in competition with them, so that their relations with each other turned out to be more comradeship than male context, however, serves only as a background-perhaps to evoke the uncertainty of our dominance/female subordination. When they were in the field collecting cotton or doing whatever the owner or slaves did not care. Whether lives. In the foreground is the juxtaposition of the past and present of the quote-the they were women or men-the punishment they have varied: they could beat both, rape one, so that women could receive punishment but the naming of someone beloved who was not beloved-as well as the religious overtones. requirements were the same, the physical work requirements.

What Morrison does in Beloved is that she unearths at the excavation site “the silenced voice” of the black slave woman, whose story more often has been told by the black male narrator whose focus was primarily upon his journey to wholeness. The women who appear are not The opening section presents many of the events which are later unraveled in the novel. The mere fixtures; through them, the horrors of slavery are unravelled. The structure of the novel foregrounds the ambivalences of slave women time-scale is elastic. References are elliptic: coherence is denied and details are given that will about motherhood which violates their personal integrity and that of their family. Foregrounding the theme of motherhood, Morrison divides only be contextualized during the course of the novel. The unfolding and disintegration of Sweet the text into twenty-eight unnumbered, mini-sections, the usual number of days in a woman’s monthly menstrual cycle. Home, Sethe’s escape, Denver’s birth and Sethe’s act of infanticide are ‘stories’, remembered narratives, that start here and are developed throughout the novel. The reader has to accept the supernatural presence in 124 from the very first page. Despite the pointed clues in the narrative we cannot be sure about the exact identity of Beloved, we do not The first chapter serves mainly to build up characterisations of the principal characters: Sethe, Denver, and Paul D. Sethe is know the baby girl’s real name: Beloved is the only name on the gravestone, based on the portrayed as an iron-willed woman who is attempting to escape her own past. Her face is described as being "too still for comfort . . minister’s address at the funeral – ‘Dearly Beloved’. . a mask with mercifully punched-out eyes." The past, however, constantly creeps up on her. Though she "worked hard to remember as close to nothing as was safe," her "brain was devious." There is some tension here caused by her denial of the past. The The multi-accentuality of language, the fact that words, according to context and speaker can arrival of Paul D forces her to relive part of that past and it relieves her: "What she knew was that the responsibility for her breasts, have different meanings, is exemplified. Paul D feels ‘bad’ (p.7), Sweet Home was neither sweet at last, was in somebody else's hands." Morrison builds up Sethe and Paul D with metal imagery: Sethe’s ‘iron eyes and back bone nor home (p.13) and the tree on Sethe’s back is a network of scars. to match (p.9)’ and also imagery associated with economic exchange and debt (‘I paid for the ticket… it cost too much p.15 and the Freud believed that everything that is repressed must eventually emerge in order for healing to sex to pay for the letters on the grave). This concept is applicable to other characters too: Stamp Paid’s name is testifying to his occur. In the novel, the repressed traumatic experiences of the ex-slaves come out slowly as the ‘debtlessness’ p.185. These two sets of images have links to the novel’s historical context of slavery. The metal metaphorically implies characters tell the stories of their past over and over. In each telling, something more is revealed, the physical and spiritual bondage that Sethe and Paul D endured. The sense of debt and price is linked with having been with more details being added. The more they talk about their past sufferings, the more they are perceived as a human commodity, subject to valuation and sale. healed. The reader is the recipient of the stories and a witness of the healing. Despite her determination, though, there is a compassionate side to Sethe. It seems buried by many years, but is hinted at in the It is important to note that some critics have given significance to the numbers in this first chapter flashback when her milk is taken from her. The vividness of the imagery and the refrain "They took my milk" emphasises Sethe's of the book. 124, the street number of Sethe's house on Bluestone, adds up to seven. The word need to take care of her children. "beloved" that is carved on the baby's tombstone also contains seven letters. In the Bible, seven is considered to be a special number. God created the world in seven days. As a result, the seventh day became the Sabbath, and most religious celebrations, such as the feast of the Passover, Denver, on the other hand, does not possess the maturity of Sethe. Though eighteen, she is remarkably immature, perhaps because lasted seven days. she has not had any opportunities for social interaction. She is incredibly lonely, having only her mother (and the ghost) to keep her company. The arrival of Paul D threatens to separate her from her mother, which brings her misery and anger while Colours are also important in this first chapter. The house is on Bluestone Drive, but its colours are simultaneously revealing her immaturity. grey and white. Also the stairs that lead to Sethe's bedroom are white. In contrast to the light colours, Sethe, Paul D, and Denver are all dark-skinned. Later the colour red will become All three characters seem in need of some resolution: Sethe and Paul D of the past, and Denver of the present. important as it is associated with Beloved.

The novel's narrative action mostly hovers between 1855 and 1873 (the Reconstruction era), though it was As Sethe and Paul D climb the stairs to her bedroom, he is overwhelmed by the fact that he has found her after eighteen years. He written in 1988. Certainly, Morrison intended for the novel to be considered more within the historical context is also excited that he is about to make love with Sethe after longing for her intensely so many years ago. In contrast, Sethe feels of American slavery and reconstruction, rather than the Reagan Era and the twentieth century. Beloved is anxious. It has been a long time since she has experienced sex. Both of them, however, fall into bed and make love before they can written as a response to the Fugitive Slave Law that victimised Sethe and her family in 1855. The law was part even take all their clothes off. It is an unsatisfying experience, and afterwards, they feel somewhat embarrassed and shy. Both allow of a series of Congressional compromises designed to preserve a precarious political balance between the their minds to drift backwards in time, reflecting on their attitudes toward sex when they lived at Sweet Home. northern "free" states and the southern "slave" states. When "border states" like Kansas, Missouri and Kentucky became an increasingly politicized issue, Congress intended for the Fugitive Slave Law to stave off the Sethe remembers Sixo, a fellow slave, who walked for over thirty miles each way to be with his lover. Paul thinks, "There was a inevitable - Civil War broke out less than ten years after the Fugitive Slave Law was enacted. man." Sethe thinks about living at Sweet Home before her marriage to Halle, when everyone still wondered whom she would pick The law's provision regarded "fugitive slaves" who had run away from their slave masters and resettled in to be her husband. She remembers how the male slaves would look at her when she took food out to them while they worked in northern or border states. This was often done with the assistance of Underground Railroad operators (like the fields. She could have married any of them, but she chose Halle because of his quiet ways and his devotion to his mother. She Ella) and northern white abolitionists (like the Bodwins). thinks about how she made a simple white frock for her wedding gown and how she and Sethe made love in the cornfields after Southern plantation owners complained about their loss of income as a result of the escaped slaves and at the their marriage. Sethe never regretted her choice of Halle anytime during the six years that they were married. same time, abolitionists in states like Delaware, Ohio and Pennsylvania adamantly defended the argument Sethe thinks about Baby Suggs, Halle's mother. She remembers her saying that "a man is nothing but a man." Baby Suggs then that the contractual relationship between slave and owner was null and void in free territory. At the same added, "But a son? Well now, that's somebody." Halle had always been special to his mother. Because of slavery, all of the time that this argument was being hashed out, the Dred Scott Supreme Court Case reified the solvency of the important people in Baby Suggs' life had been taken away from her, with the exception of Halle, who remained with his crippled master's property rights over a slave and Congress compromised by enacting the Fugitive Slave Law. mother for twenty years and fought for her emancipation. Runaways like Sethe might escape to a free state like Ohio, but should Schoolteacher find his lost property he could legally return her to Sweet Home. This section closes with the memory of Sethe’s first coupling with Halle in a cornfield, as a gesture of consideration to the other men, but gor all their thoughtfulness, the moving corn on a windless day made what they were doing obvious. The men feasted on the It is not difficult to imagine the ensuing tumult as thousands of northern blacks - both ex-slaves and broken corn cobs that evening. "legitimately" freedmen - lived in the constant fear of kidnapping or having their families separated. And Morrison is not the first woman to write literature that speaks to this specific issue. About 130 years before Toni Morrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe published her famous novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin. After her melodramatic excoriation of the slave trade and searing indictment of the Fugitive Slave Law - specifically for its anti-family consequences, Stowe become a moral figure for abolitionists and others who sympathized with the plight of It is important to note how Morrison uses an omniscient point of view, where she can see into the minds of all the characters. In this Negroes. Indeed, Stowe's book was an exhortation for compassion that stoked the flames of civil war. chapter and throughout the novel, she fluidly shifts from the thoughts of one character into the thoughts of another. As Sethe thinks Morrison's novel, on the other hand, enjoys a chronological distance (and 130 years of political progress) that about Halle's gentle lovemaking in the cornfields (in contrast to the unsatisfactory lovemaking that has occurred with Paul D), Paul allows a deeper psychological penetration without political propaganda and maudlin sentimentality. D remembers watching the couple with jealousy. Nonetheless, Morrison is well aware of the literary tradition within which she writes. The Garner family and the It is also important to note that Baby Suggs' saying, "A man is nothing but a man," is a meaningful comment. Like all female slaves, Bodwins' statue of a subservient, self-deprecating Negro labelled "AT YO' SERVICE," is very much a response she knew only two kinds of men in her life: the white slave owners who abused and raped her and the male slaves, including her to Stowe's moral relativism. For Morrison, there is no such thing as a "good slave owner" like the Garners. And husband, who were powerless to really help her or remain by her side. Since Baby Suggs could not really love either of these types of even in regards to white abolitionists like the Bodwins, Morrison is unwilling to accept nothing short of full men, she turned all of her love and emotion on her son, Halle. Sethe also loves Halle, her husband, but she loses him. respect of all human dignity. The deliberate tension between Beloved and its antecedent Uncle Tom's Cabin invites us to challenge moral relativism in our efforts to assess and re-assess American history and literature. An example of Morrison’s narrative technique and use of time and memory is that in the midst of Sethe’s ruminations she makes a reference to Sixo’s last laugh (p.23). This fact actually belongs to Paul D’s memories, and the reader only understands this reference later (p.226), although it is referred to many times before then. This anticipation of future memories and the idea of shared "124 was spiteful. Full of a baby's venom." (1) consciousness: ‘Her story was bearable because it was his as well – to tell, refine, to tell again’ (p.99), is a significant element of Morrison’s style. "My first-born. All I can remember of her is how she loved the burned bottom of bread. Can you beat that? Eight children and that's all I remember." (1) When Sethe recollects her first sexual encounter with Halle, here, her memories are joined by Paul D’s thoughts as he lies beside her. No speech is reported, yet their thoughts coincide and overlap, and, emphasised by the choral repetitions of a key phrase – ‘How "a pool of red and undulating light that locked him where he stood." (1) Loose the silk (p.27), attain an eerie significance. The corn cob is also a sexual image. The phrase ‘jailed down… jailed up’, "If a Negro got legs he ought to use them. Sit down too long, somebody will figure out a way to tie them up." describing the way in which the juice streamed down, and the way in which the same free-flowing juice has been imprisoned, with "I got a tree on my back and a haint in my house, and nothing in between but the daughter I am holding in contrasting connotations of enclosure and freedom, draws attention to a larger scheme of repetition in the passage. We are once my arms. No more running--from nothing. I will never run from another thing on this earth. I took one again in Paul D’s consciousness, signified by ‘he’. The next paragraph recounts the reflections of a female character who, we assume, journey and I paid for the ticket, but let me tell you something, Paul D Garner: it cost too much! Do is Sethe, convinced that the preparation of corn is painful. The passage closes with a reference to ‘you’. The reader is aware that you hear me? It cost too much." (1) they are still sharing the thoughts of a character, but it is impossible to be sure to whom these thoughts belong, or to whom they are addressed. The psychic union between Paul D and Sethe follows their sexual union, and prefigures Paul D’s vision of Sethe as a "A man ain't nothing but a man. But a son? Well, now, that's somebody" (2) friend of his mind and his desire to place ‘his story next to hers’ (p273).

Here, Sethe explains her vision of time. ‘Some things go…some things just stay.’ (p.35). Her ‘rememory’ is what selects and privileges certain events, and does not The Origin of Race-Based Slavery in the United States: Indentured servants were Europeans who came to America for a fresh start but were unable to afford allow her to forget them. Sethe believes that acts and actions remain. This is the cost of the sea journey, signed contracts pledging to work for a “master” once they arrived in American for a certain number of years, until they repaid paralleled in the novel by the author’s own treatment of time, encoded in many their passage. During the seventeenth century, European immigrants will to enter into indentured servitude declined because word had spread in Europe of layers of past experience and memories presented in each section. When Sethe goes the ill conditions. Indentured servants were mistreated, ill-fed, and often immerged from a four-seven year term of indenture with no land, no money, and few to the Clearing we live out the experience of one of Baby Sugg’s meeting, and when skills. However, it was NOT a life-long condition. the women go to 124 they see themselves there as children. This is in contrast to Amy Denver: the name? Amy Denver may seem like a totally random minor character, but as you can probably guess, nothing in Beloved is random. First, linear narrative or chronological history, where past events are fixed and that last name. Why "Denver"? Maybe Morrison is making a reference to James Denver, who—among other things—was a general for the Union in the Civil incontrovertible. The fluidity can be construed as a gendered and racial revision of War; a governor of Kansas when it voted to be slave territory; and a guy who had a city named after him. Denver, which, like many places in the country, was the way in which we tackle literature and history. The lack of boundaries between torn over slavery (even though Colorado was supposed to be pro-Union). If you think about it, Amy, a white girl in a slave state who helps Sethe during her time, experiences and subjects is echoed by the condensed nature of the novel’s escape, is a little like Denver, the man and the city—full of contradictions. metaphors, references and language. There's more to Amy than just her last name. How about her background? Amy's mother died while working as an indentured servant and then Amy became Both Sethe and Paul D continue to give only tidbits of their painful past. Sethe does an indentured servant in order to serve out her mother's time. Not the typical story you might expect from a novel about black ex-slaves. not explain when, why, or for how long she goes to jail. Paul D does not elaborate on his painful experience in Georgia. As the novel proceeds, however, the characters But that means Sethe and Amy had a bit in common. They both live and work without basic freedoms, and they both attempt to escape their conditions. All will gradually feel safe enough to deal with their memories by revealing everything that makes it a lot easier for Sethe to relate to Amy. And it makes us realize that American slavery is a lot more diverse and complex than the way most of us about them so that they can put them to rest. learned it in schools. Sethe, thinking about the future and imagining a life with Paul D, knows that she Slaves were the cheaper way to go. For the first time slavery became a racially determined institution, in which Africans were captured, brought to America must keep her mind off the memories. In order to keep moving forward, she must on the Middle Passage, and sold into lifelong slavery. Children of slaves were seen for the first time as slaves. Slavery led to conflict naturally as the avoid thinking of the past. In this third chapter, a few more vague details about “enlightened” Europeans were settling into colonies and asserting the rights of man. Sethe's past are added. Also the pattern of retelling a previous story, giving more Although Sethe and Amy are close in age and social standing, the divisions that race imposes are immediate. Amy instinctively uses the terms of social information, is being established. This circular pattern of development is very denigration, calling Sethe ‘nigger’ and asking her if she is going to ‘just lay there and foal?’ (p33-34) while Sethe calls her ‘Miss’ and is sufficiently suspicious to effective. The bits of information, which form the outline of a gestalt, or pattern, give a false name. However, the word ‘yard-chat’ (p.33) signifies the partial dissolution of these boundaries. In the slow telling of this story, Amy operates the create enough clarity to elicit suspense in the reader, who must remain in tune as roles of nurse, friend and midwife, although when she takes leave of Sethe, she reverts to her position as ‘Miss Amy Denver’ (p.85). Sethe holds back crucial information and Denver continues to anticipate some undefined connection with the past.

Several layers of narrative, told by different characters and set in different times, begin with describing Denver and the ‘sweet’ and increasingly adult games that she plays with herself in a green bower of Denver approached it (the boxwood bushes. There, she remembers the events of an evening several years ago, when, after a similar game, involving cologne and nudity, she returned home and saw her mother being embraced by a white house) as she always did, as a dress. She interprets this vision as a sign that the baby ghost has plans. The weather and the sight of Sethe make her remember the story of her own birth, which she loves to tell and hear. The narrative switches person rather than a to Sethe’s voice. As she tells the tale of her scape from Sweet Home, she remembers the language and dancing of her own people and the vague relationship that she had with her own mother. We are presented structure."-Chapter 3 with the image of Sethe staggering through the woods, very pregnant with Denver, her feet so swollen and bruised that she could hardly walk. She lay down in the snow and was discovered by Amy Denver, a THEMES: supernatural white girl. Amy was on her way to Boston to buy velvet. Sethe crawled into a lean-to for the night, and Amy massaged her feet. This section is recounted in past tense. We return to a more recent past. After Denver has told Sethe about the kneeling dress, Sethe tells Denver about schoolteacher who came to Sweet Home after the death of Mr Garner. The description of Denver being born in a vaginal-shaped canoe "But she would not, would not, adds to the motif of genital images. Imagining herself delivered on the river that divides slavery and freedom pleases the girl because the event epitomises Sethe's devotion to motherhood. stop for when she did the little antelope rammed her with There is a shift to the immediate present of the novel and the progress of the narrative. Paul D has changed Bluestone Road and the lives of the inhabitants. The ghost has gone. Sethe wakes up next to Paul D horns and pawed the ground of after their first night together, and remembers Denver’s vision of several years before. She wonders about the nature of the ‘plans’ the baby could have. The burden of painful memories for both Sethe and Paul her wound with impatient D produces typically female and male responses. Sethe, like the house, covers herself in a breastplate of silence as a means of shielding Denver from earlier horrors. Paul D, the intruding male figure in a female- hooves."-Chapter 3 dominated environment, sings away his troubles with restless, urgent, masculine verses recalling hunger, labour, weariness, and a controlled impulse to avenge himself on the overseer. Realising that his macho THEMES: motherhood lyrics are out of place, Paul D turns his pent-up energies to the repair of the broken window and table leg. His supportive presence results in a tenuous harmony within the household as he ponders settling into a steady job and family life. He recalls his own past: the prison work that he was forced to do in Alfred, Georgia, and the songs he and the other men sang as they worked. He asks Sethe’s permission to stay with "Compared to 124 the rest of her and Denver. Sethe is positive, and tells him not to worry about Denver’s reaction since she is a charmed child. She tells him of Denver’s miraculous birth and attributes Amy’s appearance to Denver’s destiny. the world was bald."-chapter 3 After schoolteacher came to find them, and Sethe went to prison, Denver was not touched by the rats there although they ate everything else. THEMES: Supernatural When Sethe wakes up after her first night with Paul D, she sees her house in a different perspective. It seems heavier and more masculine to her. She also notices the lack of colour for the first time in eighteen "Its sleeve around her mother's years. Her failure to previously notice the absence of colour symbolises Sethe's repression of her emotions, such as desire and love. She has been so occupied all these years in pushing down the bad memories, waist." especially the red ones of her dead infant, that she has not been able to life her live in the present; she has led a colourless existence. Sethe realises that her home is without colour and that she has not missed. Jail rats "bit everything in there When Beloved is in the flesh and Sethe finally recognizes her as her daughter, she is determined to notice colours and plants a garden out of season. Denver would give up colour for Beloved, so great is her love but her for her sister. Baby Suggs dedicates her last years to the contemplation of colour – as she explains to Stamp later in the novel – it is something that does not hurt anyone. The red blood and the pink gravestone are the last colours that Sethe remembers. Red is the colour that splashes the narrative, whether it is Stamp Paid’s red ribbon, or the cardinal bird seen by Beloved.

The idea of a carnival is very significant to Morrison's novel. A carnival is literally a feast for the body. The root of the word is the Latin word Morrison uses this small chapter to develop both plot and mood. Paul D, who has no understanding of "carne," meaning flesh. In the Roman Catholic calendar, Carnival is celebrated just before Lent, the time when flesh is taken away (when no Sethe's sufferings during their 18 years apart or her intense relationship with her one remaining child, meat is eaten) in order to better meditate on God's blessings and to heal the broken spirit. Before the fasting of Lent begins, however, the probes for the unspoken admission of her affection for him. At the same time, he knows enough of the people are allowed to celebrate and feast; they gather at "carnival" to eat, drink, and be merry. post-slavery era to realise that it's dangerous for a "used-to-be-slave woman to love anything that much." Innocent of the hurt that Sethe conceals, he manfully promises to "catch you 'fore you fall." The Holy Trinity and Sacrifice Christianity is one of the main themes in Toni Morrison’s spellbinding novel, Beloved. Since sacrifice is at the root of the Christian faith and that Jesus‘s sacrifice is the primary reason the Christian religion exist, one can see why Morrison utilizes an extended The depth of Denver's pain comes out in this chapter. After tolerating Paul D for three days, she can no biblical allusion pertaining to the Holy Trinity to show how sacrifice is an integral part of the lives of the protagonists in her text. As a prideful longer take it in silence. She rudely demands to know how long he plans to stay. Her tone clearly matriarch and an unequivocal devotee to her children, Sethe is essentially a symbolic representation of God or, ironically, the “Father” in the indicates that she hopes it is not for long. Sethe is horrified at her daughter's rudeness and scolds her like Holy Trinity described in the Bible. a child, even though she is already an adult. To make peace in the family, Paul D suggests that he take the two women to a nearby carnival. They cannot go until the next day, for Thursday has been Through this biblical allusion, Morrison conveys the concept of the ultimate sacrifice by likening Sethe to God who also felt the need to willingly set aside for blacks to attend; even though they are now "free," they are still restricted. In spite of offer something as precious as an offspring with the belief that something of higher value would be given in return. Though in contrast, God’s having to wait until the next day, both Denver and Sethe are excited about the outing. sacrifice was bilateral, while Sethe’s was unilateral. Beloved had no choice in her death, while Jesus made the decision to sacrifice for the sins of humanity according to Christian beliefs. In Sethe’s case, there seems to be a sense of sole ownership in regards to Beloved. Sethe controlling Because of the pain of the past and a fear of being hurt again, Sethe has isolated herself and Denver states multiple times that “ She [Beloved] is mine.” as though Beloved had no say so when it came to her very own life. Though Sethe has good from the community. The visit to the carnival is the first social contact they have experienced in intentions, being that she never wants her children to face the horrors of slavery, she unreasonably concludes that slavery is worse than death. eighteen years. In a short time, Paul D has obviously had a positive influence on Sethe, for she trusts However, this is illogical seeing that she thinks that no life is better than a life enslaved. Also, there appears to be no tangible benefit from the him enough to go out with him. In fact, Paul D has promised her they he will catch her if she falls, a slaying of her daughter other than a “spiteful” ghost roaming her house and terrorising her surviving children. Therefore, one could reasonably promise that has many levels of meaning. As they head towards the carnival, Sethe notices the conclude that Sethe’s cruel act was a mere murder and not a love-guided sacrifice. However, Morrison weaves another allusion to Christianity shadows of Paul D, Denver, and herself on the sidewalk. In the shadow, it looks like the three of them that shows how Sethe’s sacrifice is more than a murder. If one compares God and Sethe, one can see a significant similarity between these two. are holding hands. The image makes Sethe think that perhaps the three of them can make a future Sethe sends her daughter to the spiritual world only to return to the physical world, while God sends his son to the physical world only to return together. It is one of the most positive thoughts that she has had since leaving Sweet Home. In the past, to the spiritual world. It seems Jesus and Beloved seemed to be a greater benefit to society in the realms in which they did not originate. Jesus she has not dared to imagine tomorrow, which has always held hurt and uncertainty for Sethe. arguably did more good on Earth than he did in heaven, while Beloved did more good in the spiritual world than the physical world. Therefore one could justify the claim that Sethe’s sacrifice was sincerely more than an unjust murder. In Paul D's presence and because of his upbeat attitude, Sethe finds that she can still have a good time. All three of them enjoy themselves and laugh at the white performers, who are dressed as clowns and In addition, Morrison’s biblical allusion to sacrifice in relation to the Holy Trinity is also fundamental in Beloved’s life in that it likens the physical freaks. In contrast, they are shocked to see images of violence and destruction as they watch the snake Beloved to Christ (The Son) and the spiritual Beloved to the Holy Ghost. This allusion elaborates on the concept of sacrifice by differentiating charmer, the fire-eater, and the sword swallower. Sethe is comforted, however, when she notices that between voluntary and involuntary sacrifice. Unlike Jesus, Beloved is at the mercy of her overbearing mother. She has no ownership of herself Paul D seems to be admired and accepted as trustworthy by the people who have ostracized Sethe even though she claims that “I am Beloved. And she is mine.” She is nothing more than property of a woman with poor judgment that took and Denver for so many years. In order to heal, Sethe must re-enter the community, and she senses her innocent life. In contrast, Jesus was sacrificed by his Father, but Jesus’ pivotal sacrifice in order to rescue humanity from sin was ultimately up that Paul D can help her to do this. Sethe also feels that she will be able to trust him herself, and if she to him not God. This was a bilateral sacrifice in that it required two people to sacrifice instead of one person. Beloved, on the other hand, was finds him trustworthy, she will be able to share the pain of her past with Paul D. By coming to grips given by a giver. Jesus was the giver and the given. Also, one can also see that the allusion extends to a deeper degree. Christianity was forced with her past, she will further heal herself. Amazingly, as she heals herself, Sethe will also heal a rift in on the slaves. They, like Beloved, were not allowed to determine his or her on fate. Though Jesus was supposedly destined to lose his life, it still the African-American community of Cincinnati. made the final decision in regards to his life. We should also consider the name Seth (the masculine form of Sethe) actually means 'father of the world' in the Bible. The carnival that Sethe and Paul D attend is a symbolic foreshadowing of what will soon happen to them. They go to the carnival to celebrate and have fun - before they get down to the work of healing Denver can be viewed as the third entity of the Holy Trinity, portraying the role of the Holy Ghost. Denver is a product of her environment; she their spiritual wounds. It is significant that embedded in the carnival's festivities, there are images of is dependent on both her mother and Beloved to define who she is. Morrison highlights this idea when it is revealed that as an infant Denver violence, destruction, and savagery - reflections of their slave past. It is these dark reflections that Sethe consumed “her mother’s milk right along with the blood of her sister.”(152) Because she proceeds from the actions and personalities of her must overcome in order for the healing to begin. The amusement in the carnival lies in seeing white family, she is comparable to the Holy Ghost who is said to proceed from the Father and the Son. Though she is not complete without the people making fools of themselves. existence of her mother and Beloved, Denver also is essential for both of them to be complete. Through her development of a connection to Beloved, Denver solidifies Beloved’s existence, as she is the link to Sethe and the ghost. Therefore it can be said she not only relies on the trinity During the morning's entertainment at the carnival, Paul D redeems himself with both women by for her own identity, but the trinity relies on her for their existence altogether. The novel clarifies this allusion beginning with the act of Sethe spending his last two dollars on treats while they watch the Snake Charmer, an Arabian Nights dancer, killing the “crawling already?” baby. With this action, Sethe creates the baby ghost, Beloved, who as a result defines Denver’s existence as much the Fat Lady, and other sights. Their shadows appear to link hands as they walk, which Sethe takes as as her mother’s physical presence does. Thus, Denver proceeds from both mother and ghost, hereditarily from Sethe and pragmatically from a positive omen. However, the overall atmosphere of the morning's jaunt is tainted by images of Beloved. danger, juncture, violence, savagery, and dismemberment, as the carnival entertainers are "eating In conclusion, sacrifice is an integral part in the lives’ of the protagonist of Morrison’s Beloved because sacrifice is an integral part of Christianity. glass, swallowing fire, spitting ribbons, twisted into knots, forming pyramids, playing with snakes and Biblical allusion are woven through the text beautifully, but seem to have a bitter sweet effect. Involuntary and voluntary sacrifice, and fate beating each other up." The carnival, an embodiment of illusion, serves as entertainment. However, the versus free will, are at the epicentre of the Bible and Beloved, and are therefore intertwined in themes and motifs. The image of the shadows images in this chapter foreshadow the time when Sethe must reveal to Denver and Paul D the vile connecting at the end of this section is symbolic of the Trinity – not as we come to know it as the novel progress – but as a trinity which finally memories that refuse to exonerate her. Like the snake of Eden, something evil coils in wait. suggest peace and a way of moving forward with hope.

‘Beloved’ and Slavery: The character Beloved represents the memories of cruelty the slaves endured and their desperation to Morrison liberally salts this chapter with details that indicate that the visitor is the embodiment of Sethe's suppress these memories, allowing them to move on with their lives. Also, Beloved seemingly entering Sethe’s life again demonstrates daughter Beloved, who would be about 20 years old if she had lived. Tendrils of superstition cling to the scene, the haunting nature of slavery and its effects on those who experienced it, emotionally and psychologically. Sethe’s scar is such as the following: representative of the brutality of slavery and is a constant reminder of the past to her. People like ‘schoolteacher’ saw the slaves as nothing but a means of making money and treated them like animals. For example, when his nephews hold Sethe down and steal  Beloved emerges from the water, like a child born from a watery sac. her breastmilk, she was treated as if she was a cow. Sethe’s Scar is described as a tree, almost as if the memories or ‘rememories’ will  Her wobbly head is reminiscent of a new-born unable to support the weight of its oversized cranium. In always remain in her roots, she can never escape what has happened to her and her people. this book, it is also emblematic of a head partially severed from the neck.  Beloved's unlined hands and baby-soft complexion are as fragile as the skin of an infant. Background of the novel  Her extreme thirst suggests a baby eager to nurse.  The disappearance of the dog, Here Boy, is a gothic touch springing from traditions that claim animals Beloved is a novel inspired by the true story of Margaret Garner, who escaped with her family from slavery in Kentucky to freedom can sense the presence of evil. in Ohio in 1856. When US Marshals apprehended the family under the Fugitive Slave Act, Margaret Garner murdered one of her  Sethe's loss of bladder control is an image of the emptying of the chorion and amnion preceding birth. children, a daughter, rather than see her enslaved again. In Morrison's novel, Sethe, the protagonist, and her daughter Denver are  Beloved sleeps for four days haunted by the ghost of the child Sethe kills. A mysterious young woman appears and called herself Beloved, the name on the tombstone of Sethe's dead daughter. Sethe believes the woman is her murdered child and guilt overcomes her as Beloved takes over It seems strange that Sethe, who often thinks about her dead daughter and has lived with her daughter's ghost her life. Her trial was one of controversy and it highlighted how much slaves were dehumanised. The normal punishment for for years, fails to connect the girl's name with her own Beloved. However, perhaps the idea that her daughter infanticide would have been death, but as a slave Garner had no human rights and was actually a ‘property’ of her slave owner. As might return to her as something other than a spirit is something that Sethe cannot conceive. When Denver a result of this, Margret Garner received the worst punishment possible: Mr and Mrs Garner and one of their children were returned displays uncharacteristic devotion toward Beloved, Sethe assumes that Denver's compassion arises from a need slavery. One thing Garner repeated in numerous interviews was: 'No, they're not going to live like that. They will not live for female companionship near her own age. Denver, perceiving that Beloved is the "something" that she has the way I have lived.' been waiting for, demonstrates her understanding of who Beloved is by announcing that Here Boy is not going to return. The events in this chapter establish the foundation for the four-way emotional conflict that will arise Though the African- American’s had a difficulty in establishing their own culture during the period of slavery, Morrison believes that as the novel continues. These events will ultimately lead to Denver's emancipation from an overprotective the black culture has been built on the horrors of the past and it is this history that has fashioned contemporary black culture in a mother and Sethe's confrontation with her secret past. Meanwhile, cautiously silent Paul D will navigate the positive way. Through her use of linguistic devices, Morrison has represented the black culture, its imagery and symbolic features and troubled waters between mother and daughters and realize that the expansion of a triad (Sethe, Denver, and the theme of interracial relations. She has illustrated black culture as resilient, vibrant, independent and determination. Taking 5 Paul D) into a foursome (Sethe, Beloved, Denver, and Paul D) greatly weakens his position as the evolving male head of the household. years to write this novel, the layering of the past and presence captures the displacement that slaves experienced. Beloved’s greed for sugar prefigures her hunger for Sethe’s presence and her stories. Beloved’s gaze is also described in terms of hunger. Denver is ‘licked, tasted, eaten’ (p57). This is the introduction of the metaphor It is not clear who this spite is aimed at but many readers would guess at the white dominance that enslaved her and led to her used to describe Sethe’s brain’s willingness to accept the past. Her mind she says is like a greedy child who will murder – she is perhaps used to help Sethe move on with her guilt. Sethe is given a second chance to do it right with Beloved, and not refuse food. Beloved is the greedy child of the novel, devouring sugar, and finally Sethe herself. She became naturally, she gets it wrong a second time. Morrison’s views on the murder are also confusing – in an interview with the New York appeased by hearing tales of the past: ‘it became a way to feed her.’ Denver’s relationship with Beloved is also Times she said: ''but she had no right to do it. I think if I had seen what she had seen, and knew what was in characterised by food. Denver’s loneliness before Beloved is a hunger, and being looked at by Beloved is ‘food store, and I felt that there was an afterlife - or even if I felt that there wasn't - I think I would have done enough to last’. the same thing. But it's also the thing you have no right to do.'' This might be why Beloved herself is such a complex character. The reason Morrison included Beloved in the story was something that she only realised herself when she was 1/3 of the way through writing: Writing in the twentieth century, Morrison’s purpose is still a corrective one like the famous 19th century slave narratives: the history of slavery must not be forgotten. She chronicles the psychological damage slavery inflicted “Sometimes you hear things or see things or write things, and you don’t know where they came from but they’re upon men in the figure of Halle and Paul D. However, she concentrates on an elaboration of female pain, the very important and they don’t disappear. The writing is discovery of what that really means. I wasn’t at all sure in history that is inscribed in the mental and physical scars that each woman in her narrative bears. The pain of not Beloved that I would have a character called Beloved. I said at the beginning [of the book] the house was full of knowing one’s children, of losing husbands and being continually at risk of sexual exploitation. poison or venom, but I thought that was just the haunting. But the big question, it turned out, was who was Black women can reclaim their history by writing about it, and the style of Beloved, which pays tribute to the in the position to judge what [Sethe] had done. Who could say that her efforts to kill her children non-literary background of black culture, places the novel at the very heart of this process. Morrison uses under those particular circumstances were wrong? They couldn’t decide; even the courts couldn’t. Some different protagonists’ varying visions of events compile her history of slavery, and this can be seen as part of a people wanted her returned to the plantation because she was property. Other people, the abolitionist in contemporary trend to see history as multiple and inconclusive. There are significant gaps in her narrative: the particular, wanted her tried for murder, and that would suggest that she was a mother responsible for her child. past is not divided from the present, the two are interdependent and the boundaries between them are blurred. The slave system says she wasn’t, that her child was just another piece of goods. I couldn’t decide, and nobody This is very different form the precision of history books, with their attention to prominent figures and the else seemed able. I thought the only person who was legitimate, who could decide whether [the killing] treatment of facts as fixed entities. It is possible to view Beloved as a ‘history of the present’, where the was a good thing or not, was the dead girl. But I was about a third into the book before that realization came. consequences of slavery’s brutality are examined through the ‘rememory’ of her characters. So I had to make a living ghost called Beloved who then would react mournfully, desperately, lovingly, or furiously, as a baby would if you killed it and it had something to say about it.”

Story Telling The relationship between Sethe and Beloved, which will later turn sadomasochistic, begins innocently with The painful memories of Afro-Americans and Native Americans as a result of racialised trauma are purged through storytelling and in storytelling, the oral tradition that forms the core of black history and black literature. Violating her unspoken pact with Baby Suggs to leave memories of slave days out of conversation, Sethe "[gives] short replies or recounting it as a collective experience between people. Storytelling brings them together engaging them collectively in the events of rambling incomplete reveries" in response to Beloved's many questions. Her memories cause her pain in their lives. As the past and present often overlap with one another it enables them to retrieve their suppressed past. Retrieving the exchange for Beloved's pleasure. Like the pull of an infant mouth on a mother's tender breast, Beloved's past and sharing their traumatic story gives the opportunity for recovery. Morrison performs the role of a storyteller in narrating the intense delight in Sethe's past seems to nourish an inner need to know more about the crystal earrings and unaccounted through their text since modern communities have no access to the oral narratives of their own past. Storytelling about Ma'am, Beloved's unnamed grandmother. unearths repressed memories in order to find ways of dealing with the pain they cause. This process of narration is essential for the survivors to come to terms with their experience. This narration ultimately creates a sort of emotional distance from the event and Sethe’s earrings are evidence of the relative kindness of the Garners. Nonetheless, the Garners still owned and makes it less threatening for the characters to reflect upon. It is to be remembered that the authors make use of this technique of exploited slaves. As a counterpoint to Schoolteacher, the Garners show that even seemingly kind slave-owners storytelling not just to heal the fractures of the readers in the modern psyche but also to rewrite a part of history forgotten by participated in a horrible, dehumanising system of slavery – there is no good slave owner. preserving the historical data, their cultural values and the Afro-American and Native American ideas. Offsetting the hurt of child to mother is Sethe's massaging of Denver's wet hair with a towel. A motif As a novelist who has set her fiction with care in key periods of black U.S. history, Morrison has in reality dedicated her literary career to introduced by Paul D's reverent touching of Sethe's scarred back in the first chapter and by Amy's attentions ensuring that black experience as a result of slavery would be neither left to interpretation solely at the dictates of whites, nor to an to her swollen feet when she first escaped from Sweet Home, the concept of a healing touch evolves in later academic history that records only the hard impersonal facts. She has succeeded in this by placing the characters of her novels in the chapters into a powerful message. The characters, who are incapable of obliterating the hurtful memories of positions American society had designed for African Americans and revealing their lives as they endured, coped with or reacted to, the enslavement, minister to each other in imperfect human fashion, applying fingers and hands as a kind of effects of the racism that had its birth in the institution of slavery. tangible blessing, flesh to flesh. Together with the repeated image of breastfeeding, Morrison frequently delineates methods by which one human being comforts another. It is significant that Beloved is able to get Afro-American and Native American communities, as it is widely known, had an oral tradition where experiences, information and Sethe to talk about her past. Denver has often questioned her mother about it, but until Beloved's arrival, the stories were passed down from one generation to another. In oral traditions, the stories are told from memories of the people, and Sethe has been unwilling to share her repressed memories with her younger daughter. Instead, she let them lie sometimes the story gets modified with the change of narrators. Moreover, these oral histories were more dynamic than the written below the surface and torment her. As Sethe tells Beloved about her past, it helps her to come to terms with it histories as they kept up with the culture and history of its people alive. and begin to heal. The Middle passage Sethe's stories about her own mother are very revealing. It becomes obvious that Sethe's trauma did not begin During the eighteenth century, the big seventeenth century business which had grown up around kidnapping West Africans and with her escape from Sweet Home. Her trauma began when she was taken from her mother by a system of bringing them across the Atlantic to work in the Caribbean and Central America extended into North America. European traders slavery that regarded the children as property and the adults as work animals that had no time for raising traded guns and other manufactured goods for human labourers. children. Sethe was raised in a communal environment by Nan. Since she was in charge of cooking and caring for all the slave children, she had no time to nurture them. To complicate matters further, she did not speak The journey from Africa to the Americas was intensely dangerous and frightening. Africans were rarely allowed on deck. Instead they English, for she had arrived on the plantation directly from Africa. Sethe believes that the reason she does not were crowded into the hull of the ship without room to stand or lie down comfortably. People died of suffocation. The food, if any was remember much about her childhood is because she cannot remember Nan's language or the words that she given, was rotten. Some Africans, in despair over conditions on the ship, unable to communicate with other prisoners because of spoke to her. Both Sethe's mother and Nan came as slaves from Africa during the Middle Passage. Being language barriers, killed themselves by jumping overboard. Some mothers threw their infants overboard to save them from the women, they had to endure unbelievable torture, for they were raped innumerable times. Their only means horrifying conditions on board and in the future. Being suspected of or trying to commit suicide caused Africans to be severely of resistance was to kill any child born out of the union and to refuse to put their arms around their rapists. punished. It was a harsh time for the slaves as they were seen as sub-human and no more than a way to make money for the slave- The female slaves were also cruelly branded on the chest in order that their owners could always recognise and claim them. When Sethe's mother grabs her daughter and shows her the brand on her chest, it is a sad owners. They experienced horrific treatment from their seniors and were treated with utter disregard. commentary. Since Sethe has not been permitted to know her mother, Sethe's mother cannot mark her Once in the British colonies, slaves were sold at auctions to the highest bidder. Buyers examined Africans who were required to stand identity for her daughter in anything but a brand that indicates that she is a slave. Although Sethe naked and show their teeth. African families were broken apart and sold to various owners. The fear of the auction block stayed with remembers little about her mother, the image of the brand is very clear to her. slaves. If their master took sick or died, they were in danger of being sold again.

"Denver hated the stories her mother told that did not concern herself, which is why Amy was all she ever asked about. The rest was a gleaming, powerful world made more so by Denver's absence from it. Not being in it, she hated it and wanted Beloved to hate it too, although there was no chance of that at all." Chapter 6, pg. 62 “Acts sick, sounds sick, but she don't look sick. Good skin, bright eyes and strong as a It became a way to feed her. Just as Denver discovered and relied on the delightful effect sweet things had on Beloved, Sethe learned the profound satisfaction bull." (Paul D) "She's not strong. She can hardly walk without holding on to Beloved got from storytelling something." (Sethe) They said it was all right for us to be husband and wife and that was it. All of it – ownership "Leave us alone, Ma'am. I'm taking care of her." "She threw them all away but you. The one from the crew she threw away on the island. The others from more whites she also threw away. Without names, she “Sethe was deeply touched by her sweet name; the remembrance of glittering threw them. You she gave the name of the black man. She put her arms around him. The others she did not put her arms around. Never. Never. Telling you. I headstone made her feel especially kindly toward her” am telling you, small girl Sethe."

Morrison’s novel is centred on the psychological repercussions of rape Beloved has a strong effect on Paul D. He knows something is wrong with her, but he cannot really sense what it is. In subsequent chapters, Paul D has different encounters with this re-incarnated being from Sethe's past. At the present, however, he just wishes that Beloved would disappear, for he feels she is a disruption and abuse. Dr. Robin E. Field focuses on Morrison’s representation of these traumas. “Such is the case with Sethe, the most prominent of the novel’s many to the peaceful existence he had found with Sethe. Beloved does not care for Paul D either; she knows that he is a threat to her intimacy with Sethe. sufferers, who bears the physical scars of slavery’s terrible violence upon her back” When Paul D questions Beloved about why she came to 124 Bluestone, she tells him that a woman at the bridge told her to come. The bridge and the water (Field 3). Sethe was attacked by two young white boys who held her down and below it are significant symbols. They symbolize the crossing from and washing away of the spirit world, where Beloved had existed since her death. The fact stole her milk, preventing her from feeding her daughter. “After I left you, those that Sethe's home used to be a way station is also significant. In the past, a way station was a haven for the freed slaves; it was a safe resting place where they boys came in there and took my milk. That’s what they came in there for. Hold me could stop for food, mail, messages, and conversation. Now Beloved, a reincarnated spirit, comes to the way station to seek a resting place after returning from down and took it” (Morrison 19). Sethe considered her milk for her daughter the afterlife. Both the freed slaves and Beloved are wandering souls needing a home. to be her most important possession, and in losing it, she lost a large part of herself. The timing of Beloved's arrival at 124 Bluestone is very significant, for she appeared on the day that Sethe had gone to the carnival with Paul D and Denver. It was the first time that Sethe had been out socially in years. As she walked with Paul D and her daughter, Sethe envisioned a future for the three of them as a “Her complete focus upon bringing the milk to her children, who have travelled to family. Beloved had to feel threatened by Sethe's thoughts of pursuing a new lifestyle. After all, Paul D had chased away her infant ghost from the house shortly

Baby Suggs’s house ahead of her, to the utter disregard of the pain she suffers after his arrival. Now Sethe was thinking about spending the rest of her life with him. Beloved felt she had to appear in the flesh to try and drive Paul D away and save Sethe for herself. As in previous chapters, the thoughts of Paul D and Sethe drift to the past. Paul D reflects on his own years of wandering after he during the journey, underscores how Sethe considers her milk to be of greater value than her body itself” (Field 3). She repressed the memory of the attack, escaped from Sweet Home. He encountered all types of African Americans, most of whom were lost souls after being emancipated. There were many who were so hungry and tired that they could not function. Others he found sleeping in trees or hiding in caves. His description of the freed slaves clearly brings to light the causing her to never fully move on with her life, but live, instead, horror and misery that blacks had to endure. constantly trying to subdue the memories that threaten to haunt her every day. “As for the rest, she worked hard to remember as close to nothing as When Paul D tells Sethe that in all his years he has never mistreated a woman, she comments he is probably the only such man, for even Halle mistreated her was safe” (Morrison 6). Sethe’s life was full of the horrors of slavery, by deserting her and the children. She tells Paul D how he failed to show up as planned on the day of the escape from Sweet Home. Her criticism causes Paul D to tell Sethe what really happened on that day. Halle was hiding in the loft of the barn when the nephews of Schoolteacher attacked her. Watching the entire creating memories that caused her to act rashly. Because of her attack, she brutal incident and feeling helpless to do anything about it, Halle is literally driven crazy. The last time Paul D saw him, Halle had smeared butter from the killed her daughter so that she could never be a victim of the same abuse. churn all over his face. At first Sethe is angry to hear that Halle saw what happened to her and did not come to her rescue. When she thinks more about it,

Many slaves were victim to such attacks during their lives. They were not seen as however, she reacts by saying it might have been nice if she and Halle could have gone insane together. It is clear that Sethe still misses her husband, whom she now believes is dead. people, but as objects that could easily be taken and used to the slave owners’ advantage. Sethe’s memory of the boys taking her milk became much stronger than her memory of being raped, because she chose to block out that memory The chapter ends on a tender note. After telling Sethe about the bit that was placed in his mouth and the torment caused by the rooster, Paul D reveals that he has responded to the traumas of his past by shutting down his emotions. Paul D does not have the freedom to roam and do as he pleases like this bird does, but he longs for entirely. However, we discover the real importance of her rape, as it is the this kind of privilege: “Mister was allowed to be and stay what he was. But I wasn’t allowed to be and stay what I was. Even if you cooked him you’d be cooking a rooster actual focus of her life and the horror that she wishes to keep her named Mister. He even imagines that he does not have a heart any longer. Sethe, when she hears his pain, is touched and gently rubs his knee with tenderness. It daughter from having to live. Barnett analyses Sethe’s actions as such: “For is clear that both of them need healing from the scars of their pasts. The tin box signals privacy and secrecy. But not in a safe-feeling way. Boxes, in general, Sethe, being brutally overworked, maimed, or killed is subordinate to aren't a happy place for Paul D if you consider that he was locked up in a box when he was on the chain gang. Just like the coffin-box Paul D experienced in Alfred, Georgia, the tin box isn't even a thing Paul D can open by himself: to get at his real self, he needs the women around him—both Beloved and Sethe—to the overarching horror of being raped and “dirtied” by whites; even show him who he can be. It's easy to credit Beloved for opening Paul D up (through sex), but we've got to give some props to Sethe, who starts the whole dying at the hands of one’s mother is subordinate to rape” (Barnett process. In additional to this, the fact that this is a tobacco tin suggest that Paul D is not escaping the true route of his suffering as slaves worked in the fields 419). Although it looked as if Sethe’s grief was because of her lost milk, harvesting the tobacco for white slave-owners to maximise their profits. It is revealed in this chapter that Sethe's house was once a way station. The motif of the her true anguish came from being raped, and it was that fate that she way station, a key element in the novel, operates on two levels. As an earthly dwelling for a wandering spirit, Sethe's house serves as Beloved's resting place sought to protect her daughter from. “Sethe believes death to be a kinder after she crosses the bridge to return from the afterlife. Historically, the way station was a treasured salvation for ex-slaves who lacked food, clothing, and safe passage among whites. For illiterate blacks who identified themselves by the scraps of names they were presented in slavery, the way station also served as a alternative than rape,” and that is the mentality that drives her to seek such postal centre and message drop. Chance meetings with other wayfarers sometimes reunited them with friends and loved ones. Barring such windfall, the way protection for her daughter (Field 4). While her actions may have spared her station provided a warm, dry, and safe rest stop along the wearying road away from slavery. Paul D, lost in thought, relives his 20 years on the road after daughter from a fate, in Sethe’s eyes, worse than death, they still hold leaving Sweet Home, where he encountered "Negroes so stunned, or hungry, or tired or bereft it was a wonder they recalled or said anything." As he and Sethe severe consequences that have helped pave the lives of all those that try to resolve the mystery of Halle's disappearance, Paul D bursts out with a defence of Halle, who epitomizes the emasculated black male, impeded from remain in Sethe’s presence. protecting his family: "A man ain't a goddamn ax. Chopping, hacking busting every goddamn minute of the day. Things get to him. Things he can't chop down because they're inside." Treatment of Slaves: The life of the majority of African slaves was that of agricultural workers. The field slaves on plantations worked long hours with hard The bestial image of Mister, the regal rooster, smiling from his tub, destroyed Paul D's remaining sense of humanity as he waited to be carted off to prison. He physical labour, sometimes with enough food, but more often without enough food now recognises the bitter irony of the fact that the bad-tempered rooster was free to be what it was — a rooster — while Paul D was stripped of his human or rest. Field slaves typically did have relative independence. Slaves, such as cooks, dignity and treated like an animal. He mourns the men of Sweet Home, "one crazy, one sold, one missing, one burnt and me licking iron with my hands crossed behind me." Sethe's maternal response to Paul D is as instinctive as soothing a child. To her, the rubbing and pressing of his anguished limbs brings the maids, butlers, and gardeners, were known as house slaves. They usually had better satisfaction of bread-making. As Sethe kneads Paul D's bony knee, her mind turns to her restaurant job and the workaday wisdom that there's "nothing better living conditions. They dealt with complicated interactions with the white family than [kneading bread] to start the day's serious work of beating back the past." who owned the farm.

The post- civil war landscape presents many conflict regarding self-identity: If people do not know their own place in society, Society: Morrison's characterisation of Denver reveals a pensiveness, a longing to cancel an old debt. Isolated physically how can they understand and work with each other? The project of Toni Morrison in Beloved is to make a connection between history and emotionally by her mother's secrets, she knows only the oral tradition of her birth and other bits of her life and personal and cultural memories to participate in the formation of the Black community‘s identity. Morrison illustrates how the story that she has derived over the years. By identifying with Sethe's flight into the woods, Denver is able to African American identity could be reconstructed through its own cultural heritage and social structure. Morrison depicts an enormous feel the dogs following and dread the white men's "mossy teeth" and their guns. Emulating a nursing mother, and horrific context which is the period of slavery and reconstruction. After the abolition of slavery, the psyches of the characters are she thrives on feeding Beloved's curiosity about the past. filled with traumatic experiences that they faced during slavery, which have influenced their personalities and damaged their relations with themselves. As a result of this oppression, envy, and through the fear of judgement, the Black community falls apart. The portrayal of Amy Denver, for whom Sethe's second daughter was named, echoes images of touching and healing that were introduced earlier in the book. Morrison hints at Amy's nature by her name, which derives Secrets and lies form the platform for society. There is something hidden in the notion of not experiencing slavery which is significant as from the Latin word amor, or love. An ignorant, tactless child, Amy expects Sethe (Lu) to die. Yet, cheerfully it is Sethe’s experiences of slavery that drive her to commit infanticide. humming, she detours from her own flight to gather cobwebs, elevate Sethe's swollen feet, and prattle on about her desire for bright red velvet, which symbolizes luxury. Morrison believes that African American history is distorted and romanticised. Spargo cites Morrison’s ideas about African American history: We live in a land where the past is always erased and America is the innocent future in which immigrants can come and start The contrast between Amy and Sethe reveals much about the social and economic climate of pre-Civil War over, where the slate is clean. The past is absent or it’s romanticised. This culture doesn't encourage dwelling on, let alone coming to America. Amy, who croons three verses of an elegant Renaissance lullaby, may have come from an educated terms with, the truth about the past. mother. Like Sethe, she cannot identify her father and has endured the whims of a callous master. Unlike Also in Holden-Kirwan’s article it is stated that in an interview with Bonnie Angelo of Time magazine, Toni Morrison discussed the desire Sethe, she fixes her hopes on a future filled with material pleasures. Although Amy, child of an indentured of the American nation to repress the memory of slavery. According to Morrison, the enslavement of Africans and African Americans in white servant, endured her share of torment from Mr. Buddy, she was spared the black woman's use as a brood animal and knows nothing of the demands of motherhood. Sethe, so far removed from materialism the United States is something that the characters in Beloved don’t want to remember. In the article Morrison notes that, “I [Morrison] that she fashioned a wedding dress from stolen pillow cases, a scorched scarf, and discoloured mosquito don’t want to remember, black people don’t want to remember, white people don’t want to remember”. Because of this unwillingness netting, sets her hopes on her children, who are her treasures. Whereas Amy has the option to refuse to nurse to remember, Morrison’s novels lead its reader to remember the conditions of slavery in a nation preferring to forget that a crime like a child, for Sethe, the act of breastfeeding is the focal point of her drive to stay alive, to deliver the "antelope" slavery was ever committed. kicking her womb, and to cross the river to Cincinnati, where Buglar, Howard, and Beloved await.

As though blessed by "four summer stars," emblematic of her four children, Sethe ignores hunger, pain, and fear in her rush to get milk to her baby. An equivalent number of contractions bring Denver safely to life before the foundering boat almost submerges both mother and child. The Mother Figure: woman’s maternal role is central communicated subtly through the 28 chapters replicating the menstrual cycle. The African vie is that all mothers are symbols of the marvellous creativity of the earth, but paradoxically, black women were rarely able to In benediction, Morrison blesses Sethe's "charmed" daughter (Denver) with a sprinkling of bluefern spores, the fulfil this stereotype, actively prevented by the exigencies of slave life. This is historically attested by Sojourner Truth’s ‘Ain’t I a Woman’ "seeds in which the whole generation sleeps confident of a future." This blessing uses the pathetic fallacy — the speech (1852) in which she asserted the experience of black motherhood as a loss: “I have borne thirteen children and see most all sold ascription of human traits or feelings to inanimate nature. It bends nature to the author's purpose, yet, in a into slavery and when I cried out a mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me”. leaky boat shaped like a human vulva, it promises no more than momentary safety on the "bloody side of the river." We see such a blessing come true of the end of the novel when Denver brings the community Sethe does not know motherhood: Sethe was suckled by another woman, slept apart from her mother and recognised her by the hat together. The seeds develop into a future which is strengthened once again by unity. she wore while working and the mark she bore on her ribs. Baby Suggs is prevented by the system of slavery and persecution from living out her life as a mother. She is denied the possibility of knowing her children. The value vested in female slaves’s capacity to There are several intended similarities between Sethe and Amy. Both are young women who do not know reproduce was often manipulated as a form of resistance and there are records of feigned illness, deliberate miscarriages and self- their parents. Both have endured hardships and torture as a slave and a servant. Both are basically kind imposed sterility. Certain feminist readings of the figure of Beloved herself perceive her to be a figure both for Sethe’s murdered people, willing to help others. Both are runaways trying to escape a miserable existence. There are also many daughter and for her African mother, taking evidence from Beloved’s memories of the Middle passage in her interior monologue. obvious differences between the two women. Although Amy was the daughter of an indentured servant and was sometimes mistreated, she was not, like Sethe, repeatedly raped; nor was she expected to produce Milk and breasts are used as a signifier for motherhood. Many balck women were forced to suckle the children of white women. The countless children to serve as additional slave labour. Amy is also more educated and knowledgeable than way Sethe’s rights as a black mother are impinged upon is symbolised by the way in which she is robbed of her milk. When Sethe is half- Sethe. She easily recalls and sings the words of an elegant lullaby. In addition, she knows about some of the strangled in the Clearing, the realisation that Beloved’s breath smells of new milk identifies her as Sethe’s daughter. finer things in life and believes that someday she will have a dress of bright red velvet, a symbol of luxury. In contrast, Sethe is totally uneducated, speaking only a dialectical, broken English. She has no hope of a bright Sethe’s behaviour in killing her daughter can be read as an attempt to reclaim her maternal rights and function. Sethe regards her future and cannot dream of red velvet. In fact, she had to fashion her wedding dress out of stolen scraps of children as possessions that she has made, and Toni Morrison questions whether this is an appropriate stance. There is an essential old pillowcases. Her only hope for the future is in her children. conflict between mothering and being an individual. When Sethe first arrives at 124, Baby Suggs refers to her as a ‘mother’ defining her by her biological role. Sethe’s mother love becomes stifling forcing Denver out of the house to become her own woman. Exclusive When Denver asks Beloved what it is like in the spirit world, Beloved compares it to the hold of a slave ship; mother love of this nature is not endorsed by the text, and as a motive for killing Sethe’s daughter, is neither condoned or condemned. she says that "down there" it was hot, with no room to breathe. After death, the pain of life continued to The dialogic style and structure of the text resists a single interpretation. Paul D’s memories allows us a glimpse of Sethe before she was haunt Beloved. Her plight was no better than the slaves who were miserably crowded into the hold of a ship a mother. The final expulsion of Beloved and the return of Paul D promise a new future and reintegration into the community from on their journey from Africa to America. When Denver asks Beloved, how and why she has returned to the living, she explains that she waited on the bridge (between life and death) for a long time in order to be with which Sethe has been exiled. Her last words “Me?Me?” in response to Paul D’s suggestion that she herself is her own best thing, suggest the possibility of an identity other than the self-imposed role of mother. Sethe again.

Sethe decides it is time to follow the advice of Baby Suggs to deal with her past and "lay it all down." Before Paul D's arrival, she was Morrison blends several religious conventions in this chapter. Like Pythia, Apollo's priestess in ancient Delphi, satisfied to live with the memories of faces of Howard and Buglar and to keep her husband in mind somewhere out there. Now, because of "Baby Suggs, holy" sat in her shrine — the clearing — and, without training, responded intuitively to the Paul D's revelation, she can only see an image of her husband with his face covered with butter. She knows she must exorcise such visions. spiritual needs of all comers. Her Christ-like message, "Let the children come," emulates Mark 10:14, "Suffer Sethe decides that she must go to the Clearing to try and heal the past. the little children to come unto me." Reaching out to men and women as well, Baby Suggs bid the children to laugh, the men to dance, and the women to cry. The throng, mixing their roles in a symphony of Sethe wishes Baby Suggs was still around to rub her neck and say, "Lay em down, Sethe. Sword and shield. Don't study war no laughter, dance, and sobs, responded to Baby Suggs's "great big heart." more." She also wishes she could hear one of the healing sermons of Baby Suggs that would encourage her to get rid of her "knives of defence against misery, regret, gall, and hurt." She still misses Baby Suggs, nine years after her mother-in-law succumbed to her Like the Native American All-Mother or Mediterranean Earth Mother mythic figures who offer blessings weak heart. and transcend time and place by permeating all cultures, Baby Suggs offers her own version of Christ's beatitudes. After the battering self-denial of slavery, her followers need self-esteem more than theology. Before the way station at 124 Bluestone had closed down and become haunted, it had been a cheerful place, where Baby Suggs nurtured Baby Suggs exhorts them to find human comfort — to love their hands and to use them in touching, everyone. Food was always ready on the stove, and the light was always left on all night. Strangers rested there, and messages and mail patting, and stroking others. She names feet, backs, shoulders, arms, liver, and "the prize" — the heart. A were exchanged. After crossing the Ohio River, Sethe arrived at the way station with her new-born baby and felt Baby Suggs' embrace for foreshadowing of Baby Suggs's heart condition as well as of Sethe's need to rediscover her own self-worth, the first time. She soon learned that her mother-in-law was an "unchurched preacher." She gave her sermons in a variety of churches in the scene anticipates the conclusion of the novel in which Sethe, no longer able to lean upon her wise the winter; in the warm weather, she took the people to the Clearing every Saturday afternoon. Baby Suggs did not preach about sin or mother-in-law, finds acceptance in Paul D and thus accepts herself. blessedness. She told her people that they could have grace only if they could see it. She urged them to love each other in the flesh, because outside the Clearing their flesh was despised and tortured by others. She called for them to raise up their hands and touch each other in Sethe's salvation is challenged, however, by a harrowing event that causes the neighbouring black love. community to shun her for 18 years. Coinciding with Baby Suggs's collapse, this event occurs a mere month after Sethe's reunion with her children. The description of the four-week period of peace as "twenty-eight Sethe now wants to go to the Clearing to pay tribute to Halle. She takes Denver and Beloved with her. As Sethe arrives at the Clearing, she days" reflects another feminine detail, the lunar cycle that governs the menstrual flow, which is also evident begins to sweat, just like when she woke up on the banks of the Ohio River. As she began to walk with her new baby, she came upon three in the number of chapters in the text. Sethe goes to the clearing to ‘ (p.89) just as black fishermen. One of them, Stamp Paid, asked her if she wanted to cross the river. listen to the spaces’ Ella listens for the ‘holes’ (p.92) of Sethe’s tale. Sethe describe Sethe ‘empty space’ about Halle’s fate (p.95). Beloved is full of these gaps and spaces underlining the impossibility of a totalised narrative. We do When she responded positively, he noticed that the baby was a new-born and that she was in pain. The man told the boy with him to give up his coat. He then wrapped the baby in it, and gave the mother food. At dusk, the man took the mother and child across the river in a not know whether Beloved really is Sethe’s daughter or what she really is. We do not learn what boat and led her to a shack, where he hung a white rag flag outside. Ella responded to the flag and came to help Sethe and the child. happened to Halle just as Sethe does not know why her mother was hanged. This not knowing was one of When Sethe felt stronger, she travelled to 124 Bluestone. Baby Suggs began to take care of Sethe, especially her feet, which had no feeling the results of slavery which, in its system of moving people around, effectively destroyed the possibility of in them. She also made her a new dress, discarding Sethe's old ones as rags; however, she allowed her to keep the crystal earrings, the gift familial memory and the correlative sense of identity. from Mrs. Garner. The baby Denver loved to watch them and hear them jangle. In the Clearing, Sethe sits down on Baby Suggs' rock, while Denver and Beloved watch her from the trees. Sethe finally forces herself to accept the truth -- Halle will never come back. As the The description of the mating turtles is erotic: an example of Morrison’s prose-poetry. The five verbs create pain of this thought sinks in, Sethe silently calls out to Baby Suggs, asking her to rub her neck one more time. Then she promises she will lay density of meaning. The assonance of ‘placed plates’ and the onomatopoeia of clashing and ‘pat pat it all down and "make a way out of this no way." As she bows her head, Sethe feels a light, childlike touch on her neck; it is so soft, it is pat’ augment the physicality of the scene. When Beloved seduces Paul D she is compared to the turtles almost like a baby's fingers. The fingers then grow tight around her throat until she feels herself being strangled. Denver, seeing her (p.116). The two turtles having sex represents Beloved's anger at Sethe and Paul D, they are also slowly mother's pain, runs to her, followed by Beloved. coming out of their "shells" to touch and feel each other.

When Denver shouts out, Sethe feels the fingers letting go. Beloved tries to comfort Sethe by massaging her neck and kissing it. Sethe, sensing the similarities of Beloved's touch to the previous touch on her neck, knows that her intimacy is inappropriate; she pulls away and tells Beloved she is too old for such behaviour. As Sethe walks away, she realizes that it was the infant ghost who was choking her. She thinks that the ghost must now be living in the Clearing since Paul D has chased it out of the house. When Sethe and the girls arrive at the Morrison’s delineation of inner and outer space, in particular her portraiture of both floors of the two- house, Paul D is on the porch. As he embraces Sethe, Beloved sees them. She is jealous of their relationship and the time it takes Sethe storey house, reveals an architectural aberration that foreshadows the intricate dislocation of space-time, away from her. She wants Sethe all to herself. Since Sethe is going inside to cook a special dinner for Paul D, Beloved goes to find Denver. which defines the form and narrative structure of the novel. For the novel defies linearity and logic and its When she finds her, Denver accuses her of choking Sethe in the Clearing. Beloved denies the charge and says "the circle of iron" choked her. deftly interwoven narrative fragments, interior monologue and stream of consciousness are realised

Beloved then runs away towards the stream. through reminiscence and reiteration as tense oscillates between simple past and historic present. Denver thinks about how the ghost has lived and disturbed the peace at 124 Bluestone. Even though she and Sethe called up the ghost Self-contained spaces such as Sweet Home and The Clearing provide a contrast to 124. Sweet Home, the and tried to reason with it, nothing changed. She is amazed that Paul D has succeeded in chasing off the ghost to "take its place for slave farm or plantation in Kentucky where Paul D Garner, Paul F Garner, Paul A Garner, Sixo, Halle himself." Denver knows, however, that she prefers the baby ghost to Paul D. She also knows that she prefers Beloved over Sethe; this fact, Suggs and Sethe serve the liberal white slave master Mr Garner, represents the space of ambiguity and however, is troubling to her, especially since she now believes that Beloved wants to harm her mother. She then thinks about how she and irony. The slave plantation is, of course, neither sweet nor home, albeit life there is relatively bearable her mother have always been shunned in the community and remembers being questioned by Nelson Lord: "Didn't your mother get before the factors of Mr Garner’s death and Mrs Garner’s illness combine to necessitate the arrival of the locked away for murder? Wasn't you in there with her when she went?" Denver sees Beloved upstream. She approaches her to inhuman schoolteacher. The Clearing, on the other hand, is “a wide-open space cut deep in the woods” to ask for forgiveness. Beloved is staring at two turtles mating. When she sees Denver, she drops the hem of her skirt into the water. where Baby Suggs — Halle’s mother, Sethe’s mother-in-law and Denver’s paternal grandmother —

summons the black community to laugh, cry, dance and to love their tortured, dehumanised selves.

Suffering: the suffering in this chapter is evident from the beginning. We see has this suffering leaves Paul D supressing his memories and emotions into his tin heart. Suffering has psychoanalytical effects.  The chapter begins focusing on Paul D’s experiences of being part of chain gang in Alfred, Georgia. His ankles and wrists are shackled. The reader is given a detailed description of the wooden boxes Brutality: the brutality is depicted in a graphic and visual way because Morison is giving those who have not shared their where the men sleep, which are buried under the ground. opportunity the platform to do so. The brutal telling shocks reader as they learn of the lengths that exploitation went to and the  He was sent there for trying to kill Brandywine. futility felt by a slave.  At dawn, all forty-six men are woken with a rifle shot. The process is very regimented: the shot of a Defeat: defeat mirrors the way that the black community felt. There is an odd sense in using the word community for this chapter rifle signifies the men can move. as the black community had been destroyed. However, in this despair a new community forms. We see how Paul D feels that life  Three white men are in control has taken everything from his.  The white men dehumanise the slaves by forcing them to give them oral sex. Escape: through escape, the reader is given a sense of liberty which is presented through the landscape. The setting reflects the  After eight-six days of the existence, the slaves are locked down because of bad weather. emotions Paul D experiences. The blossom trees present the tree of life – this escape begins a whole new chapter for Paul D.  The slave experience is living hell. They lie in their own faeces and feel like the mud will crush them whilst in the boxes.  The wet mud enables the men to escape from their underground boxes.

Linden Peach - In this chapter the view that men are beasts in portrayed through the white men’s treatment of the black slaves,  The escaped slaves find a camp of Cherokee: they help to release the slaves from their chains. instilling them with a sense of the ‘other’. The slaves are dehumanised through sexual exploitation. A post-modernist reading of this chapter sees how the slaves were grouped, moved and forced under leadership in a way which devalued their worth. Rejecting a  Paul D seeks to travel North. He ends up in Delaware, where the weaver lady takes him in. feminist reading, we see that not only women were exploited sexually, men were too. Paul D's treatment in the Georgia prison camp is  He puts all of his experiences into his tin heart – he does not want to remember his suffering. horrid and dehumanising. Since they are not allowed to speak to each other, they communicate in songs and gestures. When bad weather turns  Morrison’s Message: This chapter highlights the cruelty experienced by black people at the hands of the earth to mud, they plan their escape together, diving to freedom through the mud. The solidarity of the group emphasizes a central theme of Morrison's novel: people can best resist oppression if they act in concert with each other. white supremacy. The reader can begin to understand why their history is so painful, and why they constantly actively try to forget their past.

The welcome the prisoners receive by the Cherokees is significant. Both blacks and native Americans were terribly oppressed by the white man; as a result, the Cherokees understand the needs of the escaped black prisoners and allow them to stay in their campMorrison until believed they are that strong the real enough history toneeds travel. rewriting Paul ratherD is the than last recording. prisoner Morrison to leave used the theCherokees. novel Beloved He is as reluctant a way of tore storinggo, for the historical event of Margaret Garner’s infanticide. She would rather kill her own baby than keep them to be enslaved, demonstrating the destruction of human nature under slavery. Through creating the life story of Sethe’s infanticide, she reconstructed the truth in history in its truest aspect. Many a book on American slavery mainly refers to the slavery itself or the abolition of slavery, which ignores or suppresses the inner life of the black. Instead Morrison, in her novel Beloved, intends to not only show slavery, but display the slaves’ survival “Roiling bloods was shaking him to condition. Through this chapter, the reader is given traumatic and disturbing details from the perspective of a slave. Sensory details help to unpick the torrent of emotions felt by Paul D who wretches watching what others are and fro.” P. 126 subjected to, does not know if the screams or tears are real, and who feels an imprisonment that likens him to already being dead. In all of this pain and suffering, the reader can see that the aspect of brotherhood is strong – a trait familiar amongst black African American communities. They powerful sanctuary of family means that slaves are not defeated and it becomes the driving force for the story. Paul D is described as ‘trembling’ throughout the “Occasionally a kneeling man chose a opening of the chapter, but we are told that “no one could tell.” From this, we can see the rage which subsides in Paul D. Morrison predicted Beloved to be her least read work because of its dreadful, appalling subject that in her gunshot in his head as the price, own words is “something that the characters don’t want to remember … black people don’t want to remember, white people don’t want to remember … it’ national amnesia.” The use of repetition helps to establish the song like maybe, of taking a bit of foreskin voice that Morrison uses throughout the story. This repetition and songlike narrative emphasises the resistance to silence – particularly poignant in this chapter as we see Paul D battle with the fact that he must remain silent, and with him to Jesus.” P.127 the silence forms a major part in the slaves’ conformity. There is a powerful juxtaposition which is created in this chapter through the symbolic use of trees, blossom and landscape, against the harsh and brutal lady of Georgia under slavery: “The chain danced over the fields.” The juxtaposition exemplifies the genre of traumatic fiction by personifying life. Life is personified as female: “Paul D beat her butt all day everyday till there was not a whimper “Singing love songs to Mr. Death, they in her.” Morrison often uses unexpected syntax and unconventional images to disrupt our expectations. She makes use of vernacular phrases and colloquial expressions—in particular those drawn from black communities—to smashed his head.” P.128 counter the idea that literary language need not be made of a traditional form associated with white culture. Her work is thus a novelistic form of “tricking the words” so as to innovate storytelling and provide a space for literary black emancipation. The listing of what ‘they sang’ is a structural pattern to emphasise the unity of the brotherhood. Their strength comes from each other – a symbol for how black people endured slavery. This pattern is then “A man could risk his own life, but subverted in the next paragraph with what ‘they beat’. This depicts the destruction of their souls and their lack of voice. Their songs turn to actions – this feeds into Morrison’s message for giving black people a voice. Morrison not his brother’s” P.129 positions it as an active agent when she makes it the subject of the sentence that “would save all or none.” In comparison, the slaves are “unshriven dead, zombies,” language that emphasizes how dehumanized they have become “Eight six days and done. Life was in their current occupation. Ironically, it is the chain that saves them as it tied the brotherhood together giving them the strength to overcome white dominance. The usual interpretations of chains have been subverted. This entire chapter is a flashback of Paul D's life from the time he is tied to a wagon and taken away from Sweet Home to the time he reaches freedom in Delaware. It only reenters the present time of the novel in the last short dead.” P.129 paragraph, when Paul D's heart is described as a tobacco tin that is rusted shut and filled with all his horrible memories. Paul D's escape experience contrasts markedly with Sethe's flight; he has nowhere to go once he has his “Paul D thought he was screaming.” freedom, while Sethe was determined to get to 124 Bluestone to be with her family.

Paul D remembers the time that he spent on a Georgia chain gang. He reflects specifically on the way they used music as a way to connect to each other. This passage speaks to the way that artistic expression allowed the slaves “All Georgia seemed to be sliding, melting away.” P.131 a limited amount of agency and mobility within their lives. Though they were unable to alter their work conditions, the slaves could still control their use of language. Thus “garbling the words” becomes an expression of personal control in that they can scramble language to their whims. “Tricking the words” presents their behaviour as subversive, for the chain gang members can bend the language itself to their own purposes. That manipulation functions “Free North. Magical North. as a small rebellion, too, against white oppressors who otherwise maintained harsh control of language. Here, the slave-owners would not have been able to make sense of their songs. This transformation also takes place in the language of Morrison’s novel itself. For instance the term “chaindanced” is formed in a similar compound-word structure as “chain gang,” but turns a noun that underlines entrapment into an expression of liberty. And this Welcoming benevolent North.” P.132 linguistic play is characteristic of her work: Morrison often uses unexpected syntax and unconventional images to disrupt our readerly expectations. She makes use of vernacular phrases and colloquial expressions—in particular “A dark ragged figure guided by those drawn from black communities—to counter the idea that literary language need not be made of a traditional form associated with white culture. Her work is thus a novelistic form of “tricking the words” so as to innovate blossoming plums.” P.133 storytelling and provide a space for literary black emancipation.

Morrison uses biblical allusion to Lot's wife. Lot's wife is a figure first mentioned in Genesis 19. The Book of Genesis describes how In this brief but crucial interlude, Morrison reveals the ghost's strength by proving her ability to overpower a she became a pillar of salt after she looked back at Sodom (a city) as she fled with her husband. She uses it to represent her reluctant adult male. The biblical allusion to Lot's wife, who instantly stiffens into a column of salt for her sin of characters' longing to remember the past. They know it isn't a good past and they try not to look back, but they can't help it. disobedience, indicates that Paul D realises the immorality that he contemplates: coupling with a wilful, unstable There are different interpretations/commentaries explaining why Lot’s wife looked back: girl whom Sethe loves "as much as her own daughter." By giving in to temptation, he not only betrays his relationship with Sethe but also dissolves the bond between himself, Sethe, and Denver, whose shadows appeared In Judaism, one common view of Lot's wife turning to salt was as punishment for disobeying the angels' warning. By looking back to link hands on the day of the carnival breaking the original trinity. at the "evil cities" she betrayed her secret longing for that way of life. She was deemed unworthy to be saved and thus turned to a pillar of salt. Beloved's appearance halted the positive changes Paul D had initiated, and in this chapter, the balance of power in the household shifts. Beloved has grown strong enough to force Paul D from the house, just as he once forced her Another accepted view in the Jewish exegesis of Genesis 19:26, is that when Lot's wife looked back, she turned to a pillar of salt upon the sight of God who was descending down to rain destruction upon Sodom and Gomorrah. spirit from the house. She then drains the remaining power he possesses by forcing him to have sex with her, which not only undercuts his relationship with Sethe but also destroys the emotional safeguards he had established to

A Jewish legend gives one reason for Lot's wife looking back, and that was to check if her daughters, who were married to men of protect himself from further suffering. Sodom, were coming or not. Instead, she saw God descending in order to rain fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah. Thus, the sight of God turned her into a pillar of salt. Morrison has foreshadowed Beloved's temptations by having her watch the mating turtle with fascination. The reader clearly understands that Beloved wants to tempt Paul D in order to keep him away from Sethe, whom she Another Jewish legend says that because Lot's wife sinned with salt, she was punished with salt. On the night the two angels visited wants all to herself. Like the mating turtles that Beloved observes in Chapter 9, Paul D is encumbered by his shell. Lot, he requested of his wife to prepare a feast for them. Not having any salt, Lot's wife asked of her neighbours for salt which so He is so out of touch with his motivations that Beloved deceives him into believing that he chooses to abandon happened to alert them of the presence of their guests, resulting in the mob action that endangered Lot's family. Sethe's bed. His body still demands twice daily sexual release, but his subconscious forces him further from warmth and intimacy to the cold, paper-lined shed. Despite his effort to counter Beloved's appeal by fixing his gaze on the The fear Paul D experiences when he is sexually aroused by the ‘light’ Beloved emanates when he sees her in Sethe’s kitchen false silver idol of the lard can, he yields to "some womanish need to see the nature of the sin behind him." The mirrors the fear he feels when Beloved approaches him in the shed. This fear, expressed in his wish not to ‘look’ at her lest he be extended metaphor of the tobacco tin pictures his heart as freed of corrosion; as he penetrates her body, she pierces frozen or relegated to a state of nothingness under her gaze, implies Paul D is afraid to face his own ‘reflection’. It is interesting to the core of his heart. The energy expended in the act obscures his sense of sound and the removal of the tin lid, yet note the reference to Lot’s wife at this point in Paul D’s narrative. It appears that Paul D is afraid that if he succumbs to the the vocal repetition of his release at discovering his "red heart" awakens Denver and ultimately "Paul D himself." power of Beloved’s gaze he would be situated in a ‘permanent’ position in history, unlike those temporary positions he was The repetition of ‘red heart’ mimics the rhythm of sex. It is significant that Beloved wants Paul D to call her by confined to in the chain gang and on the plantation. With this possibility in mind, the reasons Lot’s wife is turned into salt become name. She is a being in desperate need of recognition. Having been deprived of her mother when she was a intriguing. As the story is told in Exodus, she is turned into a pillar of salt either because she ‘looked’ back at the city of Sodom toddler and still unrecognised by her, Beloved feels she never had owned an identity; now as a young adult, she and Gomorrah with her eyes (physically), which was contrary to what she had been told to do by the angel that saved her and wants someone to truly name her. Lot from destruction in the city, or she looked back with her heart, desiring to stay there, with all her worldly possessions and maintain the life she had become comfortable with. Paul D’s desire to sleep with Beloved can be viewed in a similar fashion: “As Paul D reacts to his having betrayed Sethe and the family he has formed with her. After having sex with Beloved, long as his eyes were locked on the silver of the lard can,” the narrative states, “he was safe. If he trembled like Lot’s wife and felt he notices that the lid of his tin can, which has been rusted shut, comes loose. Since he believes that the tin can is the replacement for his hardened hard, Paul D realizes that his actions have caused him to have genuine feelings once some womanish need to see the nature of the sin behind him; feel a sympathy perhaps, for the cursing cursed, or want to hold it again. It is a step in his healing process, and one he must make in order to live a full life with Sethe. It is ironic that in his arms out of respect for the connection between them, he too would be lost” (117). Thus desire itself becomes the tempting what Beloved has done to drive Paul D away from Sethe will have the opposite outcome. Beloved has caused him force. Paul D’s expressions of fear at this particular moment in the narrative are compounded by his previous constructions of to have feelings once again, which will help him to form a permanent relationship with Sethe. manhood/personhood under the system of slavery. This image, patched together through his exposure to others reading him, and reading his sexual identity in particular, forces him to shrink from the light Beloved sheds upon his fractured part of himself. Beloved’s ability to force Paul D to ‘see’ himself and the complex way he is formed is suggested by the fact that his chain-gang narrative immediately precedes his love making scene with beloved. It is significant that Beloved wants Paul D to call her by name. She is a being in desperate need of recognition. Having been deprived of her mother when she was a toddler and still unrecognised by her, Beloved feels she never

To conclude, Paul D doesn't want to look back because he doesn't want to acknowledge Beloved's presence--he doesn't want to had owned an identity; now as a young adult, she wants someone to truly name her. recognize that the past exists. He eventually does go to her as a sort of acceptance of the past, but he is punished by his feelings of guilt. It seems like almost a reversal of the story of Lot's wife: the reader knows that Lot's wife really shouldn't look back, but Paul Paul D reacts to his having betrayed Sethe and the family he has formed with her. After having sex with Beloved, D's acceptance of the past, while ambiguous, is ultimately portrayed much more positively. he notices that the lid of his tin can, which has been rusted shut, comes loose. Since he believes that the tin can is the replacement for his hardened hard, Paul D realises that his actions have caused him to have genuine feelings once again. It is a step in his healing process, and one he must make in order to live a full life with Sethe. It is ironic that what Beloved has done to drive Paul D away from Sethe will have the opposite outcome. Beloved has caused him “Call me my name.” to have feelings once again, which will help him to form a permanent relationship with Sethe.

“Red heart. Red heart. Read heart” Erzulie is a family of loa, or spirits, in Voodoo. Erzulie is known for her passion, beauty and fierce nature—she is woman etherealized. Mounting both men and women indiscriminately, she is sexually ambiguous. Her symbol is the red “She moved him. heart, often pierced with a dagger. She is elegant and often brings excess, emotional and material. Like a Siren, she can “I want you touch me on the inside part and call me my name.” lure anyone with her beauty, but like Medusa, she can quickly turn jealous and evil, sucking the life out of her admirers. She is not a fertility goddess and she is not a mother. Critics have applied this reading to the character of Beloved.

Sethe's explanation of what she thinks happened to Beloved again shows the brutality of slavery, of how white men could do anything they wanted to their The tragic cause is rooted in the African diaspora. Historically known as the Middle Passage, the slave trade spanned the expansion of Europe from the sixteenth slaves. Denver doesn't believe her mother's story because she knows the truth: that century, culminating in America in the late nineteenth century. The slave trade effected the death, deracination, and abduction of millions of Africans who, boarded Beloved is the baby ghost who used to keep Sethe company. Beloved and Denver like cattle on numerous slavers, were sold at various ports of call. Morrison mourns them in her first epigraph/epitaph: "Sixty million / and more." Sold, bought, and share common goals and needs: they both crave attention, are jealous of Paul D, brought from their homelands to Europe, the Caribbean, and the Americas, many died on route. In an interview by Walter Clemons, noted by Elizabeth B. House in and want him to leave. But Beloved needs Sethe, not Denver. And Denver tries to occupy both women's attention, to keep them from connecting with each other "Toni Morrison's Ghost: The Beloved Who Is Not Beloved," Morrison states that "the figure is the best educated guess at the number of black Americans who never made and leaving her out. it into slavery — those who died either as captives in Africa or on the slave ships." This approximate figure (which in the novel also refers to the number of those enslaved Beloved has a different relationship with each person in the house. She offers her prior to and after the Civil War) is substantiated by W.E.B. DuBois in The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870.5 In this body to Paul D, awakening his lust. To Denver she is like a sister; they are both classic study, DuBois records that the Assiento Treaty of 1713 between England and Spain granted and sustained " a monopoly of the Spanish colonial slave trade for companions and rivals. Beloved is a replacement for the daughter Sethe lost. But thirty years," and that England engaged to supply the colonies within that time with at least 144,000 slaves, at the rate of 4,800 per year." DuBois states that between the roles are mixed up. Sethe should be Paul's lover, and Denver should have a stronger mother-daughter relationship with Sethe. At the end of the chapter, "1713 and 1733, fifteen thousand slaves were annually imported to America by the English." While painstakingly providing a catalogue of laws that were passed between Beloved reveals more details about the dark place from which she came. Again, 1638 and 1870 and that were intended to escalate, decrease, or abolish the slave trade, DuBois demonstrates its resilience. For instance, he states that "from 1680 to 1688, this can be read as symbolic of the Middle Passage. She convinces Denver that she 249 ships sailed to Africa, importing 60,783 Negro slaves. In addition to legitimate clearances, DuBois discloses various methods of subterfuge and provides evidence for does not want to go back there again. Just as Beloved craves for recognition, so much "unregistered trade," citing that "in 1864 The Huntress, of New York, under the American flag, lands slaves in Cuba." In the same interview mentioned above, does Denver; and just like Beloved, Denver is jealous of Paul D. Denver has longed Morrison knowingly adds that: one account describes the Congo as so clogged with bodies that the boat couldn't pass. . . . They packed 800 in a ship if they'd promise to to be truly valued by Sethe, but her mother is too preoccupied with the past to deliver 400. They assumed that half would die. And half did. .. . A few people in my novel remember it. . . . Baby Suggs came here on one of those ships. But mostly, it's give her daughter what she needs. It is not surprising, therefore, that the lonely and isolated Denver is immediately attracted to Beloved and feels in her the not remembered at all. In addition to Baby Suggs, Nan and Beloved also remember. After decades of suppressing the fact, Sethe also painfully remembers that her return of family and communion with another. In fact, Denver is so desperate to mother had come to the New World from Africa on a slaver. In Beloved, Morrison reclaims the presence of African Americans by retracing and reconstructing "the have Beloved's attention that she puts forth all of her effort to gain it. During the symbolic and historical significance" of the Middle Passage and meditating upon its impact. This moral imperative is clearly articulated in an "Interview with Toni day, while Sethe is away at work, she tries to keep Beloved by her side by explaining the smallest details of the chores and by telling her the most Morrison" by Christina Davis. Davis asked: "When you talk about ''names that bore witness' in Song of Solomon, would they be part of the historical experience of Blacks in the United States?" Unequivocally, Morrison replied: Yes, the reclamation of the history of black people in this country is paramount in its importance because while unimportant facts about the people she has known and seen. Denver knows that when Sethe returns from work, Beloved will not have any time for her. you can't really blame the conqueror for writing history his own way, you can certainly debate it. There's a great deal of obfuscation and distortion and erasure, so that the presence of the heartbeat of black people has been systematically annihilated in many, many ways and the job of recovery is ours. Denver instinctively knows that she cannot push Denver too far or she will drive Paying tribute to those who died on route during the Middle Passage and confirming this historical reality, Morrison also embarks on a sustained and unparalleled her away. As a result, she walks a fine line. She does not tell Sethe about Beloved's adventures in the cold room; neither does she ask Beloved too many questions. meditation upon slavery. The consequences of the Middle Passage and its ever-present consequences are fully dramatized in the twenty-three year period of American When Denver and Beloved go to the cold house to get cider, Denver is afraid that history covered in Beloved. Brian Finney, in "Temporal Defamiliarisation in Toni Morrison's Beloved," provides a lucid historical analysis of this period, pointing out that she has again lost her "sister" to the other world, for Beloved simply disappears in "part of her narrative strategy, then, is to position the reader within the text in such a way as to invite participation in the (re)construction of the story, one which is the darkness. Denver opens the door to let some light into the room, but Beloved is nowhere to be found. Denver loses control and thinks she will dissolve into usually complicated by an achronological ordering of events." By identifying "the two principal periods between which the novel moves backwards and forwards [as] 1850-1855 and 1873-1874" and marshalling textual evidence, Finney reconstructs the chronology of Morrison's narrative, thus enabling the reader to sequence the events nothingness if Beloved has abandoned her; she has already lost Baby Suggs, Buglar, Howard, and Sethe. When Beloved suddenly reappears, she curls into a year per year and to identify the months and the number of days. foetal position and appears like an infant. Returning to herself, Beloved is fascinated with her own face, which bears a likeness to the face of Denver. By this Thompson also points out that many survivors of the Middle Passage reconnected to their lost culture by returning to African tradition's and beliefs "precisely because point in the novel, Morrison has developed several roles for the mysterious their culture provides them with ample philosophic means for comprehending, and ultimately transcending, the powers that periodically threaten to dissolve them.'' Beloved, the woman brought out of hell. To Paul, she is his lover who has Thompson affirms what Morrison reaffirms in Beloved: that African religion, philosophy, and art "withstood the horrors of the Middle Passage and firmly established awakened his emotions once again; to Denver, she is a friend who breaks the themselves in the Americas"; and that the transportation of Africans as slaves into the New World "reflects the triumph of an inexorable communal will by those loneliness and isolation of her existence; and to Sethe, she is a substitute daughter destined for total obliteration.' for the one she has lost. All three find in the supernatural Beloved that which they cannot find in the reality of each other.

Magical realism as a dominant literary mode in Toni Morrison's Beloved can be considered as a decolonizing agent in a postcolonial context. Morrison's narrative Denver wrestles with her relationship with Beloved: she craves her attention and only occasionally gets it, and then unexpectedly. But, when Beloved does bestow her in Beloved, takes the advantage of both realism and magic to challenge the attention on Denver, it is "lovely." She doesn't try for more because she fears pushing Beloved further from her. Sethe, meanwhile, has taken on the task of asking assumptions of an authoritative colonialist attitude and so can be alleged as a Beloved about her past and what she remembers. Does she have any memories of her mother? Beloved replies that she remembers having been snatched from "a powerful and efficient method to project the postcolonial experience of African- woman who was hers" but otherwise nothing much except the bridge. Sethe tells Denver that she believes Beloved had been locked up by a white man who used her for American ex-slaves in the Unites States. It can also provide an alternate point of his sexual needs and that Beloved has wiped her memory clean. Denver doesn't believe the story; she knows that Beloved is the white dress that knelt beside her view to Eurocentric accounts of reality and history to attack the solidity of mother—the real-life presence of the baby's ghost. Eurocentric definitions and as a consequence to portray the hidden and silenced One day Denver asks Beloved to help her get the cider jug from the cold room. Once inside the door closes, leaving them in complete darkness. Denver panics when voices of numerous enslaved generations of African-Americans in the history of Beloved won't answer her, and she rushes to the door, opens it, and finds that Beloved has disappeared. She doesn't want to go through being abandoned again after United States. The present study attempts to explore magical realism's having been left behind by her brothers and Baby Suggs. Suddenly Beloved is standing before her, and Denver is elated. She tells Beloved that she feared she had gone decolonizing role in Morrison's Beloved. In pursuing this goal it will trace the narrative and thematic strategies of magical realism that highlight the novel as an back, but Beloved tells her that she doesn't want that place; she is here now. As she talks her eyes suddenly sharpen their focus, and she tells Denver that she sees a face essential text of postcolonial literature. and that it is herself.

The way in which Morrison has written ‘her’-story, prioritizing the voice of Sethe, a black female slave, and her search through narrative Three weeks into his affair with Beloved, Paul D ponders his servitude under Garner, who allowed so much and memory of a sense of self is a subject for many feminist studies. Women’s roles: in the Underground Railroad, in African spirituality freedom that the male Sweet Home slaves were deluded into thinking themselves men. Paul D thinks of and in subverting slavery are developed in Beloved. Denise Heinze uses W.E DuBois’s term of double consciousness in her examination himself as the last of the Sweet Home men, for he is the only survivor amongst the five male slaves. Although of Morrison’s paradoxical role as a black female ‘minority’ writer who is read by Americans of all classes and races. The way in which Garner encouraged all of them to think independently like men, it was a cruel trick, for all of the black males the female body is written upon, the scars on Sethe’s back that are inscribed by schoolmaster’s nephews and renamed by Amy and were emasculated by their role as slaves and by their owners, especially Schoolteacher, who totally ruled over Paul D are examined as a way of figuring male and white discourse on a female black subject. This is treated in depth in an article by them. He thinks about Sixo trying to prove his manliness. Although his body was being roasted over flames, Mae G. Henderspon, who uses theories from historiography and psychoanalysis in her examination of memory and the past in Beloved. Sixo refused to cry out. Paul D realises he is still not in control of himself. Under Beloved's influence, he has She discusses the symbolism of the ink that Sethe makes which is used by Schoolteacher. Marks and signs have also been used by Carole become a "ragdoll--picked up and put back down anywhere any time by a girl young enough to be his Boyce Davis in Black Women, Writing identity and the Subject and in her reading of Sethe as a ‘concentration of female identity’ daughter." His lack of control over himself feels worse than it did when he trembled on the chain gang in (p138). The significance of the mother/daughter relationship is treated by almost all critics in more or less detail. Mariane Hirsch argues Georgia. After surviving his imprisonment and escaping from the woman in Delaware, Paul D had falsely that, in Beloved, Morrison has ‘opened the space for maternal narrative in feminist fiction’. For an exclusively feminist treatment of believed he was strong. Now, however, he finds himself at the whim of a young woman. In order to overcome the girl's hold on him, Paul D decides to tell Sethe what is happening between him and Beloved. He decides to maternal space, her radical use of language and her interpretations of history as both fact and mythology. She suggests that the meet her one evening when she is getting off work. Although he feels ashamed to ask a woman to protect fragmentary narrative style of Two, section 4 is determined by the painful subject matter, and supports her theory that ‘rememory’ is him, he will beg Sethe to help him break out of his dependence on Beloved. Fears for his lost sense of self impel an example of ‘physic racial memory’ since Beloved, who has never been a slave and died aged two, nevertheless has inherited the Paul D to seek Sethe at Sawyer's restaurant. She smiles with "pleasure and surprise" when she sees him and memories of the slave ships and the middle passage hurries to finish her work. Paul D tries to prepare her for the revelation that Beloved has overpowered and sapped his strong sense of independence. The look of resignation in Sethe's eyes tells Paul D that she expects him to leave her. Inexplicably, he decides not to confess his relations with Beloved, instead proposing that he Morrison’s use of ‘rememory’ and the figure of Beloved herself have given rise to many psychoanalytical readings of the text. Desire and Sethe conceive a child. drives Beloved, since the women at 124 can be seen to have willed Beloved into existence. Thus Freud’s concept of ‘the return of the repressed’ has obvious resonance for Beloved. Freud developed the theory of psychoanalysis as a means of curing neuroses in his Paul D's proposal surprises him with its threefold application: A pregnancy would return him to Sethe, salvage patients, but its concepts were expanded by him and his followers as a means of understanding human behavior and culture generally. his manhood, and break Beloved's hold on him. Sethe cuddles with him on the way home. Snowflakes fall on Nicholls uses the Freudian concept of Nachtraglichkeit, or deferred action, as a way of dealing with traumatic experience in his the couple, and Paul D talks himself into adopting his own suggestion. Joyously, he hoists Sethe on his back treatment in Beloved, examining the way in which this is used in the local detail of the writing and in the novel as a whole. The way in and runs toward home. As usual, Beloved awaits Sethe's return. Holding out a shawl to her mother, Beloved which the character’s references gain resonance are explained in the light of later references, a phenomenon described by Nicholls as breaks the romantic spell. Concerned for Beloved's health, Sethe instead wraps her in the shawl. Paul D, angry at being displaced in Sethe's affections, scuffs along behind, "icy cold." Seeing Denver, his other adversary, he ‘retroactive effect,’ see for example the early reference to Sixo’s laugh, or Sethe’s reference to the bit (p.58) which the reader later links with her mother and with Paul D. Sethe’s refusal to mourn her dead daughter in the light of other psychoanalytical theories. Denise thinks, "And whose ally you?" Sethe does not know how to react to Paul D's request that she bear his child. Heinze reads Beloved as a psychological phenomenon, perceiving her as Sethe’s double, and that her development – from baby to Her immediate response is to laugh. When she thinks about the request later in bed, she wonders why Paul D murderous adult – reflects the development of Sethe’s own life. This view naturally changes the implications of Beloved’s seduction of even wants to have a child. She also decides, out of guilt for her dead daughter, that she will decline his offer. She is still too preoccupied with the past to make a commitment for the future. At the same time, Sethe's Paul D. In this reading Beloved is also perceived as ‘the projection of repressed collective memory of a violated people’. The readings of mind moves a little closer to accepting that Beloved is the child that she has willed to return from the dead. In the flesh-and-blood Beloved as a baby stranded at the stage of primary identification with her mother derives much from Chapter 13, the images of dismemberment that permeate the novel become more prominent and more psychoanalytical theories of child development. ominous as Sethe scatters animal bones, skins, heads, and innards outside the restaurant for dogs to eat. Her forces seem equally scattered as she considers the possibilities of Paul D leaving her with another child to raise, Buglar and Howard returning home, and Beloved remaining in her life in place of the infant she killed. Postmodernism is a way of thinking about culture, philosophy, art and many other things. The term has been used in many different ways at different times, but there are some things in common. In the next scene (14), as Paul D and Sethe return to the upstairs bed, Denver washes dishes while Beloved

Postmodernism says that there is no real truth people can know. It says that knowledge is always made or invented and not sucks her forefinger and whimpers, "Make him go away." With finger and thumb she removes a back tooth discovered. Because knowledge is made by people, a person cannot know something with certainty - all ideas and facts are 'believed' and fears that her body will self-destruct. At Denver's urging, Beloved cries, knowing that her security slips instead of 'known'. There may or may not be some sort of ultimate truth, but we cannot know it. People often believe they know the away as Paul D and Sethe make love. In this short chapter, Beloved feels she is losing control over Paul D. She truth, but their opinion will change later. This is different from traditional views of 'objectivity', which say there is a single knowable has noticed that he and Sethe seem to be happy together once again, and she assumes that they are upstairs truth independent of anyone's observation or opinion. making love. As a result, she begs Denver to make Paul D go away. When Denver responds that Sethe would be upset if Paul D left, Beloved is miserable. She reacts to her pain by inflicting more pain on herself. She Post-modernism is a convenient if bewildering blanket term with which to describe many different ways of reading. The very fact of reaches into her mouth and pulls out one of her back teeth. Beloved feels like she is falling to pieces. In truth, having a dialogic narrative underlines the fact that various interpretations can exist of the same events. The contradictory and the loss of the tooth is the beginning of her dissolution. It is significant that it is snowing outside. The power fragmented version of history put forward in Beloved, and the denial of crucial information, for example whether and when Halle died, dynamics in the house will be influenced by the snow imagery. The snow is capable of isolating the occupants or Beloved’s name and nature, undermine the reader’s sense of security. The figure of Beloved herself is intrinsically post-modern since of 124 Bluestone and forcing them to deal with their pasts and their relationships to each other. The easy she is two things simultaneously, both Sethe’s daughter returned from the dead and an embodiment of the tragic past of slavery. extraction of her tooth signifies how tenuous her physical presence is and how much she depends upon Sethe's attention for her own survival. As Beloved weeps over images of herself physically falling apart, Sethe and The body is given relevance in Beloved, whether through the negative appropriation of the milk from Sethe’s breasts of the various Paul D are joined upstairs in intercourse. This simultaneous union and disunion, coupling and dismembering, kinds of rape figured in the text, or the movements of the chain gang, or through Baby Suggs’s positive evocation to love the body and pushes the dysfunctional family closer to disaster as the snowy weather packs them into the microcosm of 124 its organs. This is material for post-structuralist and post-modernist theorizing about the capacity of language to construct subjectivity. Bluestone Road. Paul D’s own questions about the nature of his identity, whether Garner was ‘naming what he saw, or creating what he did not’ (p220) are questions that these critics unravel.

This chapter provides a flashback to Sethe's arrival at 124 Bluestone in Cincinnati, Ohio. When Sethe A major premise of Morrison's text is that benevolent masters often did more harm than good. As demonstrated by Mr. Garner's relationship arrived with another grandchild in her arms, Baby Suggs was happy, but she would not immediately with his slaves, Sweet Home — the embodiment of Stephen Foster's sentimental song "My Old Kentucky Home" — shielded slaves from the prepare a celebration. She was afraid to celebrate the child when her son was still missing. harsh world beyond that property. By playing God and creating an artificial haven, Garner ill-prepared his slaves for the shock of a new master, one disinterested in humanitarianism and concerned primarily with profit. Another revelation from this and other chapters is that Stamp Paid, who had rowed Sethe and the baby to freedom and summoned Ella to care for them, the Garners degraded their slaves by thinking of them as children. To Lillian Garner, the notion of a formal wedding for Sethe brought a comes to check on Sethe twenty days after her arrival at 124. He goes out to gather blackberries for patronising upturn of the lips. To Mr. Garner, Baby Suggs's slave name, her only tie with her first mate in a string of eight, was undignified Sethe to eat. When he returns with two full buckets, he shares the berries with everyone and puts one and also inappropriate for Halle, who was fathered by another slave. Garner devalued Baby Suggs's experiences as wife and mother by in the mouth of the three-week old Denver, as a blessing. claiming that Jenny Whitlow was a more fitting name for a "freed Negro." Baby Suggs, who kept her opinions to herself, realised that the only way she could locate her displaced family was to maintain the name by which they knew her. Wherever they were, they would not After Stamp Paid's visit, Baby Suggs decides to throw a big party. She invites her congregation of recognise her if she were called by a white woman's name like Jenny Whitlow. ninety to come and celebrate with her. The party does not end well. The neighbors grow jealous of

Baby Suggs, deciding she has not suffered like they have. She gained her freedom from slavery early This chapter provides two flashbacks: one to Sethe's arrival and first days at 124 Bluestone and one to Baby Suggs' release from slavery. These because Halle bought it for her; she owns her own house; and she has a close relationship with the serve as a bridge to the next, important chapter. Bodwins, influential abolitionists. Baby Suggs realizes that she has offended them by excess. We see the relevance of freedom for Baby Suggs who, as a slave, was not able to know herself in any sense, denied of the ‘map’ to discover After the party, Baby Suggs senses something " ." She fears it may be news of Halle's dark and coming what she was like (p.140). After her own hands, she recognises her own heart beating that later through her preaching will be rechannelled death, which she has dreaded since his birth. She has lost seven children, and she does not want Halle into her community. This self-ownership chronicles a transition from being objectified property to being a subject. As Sethe comments: to be the eighth. Baby Suggs reflects on her past with Halle. They were sold to Mr. Garner when Halle ‘Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another’. Sethe, too, experiences freedom to love when she arrives was only ten years old. Since she had hurt her hip in Carolina, she was sold at a low price to work at at Sweet Home. Denver’s feeling that she does not exist without Beloved and that her own self has disappeared is another kind of slavery. Sweet Home, a small plantation in comparison to the places she had worked previously. At Sweet The polyphonic narrative (a feature of narrative, which includes a diversity of simultaneous points of view and voices) gives voice to the Home, her hip often bothered her. Although she never said anything about the pain, Halle noticed community’s outrage at Baby Suggs’s abundance. Morrison uses italics to emphasise the irritation at Suggs’s ostentatious miracle. The how hard it was for her to get around. He decided he would buy her out of slavery so she could sit biblical reference is no accident: ‘Loaves and fishes were His powers’. Baby Suggs works an act of magic, making a feast for ninety people

down in her old age. with almost magical ingredients: vegetables out of season and fresh cream ‘but no cow’.

Mr. Garner agreed to let Halle work extra for Baby Suggs' freedom. When he had amassed enough to Baby Suggs was afraid to celebrate the arrival of Sethe and her new grandchild. She thought that a party might jinx the safe return of Halle. make the purchase, Baby Suggs did not really want to leave, for she could not stand the thought of When she does finally throw a celebration, it does not go well. The neighbours who attend grow jealous of Baby Suggs and all that she has. being separated from Halle. Her son, however, convinced her that she needed to go across the river They are particularly envious that she was bought out of slavery early and has her own home. In her concern over the safe return of Halle, and live a life of freedom. When Baby Suggs arrived in Cincinnati, she was amazed at its size. She met Baby Suggs thinks back to the time that she and the ten-year old Halle arrived at Sweet Home. Because she had hurt her hip, Baby Suggs the Bodwins, well-known abolitionists, and went to work for them as a canner, washwoman, and and her young son had been sold at a cheap price. Halle saw how painful it was for his mother to work with her bad hip; as a result, he seamstress. She also moved into her own house, began preaching, and waited for news of her children. resolves to buy her freedom. Mr. Garner allows him to work extra to purchase the freedom of Baby Suggs. After two years, she had heard from none of them. She had learned, however, that Halle had gotten Stamp Paid decides to, "for some private reason of his own," go into the thick, sharp brush and cut himself up badly in the process of picking married and had a baby on the way. Everything worked out well " until she got proud and let two buckets worth of blackberries. The words "private reason of his own," are of particular importance. This, combined with the later herself be overwhelmed by the sight of her daughter-in law and Halle's children." introduction to the belief that spawned his name change, seems to point to a man whose good deeds may not be selfless. Indeed, going to pick the blackberries is a somewhat empty gesture in comparison to his previous occupation as saviour. The kind of gesture that connotes

someone who has an internal need to make that sort of gesture, not someone who will make the gesture only because it is needed, someone who may be secretly doing what is good for others because it is good for him. Stamp paid places a blackberry into the mouth of young Baby Suggs is a flat, minor character. At her deathbed, she desires colour since after Sethe went to jail, everything seemed dull. At first, Baby Suggs was described as lively and welcoming. After the death of Denver. Blackberries were said to give one the feeling of being in church and they symbolise the feeling of anointment. Once Stamp Paid Beloved, Baby Suggs slowly lost sense of colour and hospitality and became distant. She went from placed the blackberry into Denver’s mouth he baptised her and became her saviour. That is why he believes she was not killed in Sethe’s attempt to ‘save’ her children. happy to depressed. She kept her name “Suggs” because she wanted to honour her husband, but at the end, she lost the meaning of love. “Anything, but Suggs is what my husband name....Suggs is my An act as small as picking two buckets of blackberries results in the existential state of those living, and those who ran away from, 124. It can name, sir. From my husband. He didn’t call me Jenny. [He called me] Baby.” (167) Her internal conflict also be read to underscore Morrison's perspective on his acts of selflessness being acts of selfishness. His ferrying Sethe and Denver over the was that she didn’t remember any of her children. Of her eight children, she only got to keep Halle, but river, a situation where acts of selflessness are required and admirable, and his picking the blackberries resulted in two perfectly opposed Halle disappeared, too. She only remembered how 2 her first-born liked the burnt bottom of the states of being for Sethe, pointing to a substantive difference in the acts themselves. Morrison is not placing all the blame on Stamp Paid. She bread. “I had eight. Every one of them gone away from me. Four taken, four chased, and all, I expect, reserves a lot of that for the community, but this point cannot be ignored when investigating a character of such importance to the novel. worrying somebody’s house into evil....My firstborn. All I can remember of her is how she loved the burnt bottom of bread. Can you beat that? Eight children and that’s all I remember.” (6) Baby Suggs is a An insight is given into the character of Mr. Garner, the owner of Sweet Home Plantation. Baby Suggs knows Mr. Garner was not being semi-dynamic character. She questions the value of life after Sethe kills Beloved. Baby Suggs used to generous when he let Halle buy her out slavery. Old and crippled, she was not worth much, for it was difficult for her to get out of bed and move around. By allowing Halle to buy her freedom, Mr. Garner gained the benefit of her son doing extra work for years. Mr. Garner further hold gatherings in the clearing; people close to her would attend. She was known as Baby Suggs, holy. Baby Suggs was a trustworthy and wise person; everyone respected her and had good things to say proves his arrogance when he asks Baby Suggs to tell the Bodwins of his largesse and kindness. The Bodwins are abolitionists who claim to about her. After Sethe went to jail, Baby Suggs stopped holding ceremonies, and people started to stay hate slavery, but in many ways they enslave Baby Suggs after Halle has purchased her freedom. The Bodwins employ Baby Suggs. They give her a house, but they do not pay her a wage. By this arrangement, they control her, almost as if she were still a slave. They can add to the list away from 124. of her chores at will and she has no recourse and no way of planning her life fully. She will always be at their disposal.

In a true postmodern style Morrison addressed several different themes in this American novel, for example the cruelties the slaves suffered in their Ominous images hovered in Chapter 15, particularly the prickly bracken that Stamp Paid everyday lives, emotional repression, myths and ghosts, maternal love and infanticide. As a reader one was provided with an insight and an braved to gather blackberries. But for all their destructive power, like the circlet of thorns that apprehension of the devastation that chronic stress can cause. By focusing on the effects of traumatised families Morrison also touches upon something crowned Christ's head, the cruel prickers that pierced Stamp Paid's skin yielded the sweet fruit that is current and relevant in psychology debates today, namely Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Being exposed to a psychological and/or physical that he fed to the infant Denver. Bitter and sweet overlapped. Likewise, the fullness of the feast trauma can cause this anxiety disorder with symptoms such as recurrent flashbacks and memories of the trauma and as an emotional numbing with at 124, like the loaves and fishes with which Christ fed his followers and the Last Supper that a decreased responsiveness in the ability to feel, or even an inability to feel. The postmodern structure of Beloved was an effective tool for Morrison to preceded his crucifixion, foreshadowed the black community's betrayal of Sethe, whose dilatorily and mercilessly tell the story of a traumatised African American family living with memory’s treacherous flashbacks of the atrocities of unforeseen violence disturbed their peace. slavery. Morrison did not use a chronological timeline as a narrative strategy instead she built a mosaic image, piece by piece. By using this narrative strategy the story at first came across as haphazardly told, however it grew to be an effective vehicle to display the irrational and fast roller-coaster But while Chapter 15 mixed images of pain and sweetness, Chapter 16 pours out a bitter ride the characters were forced to take in order to emotionally come to terms with their past. harvest, a slow-motion montage of slavery's worst fears. Far more threatening than thorns or envious neighbours to Sethe and her family are the galloping "four horsemen," the slave-day As Furman put it in her book Toni Morrison’s Fiction when discussing Sethe’s maternal and mental status: “For Sethe, the duties of motherhood [were] version of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, portentous embodiments of famine, war, not dissolved by mental disarrangements”. Furman too was referring to the maternal love as a duty, an obligation, which hindered Sethe from going pestilence, and death. Each white male of the foursome represents an aspect of inhumanity. completely insane. Maternal love was also the rationale for the runaway Sethe to commit infanticide. When she thought she and her children were Schoolteacher, who remains unnamed, preserves a cool detachment about the slaves, whom he about to be recaptured by their sadistic slave owner she reacted instinctively, as she saw the threat approaching she “collected every bit of life she studies as breeding stock for Sweet Home. The slave catcher, motivated by profit, recognises the had made, all the parts of her that were precious and true” (Morrison, 192) and felt forced to kill them all including herself. According to Furman “this worth of potential captives who must be guarded from violence to preserve their usability and concept of love and safety as motivation for infanticide is a familiar inversion of conventional thinking in Morrison’s work” (69). Sethe’s determination maintain maximum value. The nephew, himself a victim of physical abuse, learns too late and the clarity with which this decision was taken was left undisputed as she in a dialogue with her old friend, Paul D, claimed that she “was not about the seeds of violence that he has sown by his inexplicably perverse sexual abuse of a going back there. [...] Any life but not that one.” (Morrison, 50). helpless female slave. The sheriff, perhaps the most pathetic of the four riders, must uphold an unjust law that sanctions the capture and return of runaway slaves. He must act without This cautiousness in loving could also be interpreted as something learnt, or perhaps even inherited. Sethe’s mother-in-law explained how “the regard to the human cost of a woman's murder of her own child to spare it the torment of nastiness of life” (28) made her choose not to love her children. When Sethe was a child she was told how her own mother threw all the babies away, slavery. all but her (75) allowing he reader to analyse the impact of PTSD and how this influences Sethe’s behaviour. Continuously through the novel Sethe For the first time in the book, details of Beloved's murder are presented. When Sethe sees the was carrying a deep love for her husband, Halle. He was someone she truly loved and when she 8 learnt about his insanity she felt she was crumbling to pieces, but because of the obligation towards her children, or the alleged innate and primal mother love, she was obliged to carry on. This four white men coming, it is like she is witnessing the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. She emotional response to the husband’s insanity was contradictory to her response when killing her own child, or even when her two sons left her out of knows that they have arrived to take her and the children back to slavery, which makes her go crazy. Rather than allowing her children to be taken away from her and made slaves, she fear. She never felt she was falling apart due to heart-ache caused by the love for her children and this could be seen as additional evidence of how attempts to kill them. By the time the white men arrive, Buglar and Howard are lying at her numbness had replaced maternal love. By killing her child Sethe denied slavery more victims to oppress. The question Askeland answered was “did feet bleeding, and Beloved, still in her arms, is close to death. Only Denver has escaped injury. she have the right to the bodies of her children? She [saw] her action as claiming a domain over herself”. If the action was a claim of ownership over After the white men enter the shed, Sethe continues to try and kill Denver, but Stamp Paid Sethe’s own self, then I saw the infanticide more as an act of commodification, extended to commodify Sethe’s own children. Was that not what she saves her. Morrison takes the reader into the minds of the white men -- a slave catcher, a was trying to escape, the commodification and oppression of slavery? That was exactly what Paul D was implying before they parted, that she was white sheriff, and Schoolteacher. The slave catcher does not think of the slaves as people, but as not life-stock and should not act as a tradable commodity. I agree with Trudier Harris when she in her essay “Beloved: Woman, Thy Name Is Demon” prey - wild animals to be caught and tamed and sold; Sethe's actions just reinforce his beliefs. argued on the complexity of the matter: Killing a child is certainly antithetical to the basic roots of our society, but Morrison forces us to ask again Schoolteacher thinks of the slaves in terms of dollar signs. His only concern is that he has lost five what we might have done under the circumstances. And she succeeds in making Sethe so simply human […]that we cannot easily condemn her act potential slaves to work at Sweet Home. He blames Sethe's insane actions on his nephew and is even when we clearly do not condone it. Nevertheless, contrary to what Marks argues when stating that “Beloved reevaluates the kind of love that glad that he has punished him by not allowing him to come. He does, however, wish the nephew could see the wild look on Sethe's face; he feels it would teach him a lesson. The sheriff can see murder as its greatest form of resistance” Morrison achieved to commodify Sethe’s children, when she had Sethe murder her own child, no matter if the resistance was done in the name of freedom or of maternal love. cannot believe his eyes and does not want to touch anything, as if he would be contaminated. All of the white men consider the blacks to be "crazy niggers" who prefer a savage existence. This section falls in two parts. This first is recounted from the slave-catchers’ point of view. Morrison’s omniscience allows us to enter the sheriff, school The reader is horrified at Sethe's actions, but Morrison has carefully led up to this point in the teacher and nephew’s psyches. This choice of narrator for the central event of the novel has various implications. It distances the reader from the novel. Morrison has shown that Sethe is desperate to provide love and care for her children. She drama of the events, thus increasing the horrific aspect of the passage, while simultaneously validating Sethe’s response to the system that sent Howard, Buglar, and Beloved to the safety of Baby Suggs before she escaped from Sweet schoolteacher represents. The sustained use of animal imagery schoolteacher’s view of blacks as ‘creatures’, like farm animals, and the sheriff’s opinion Home. After she gives birth to Denver, she is desperate to reach Cincinnati in order to get milk that black people are cannibals help the reader to understand what Sethe is seeking to protect her children from. for her infant. Despite unbelievable pain, Sethe reaches her destination and saves the child. She is now determined not to lose them back to slavery. She knows that if they are all taken back The repetition of ‘nigger…eyes’ in the description of the carnage is chilling. Recognizing Baby Suggs as the crazy ‘woman with a flower in her hat’ to Sweet Home, she will never see her children. After all, she was never allowed to see or know gives the reader a jolt. The careful description of her uprooting the rue comes from the previous section. Here there is a bitter irony since rue also her own mother. In addition, Sethe has been treated horribly as a slave. Raped and beaten by means sorrow, pity, regret. Ophelia in Hamlet (IV.5) hands out rue, and Shakespeare plays on this double meaning. the whites who ruled her, Sethe does not want the same thing to happen to her sons and daughters. The reader understands that Sethe's actions are horrible, but they are also horribly

Schoolteacher has come to ‘claim’ his property. This is a verb which is also used to describe the act of self-assertion. In the epilogue Beloved is understandable. The scene ends with the people of the community refusing to support Sethe. described: ‘Although she has claim, she is not claimed’ (p.276). Like the acts of naming and calling, claiming is another example of words having Hearing what has happened, they have gathered in the yard at 124 Bluestone. Normally, they different resonance according to the context in which they are used and, in this novel, the race of the user. In the second section there is a change of would sing to Sethe and try to comfort her. But when they see her, they decide she looks too perspective and we witness Baby Suggs taking control, and the verification of her presentiment. proud and remain silent until after her cart departs.

A mother killing her own child is an act that subverts the natural order of the world. A mother is expected to create life, not destroy it. The truth about

17 - Paul D finds it impossible to accept that Sethe has tried to murder all her children and succeeded in killing one of them. As Stamp Paid reads the article about the Beloved's death is finally revealed, and Morrison leads up to the story with murder to him, Paul D tries to deny it. It is certain that the article gave all of the horrid details of what happened in the woodshed since it was written by whites, all of images of death and unnatural circumstances. The setting for Stamp Paid's whom tended to look down on blacks as basically savage people. The news is too much for Paul D to take in. He looks at the picture of Sethe in the article and tries revelation to Paul D is the slaughterhouse, where he and Paul D work with to convince himself it is not really her. He says over and over it is not Sethe's mouth. In order to keep from taking in the full horror of the news, he also allows his mind death every day. When looking at the newspaper clipping, Paul D immediately to wander. He notices the pig faeces on his shoes and thinks about how he walks home from the slaughterhouse through an ancient burial mound of the Miami recognizes the implications of Sethe's picture appearing in a white newspaper. Indians. (The ghosts of the past are present at every turn in this novel.) Morrison intentionally tells the story of Sethe from a different point of view. The first News about blacks does not normally appear in white papers unless something explanation of the murder of her child came from the prejudiced white men who came to find Sethe and take her back to slavery. Now Stamp Paid, who cares terrible enough has occurred to capture the white readers' interest. Just as it is about Sethe, gives his interpretation of what happened on that fateful day. For him, it is important that the murder happened the day after Baby Suggs gave the unnatural for the white community to acknowledge any blacks, it is unnatural celebration feast. The neighbours were down on Baby Suggs because she seemed to have more than they. As a result, when they saw the white men ride into town, for a black community made up of ex-slaves not to protect their own from the neighbours made no effort to warn Sethe or Baby Suggs of impending danger. He is convinced that they remained silent out of spite and meanness. If the white slave catchers. However, that is what happened on the day Sethe tried to neighbours had given a proper warning, he is convinced that the murder would have been avoided. Taken by surprise when she sees the white men, Sethe simply murder her children. Paul D's resistance to Stamp Paid's revelation about panicked and reacted, for she was determined that her children would never again suffer the cruelty of slavery. In her frightened mind, death seemed preferable. Beloved's murder demonstrates the degree of horror and disbelief such an act creates. As we have seen, Paul D has undergone terrible, dehumanising 18 - Not surprisingly, Sethe has trouble admitting that she has killed her daughter. In an effort to explain her action, she talks about her deprivations. Because of the experiences which have toughened him and made him nearly impervious to horrible institution of slavery, her son was so underfed that he could not hold his head up until he was nine months old. As a young and uneducated mother, Sethe hardship and pain. Morrison reminds us of his toughness when she describes his knew nothing about child rearing and had no one to answer her questions; she simply had to do her best, which was difficult when she had to work all day long and working conditions at the slaughterhouse. Paul D, we know by now, is not a then try to care for her children. Longing for a better life for them, she managed to send Howard, Buglar, and Beloved away from Sweet Home and slavery to live man who is easily shocked. He is horrified, though, by the nature of Sethe's with Baby Suggs until she could escape to Cincinnati. Even when Sethe arrived at 124 Bluestone, life was difficult as she worked and tried to care for four children crime and by her inability to comprehend why her actions were wrong. without the help of a husband. When Sethe saw Schoolteacher and the other white men approaching 124 Bluestone, she decided she would do anything to keep her children from returning to slavery. In her frightened state, she felt that death was a better option for them than returning to Sweet Home. As a result, she took In a striking reversal of characterisation, Sethe dances frenetically through the matters into her own hands. Paul D cannot believe what Sethe is saying. He thinks that she does not know where the world stops and she begins. He is describing kitchen after Paul D shows her the clipping. She pours out confessions of her something that psychologists term ‘individuation’. It is a process in childhood whereby children gradually differentiate between themselves and their mothers as well inability to mother her children — to nourish them and protect them from harm as between themselves and the world around them. Before individuation, the child lives in an undifferentiated world where everything is connected. The path to while she worked the fields, from fire while pork was being smoked, from the is helped by a significant other, usually the mother, who grants recognition and individualism to the child. Since Sethe never received recognition as well, and from the stomp of Red Cora's hoof. Paul D, incapable of asking individuation an individual from her own mother, she was never able to grant it to her own children. At the moment she attempted to kill Howard, Buglar, Beloved, and Denver, outright if she murdered her own child, looks at Sethe with unquestioning love she was really inflicting the pain on herself. To Sethe, her children were simply part of herself. Paul D criticises her for loving her children "thickly" and for acting like an — "love you don't have to deserve." The climax of their encounter, and of animal in trying to "save" them from Schoolteacher. Paul begins to see Sethe in a new light that he cannot accept. He realises her potential for destruction is as deep the novel itself, pours out in simple words: "I did it. I got us all out [from as the slave system that destroyed the men and women of Sweet Home. He cannot resolve this new image of Sethe with the one he has kept during all of his years in schoolteacher's tyranny]." Sethe, beaten down by slavery and despair, flaunts exile; he still wants her to be a young, naïve, and obedient woman, but now he knows she is the murderess of her own daughter. Unable to accept this image or her her pride that she — a woman, a slave, a pregnant female — managed to rationalisations, Paul D feels he has to leave 124 Bluestone. He cannot, however, tell her goodbye. He simply says she should not make his dinner, for he will be late. As rescue her family, "Without Halle too." To dramatise her deed, she envisions he departs, he sees Beloved watching him from the top of the stairs. Paul D's desertion of Sethe at the point when she trusts him enough to tell him the truth sets her herself as "deep and wide and when I stretched out my arms all my children on a self-destructive course. Under slavery, Sethe and her family were commodities, treated no better than animals that were bought and sold. When Paul D tells her could get in between." Sethe celebrates her ability to shelter her family. The she acted like an animal when she killed her baby, he makes her a slave once again. She feels completely betrayed, just when she needs Paul D the most. pivotal scene hangs on Sethe's final question, "You know what I mean?" Paul D understands why an ex-slave should "[protect] yourself and [love] small," at The Humming birds with their long beaks look like well-equipped warriors. The beaks resemble built-in piercing weapons; some species have thin, crying beaks that least until being free of schoolteacher and men like him. He perceives the risk are longer that their bodies. They are aggressive birds because they can fly straight up and down, forward and backward and they can hover in place. The that Sethe took by opening her heart to "a big love . . . [one] that would split hummingbirds are highly territorial and will defend their grounds vigorously, whether or not the intruder is of their own family, and quite regardless of size. In this case, you wide open in Alfred, Georgia." Sethe and Paul D continue to connect the aggressiveness of the hummingbird, together with the guarding of its territory seem to fit Sethe in her most unbearable experience. Like the bird, she defends her through individual horror stories — stories of Paul D suffering life on a chain ground at all costs; and like the hummingbird, she wins as successful warrior in that Schoolteacher will not have her baby. The episode of the hummingbird is repeated gang and sleeping in a subterranean coffin, and Sethe not being able to "let at the end of the novel, when Sethe mistakes Denver's employer, Mr Bodwin, for Schoolteacher, trying this time to kill him instead of her daughter (p.262). While Paul [Beloved] nor any of 'em live under schoolteacher." D wants to keep the unbearable past where it belongs, in that tobacco tin buried in his chest where a red heart used to be, Sethe keeps beating back the past, a past too horrible to relate. These are the unspeakable things unspoken Morrison speaks about; she rips the veil that covers the truth. With this novel, Morrison demonstrates The epiphany that concludes part I pours out beyond language, outside of the that it is possible to come back from the recesses of history to exorcise one's ghosts; Beloved is not only Sethe's daughter but also the ghosts of those sixty million and domain of human communication: "No. No. Nono. Nonono." Within Sethe's psyche, metaphoric hummingbirds pierce her headcloth, their wings drumming more slaves who perished under slavery and through the Middle Passage. Thus Morrison inverts Beloved's fate: instead of remaining silenced the ghost is made flesh and comes out to relate how it feels to be in darkness. This analysis of bird imagery in Morrison's works we can conclude that they constitute one more example of into her brain a desperate course of action. Therefore, by the time her pursuer reaches her, the child in her arms has pumped out the last of its blood. Learning inversion in this writer. Through her fiction, Morrison tums the world upside down, in clear reflection of the irrationality of the system and environment that engulfed African Americans from their early experience in the Americas. Disruption and inversion of human nature were at the heart of slavery and racism and this is what the truth, Paul D finally perceives Sethe as a new and different woman, indefinably separate from the child-woman who had taken Baby Suggs's place Morrison intends to portray in her novels. If human beings are turned into animals, then birds can be grounded with broken wings. Birds are often fraught with at Sweet Home. He lashes out at the "thickness" of Sethe's love, which killed one negative meanings, one of suffering, pain, humiliation, madness, and death, in keeping with the disruptive character of nature that is present in this author. Only in a child and drove two more away. Condemning her for wrongdoing, Paul D few cases does Morrison abide by the traditional equation of birds/flight and freedom or rebirth. What we have left is the hope of spiritual regeneration and the erects a barrier between them with a singularly uncharitable observation: "You possibility of moving forward after exorcising those haunting ghosts from the past, even if that past is full of dying robins, smiling roosters, bloody cardinals, grunting got two feet, Sethe, not four." Like a beast peering through the forest, she doves, predatory hawks, maddening hummingbirds, and grounded birds. correctly identifies his panic and murmurs, "So long."

" " is a short story published in 1835 by American writer Nathaniel Young Goodman Brown Part 2 of Beloved frames and then delivers the "unspeakable thoughts, unspoken" of the women of 124. Like part I, part II opens with a description of Hawthorne. The story takes place in 17th-century Puritan New England and addresses the house at 124 Bluestone. This time the house is loud and filled with anger. As Stamp Paid approaches the house, he hears all kinds of voices that seem to be coming the Calvinist/Puritan belief that all of humanity exists in a state of depravity, but that God has from inside. He believes that the sounds are really the rage of all the blacks who have been tortured by white oppression. Once again, there is a ghostly, supernatural destined some to unconditional election through unmerited grace. Hawthorne frequently focuses image here. Stamp Paid's reaction to knocking at the door of 124 Bluestone is humorous, but touching. He feels ashamed that he has shown the article about Sethe to on the tensions within Puritan culture, yet steeps his stories in the Puritan sense of sin. In a Paul D, especially since it caused him to depart from 124 Bluestone. In his guilt, Stamp Paid wants to see Sethe and explain things to her, but he feels he can no longer symbolic fashion, the story follows Young Goodman Brown's journey into self-scrutiny, which just walk inside her house as a welcome guest. Instead, he believes he must knock and be invited in. Several times he comes to the house, and each time he leaves results in his loss of virtue and belief. There is a key passage from "Young Goodman Brown," one without knocking. He just cannot make himself bang on the door, as if he were some stranger. When Stamp Paid is finally brave enough to knock, he gets no answer. that, it turns out, also involves a ribbon: As a result, he looks through the window and is shocked and hurt to see two people, who have ignored his knock. He is even more surprised to realise that one of the people is a stranger, for he knows that no guest ever comes to visit at 124 Bluestone. He is so shocked at what he sees that he goes to tell Ella the news. She has no idea But something fluttered lightly down through the air, and caught on the branch of a tree. The who is staying at Bluestone with Sethe. She does, however, inform Stamp Paid that Paul D is staying at the church. The news makes Stamp Paid feel even worse, for he young man seized it, and beheld a pink ribbon. 'My Faith is gone!' cried he, after one stupefied believes no black man should ever be denied a bed in Cincinnati. He feels that all blacks have all been made to suffer too much and too long at the hands of white moment. 'There is no good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come, devil! For to thee is this world men. As a result, they should always be willing to reach out and help each other. Stamp Paid has spent his life helping those in need. Before the Civil War, he hid given.' runaway slaves and cared for them. He also passed secret information to help them. It was also Stamp Paid he helped Sethe and the Baby Denver get across the Ohio River to freedom. It was also he who summoned Ella to care for Sethe and the child until they were strong enough to travel to the way station belong to Baby Suggs. This is the moment that Goodman Brown, "maddened with despair," sets himself practically flying down the forest-road he has been travelling, into "the heart of the dark wilderness," heading Much of the chapter is devoted to Sethe reflecting on her past. She thinks of both happy times and sad times. She realises that she seems to suffer in cycles of through the "haunted forest" toward the witches' Sabbath presided over by a "dark figure" or twenty years, followed by brief bursts of joy. Her time with Paul D was one of those pleasant times. Now that he has gone, she feels her life will by fill with misery again "sable form" that he had originally set out on his "errand" into the "unconverted wilderness" for many years. Sethe stops her reveries to take Beloved and Denver ice-skating. When they return home and huddle in blankets to get warm, Beloved begins to hum precisely to reject and turn back from. Morrison has many figures for what triggers a similar a song. Sethe is shocked to hear it, for it is a song that she made up to sing to her children. No one other than her children would know the melody. Sethe has her proof despair that grips her characters; for Stamp Paid, as for Goodman Brown, it is a ribbon. at last. Beloved is her dead baby daughter come back from the grave. Realizing this, Sethe feels greatly relieved. She believes she can now put part of her past behind her. The return of Beloved also gives her hope that her two sons may also return some day. There is an irony in Sethe's sense of relief. She has lived her life since Faith's pink ribbon has turned red, stained by the blood of the black victims of white terrorism the murder in a state of disorder, as if she has been out of connection with the living world. With the return of her daughter, she feels connected again; during the Reconstruction period. Rather than being ambiguous spectre evidence, as the unfortunately, Beloved is not really connected to the living world. Knowing that Beloved is the reincarnation of her dead daughter, Sethe imagines "something" that Young Goodman Brown seizes, beholds, and takes to be damning testimony to trying to talk to Beloved and to justify what she did to her, just like she tried to justify her actions to Paul D. She explains the misery of not being able to his wife's "infidelity" and indeed to the "innate depravity" of all humanity, Stamp Paid's ribbon is be a complete mother to her children since she was a slave. She bemoans the fact that they were considered to be property belonging to white man, all too real, its testimony as speechless and unheard as any of the more formal attempts to stop who judged them little better than animals. She describes her sadness at having to send her children off in a wagon from Sweet Home, away from her; the deviltry of the KKK and similar terrorist organisations in the postbellum South. Hawthorne but she also explains her delight that they were escaping from slavery. Obviously, Sethe still feels terribly guilty, but by acknowledging the things that scholars tend to read "Young Goodman Brown" as a coded commentary on the Salem Witch have bothered her all these years, she can begin to overcome the trauma and self-condemnation she has endured for all these years. Then when she Trials and the dangers it taught of taking spectre evidence to be real; Morrison is trying to suggest realises that Beloved is not angry with her, she feels even greater relief. It is one less thing to worry over and feel guilty about. Again in this chapter, as in through her "Young Goodman Brown" allusions in Beloved that the violence of the middle some of the early chapters of the novel, there is an emphasis on colour. Sethe remembers that she stopped seeing colours after she saw the red blood of passage, slavery, and Reconstruction should be seen as a much great national tragedy. To see the her baby and the pink chips of her granite gravestone. She remembers that she noticed colour again after Paul D came to stay with her. For Sethe, the full scale and scope of Morrison's coded suggestion, however, we have to follow this ribbon further, recognition of colour symbolised the opening of herself to experience life. connecting it both to Stamp Paid's and Baby Suggs's despair and to the voices surrounding 124 in part 2. Stamp Paid’s red ribbon is his courage and strength. When he was outside of Sethe’s . Law intervenes in Baby house, hesitating to enter, “he clutched the red ribbon in his pocket for strength. Softly at first, Morrison makes it clear that the victimisation of former slaves does not stop with their escape from slave states then harder”(Page 217). The red ribbon also symbolises a tie between the people. Stamp Paid Suggs's life all the way to her burial. She enjoys only a four-week acquaintance with her daughter-in-law and grandchildren before schoolteacher, seemed to be the only one in the community who tried to enter Sethe’s place while others did not justified by the Fugitive Slave Law, terrifies Sethe into mayhem. Taking to her bed in search of respite from more worries than she can handle, Baby dare to come nearer to the house. Sethe has been isolated since she killed her baby. She needs the Suggs absorbs herself in the abstract comfort of colour until her death. Sethe's order to "Take her to the Clearing," where she wants Baby Suggs buried, community to heal her. She needs to air her sufferings and get some support from her people. The also meets opposition from laws that force mourners to bury the popular matriarch in the cemetery. The classical theme of hubris (exaggerated pride), lack of mutual help makes Sethe’s life even harder. The other people, who are also suffering from an essential in Greek tragedy, delineates Sethe as the tragic heroine of this story. Because of her outrageous act of self-sufficiency, her neighbours rescind the legacy of slavery, should be honest with their feelings rather than trying to escape from the the sympathy and camaraderie usually extended to ex-slaves, and they exile her in the land of freedom that she risked everything to attain. After Baby past. Suggs's death, mourners refuse to enter 124 or partake of Sethe's food. As Stamp Paid contemplates the family's fate, he blames himself for acting out of mean-spiritedness and envy. By searching for the "pride [that] goeth before a fall" in Sethe, he discloses that pride in his own heart. Shamed by his uncharitable act, Stamp Paid downgrades his own status from a rescuer of runaway slaves and "Soldier of Christ" to an ignoble meddler. Another classical theme, harmony, crumbles quickly under the weight of local suspicion, blame, and alienation. Before Beloved's death, the community of ex- Sethe moves from thinking of Beloved as ‘Denver’s friend’ to recognising her fully as a daughter. She initially associates the shadows holding hands with Paul D but later sees slaves shared their miseries in the warmth of Baby Suggs's house and shared spontaneous bursts of revelation and rejoicing in the clearing. These connections fade to nothing as Beloved's ghost replaces the spirit of generosity and acceptance. In place of harmony, Sethe rewards herself with the them as a symbol of her daughters and herself. Sethe’s recognition of Beloved as her satisfaction that she succeeded in rescuing her children from whipping, lynching, starvation, and sale. Thus, the theme of endurance takes precedence daughter creates a ‘timeless present’, a ‘no-time’. Sethe is relieved of having to over harmony. Sethe, content in her efforts, locks out the inharmonious neighbourhood that turns its collective back on her. remember: the presence of Beloved absolves her of some of the weight of the past. Returning from work, when Sethe see the house, she thinks that it is as if her baby Skating both literally and symbolically on slippery ice, Sethe and Denver share one skate each while Beloved, treated to a full set, receives the privileges daughter had never needed a headstone and as if her heart had never stopped beating. accorded a guest. The scene, unobserved by outsiders, ends with Sethe's unforeseen tears. The girls support her both physically and emotionally as they This statement sends ripples back through the text. The pink headstone and Sethe’s walk back to the house where Sethe provides them with warm milk. But this milk, symbolically thinned by the family's precarious position on Bluestone payment are present in part 1 and referred to subsequently while the mention of a Road, requires artificial flavouring. The dialogue between Stamp and Ella is an example of Morrison’s skill at faithfully rendering the inherent beating heart cannot but remind the reader of the chilling description of Sethe feeling incongruities of speech. Incomplete phrases, rhetorical questions, exclamations and double negatives abound. Their metaphors: ‘Don’t jump if you can’t her daughter’s heart stopping with schoolteacher’s every backwards step. see the bottom’ – ‘I’m on dry land… you the wet one’ enhance the immediacy of the passage.

Section 20 finds Sethe continuing to wander the past, resolved in her choice to reclaim Beloved. She recalls that she reported to Mrs. Garner that schoolteacher's nephews attacked her while he watched. Mrs. Garner, reduced to invalidism, did nothing about the atrocity. Through the dying woman's bedroom window, Sethe heard shots. Quickly, she entrusted her three children to the woman in the wagon, and Sethe returned to Sweet Home to try to find Halle. The beating she received for freeing her children cost her a piece of tongue, which she bit off when the lash opened the skin on her back.

In this chapter, Morrison employs a new narrative technique, known as stream of consciousness. The chapter is Sethe’s thoughts, unspeakable and unspoken, are conveyed in fragments. She is proud that Beloved has come back to her. She justifies written as if it were Sethe's internal thoughts. It begins, "Beloved, she my daughter." By switching to a first person her behavior by remembering the horrors that would have awaited her children at Sweet Home. She recalls her own relationship with her internal monologue, Morrison can show the change in the psyche of Sethe. She is finally beginning to see her mother, whom she scarcely saw, and her relationship with Mrs Garner, whom she nursed. She plans for a new life with her daughter back children as separate entities from herself. In the past, Sethe was unable to accept that Beloved was a separate person from her who deserved to live regardless of Sethe's fears. Through the years, she has convinced herself that from the dead. For the first time since the pink of the baby’s gravestone she is noticing colours, and she dwells on all the things she will be able to show and explain to Beloved. She blames Paul D for obscuring the facts that indicated Beloved’s identity. Without his presence murdering Beloved was a loving act that was intended to protect her daughter from pain. Now that Beloved has returned, however, Sethe is forced to face the fact that this daughter is angry about her murder at the hands of she is sure that she would have noticed earlier the scratches on Beloved’s forehead that correspond to the marks of her fingernails and her mother. As a result, Sethe desperately wants to explain her reasons to Beloved. would have recognised the implications of the way in which her waters seemed to break when she was involuntarily forced to urinate on seeing her daughter. She thinks that she would have questioned the way in which Beloved knew to ask about the crystal earrings, or Sethe feels a true relief to know that Beloved has returned. Since the day of her murder, Sethe has been afraid to connected their physical similarities. look out into the world. She did not want to see what her baby could not see. Now that Beloved her returned, Sethe is again free to look at the world, for her daughter is also present to see it; but until Sethe can exorcise the This section, and the two that follow it show the thoughts of the three main female protagonists narrated in a vivid present tense using a past and her guilt about it, she will never be able to see the world clearly. Sethe tries to deal with the past by technique known as ‘stream of consciousness’ or interior monologue. Sethe’s thoughts are presented with short staccato phrases and many thinking about it. She again members the beating she received by Schoolteacher's nephews, the lack of concern shown by Mrs. Garner, the pain she felt when she sent her children away from her in a wagon, and the beating she repetitions and affirmations. They are associative, and skip and leap from subject to subject. Thinking of her daughter makes Sethe remember her own mother and her traumatic childhood and her sense of loss is reaffirmed: she was denied her share of maternal milk and received for sending her children to freedom. Sethe contemplates the paradox of Beloved's death. In her musings, Sethe declares that "if I hadn't killed her she would have died and that is something I could not bear to happen to her mother was hanged. The subject of motherhood prompts Sethe’s subconscious definition of the term: ‘When I tell you you mine, I also her." A mixture of motherhood images roils in Sethe's tangled internal monologue. She recalls Nan nursing her with mean I’m yours.’ She cannot draw breath without her children and only identifies herself as a mother. Memories of the stealing of her milk the milk left over from the "whitebabies." She thinks about herself tenderly caring for Mrs. Garner during her bout crop up, adding yet more horror to the scene which has been developing since the first section of part one, as do references to the with a grotesque throat tumour. She also contemplates her marriage to Halle. In one of her frequent, minor epiphanies, Sethe praises herself for what she has accomplished. "I lasted," she boasts, "And my girl come home." headstone.

Sethe displays unusual rebellion for an ex-slave as she takes stock of what her choices have brought her. Late to All five of the male slaves would like her as a partner, but after a year she chooses Halle to be her husband. work for the first time in 16 years, she testily rebukes her boss Sawyer, risking the loss of a job with one of the few people willing to hire an ex-con. For the first time, she comprehends Baby Suggs's preoccupation with colour and They make love in a cornfield to spare the feelings of the other slaves, but the waving of the corn on a windless day signals their activity to the watching men. She gets pregnant every year and has three realises that the freedom to contemplate "what the sun is doing to the day" is a benchmark in an ex-slave's life. Sethe remarks that she also understands why Baby Suggs didn't want "to get to red" — the colour that covered children, two boys named Howard and Buglar and a baby girl. She is nineteen and pregnant for the fourth Sethe's dying baby. As Sethe looks to the future, she hopes for a reunion with her "ma'am" and the rest of her time when Mr Garner dies. His brother-in-law (schoolteacher) comes to take control of the farm. From this family. The memories of her mother's peculiar smile convince Sethe that a steel bit forced her mother's mouth into point onwards life becomes unbearable for the slaves. They decide to escape, but in the ensuing confusion a semblance of an upturn, like the forced welcome of "Saturday girls" working the slaughterhouse yard. Sethe Sethe is forced to send her three children on ahead to Baby Suggs’s house. After being beaten mercilessly recalls how close she came to prostitution and that same forced smile, until the Bodwins found her a job that allowed her to earn $3.40 a week to feed her family. by the nephews, and having to endure the indignantly of their sucking milk from her swollen breast, she runs away on foot. She gives birth to her fourth child, Denver, with the help of a white girl named Amy, who helps her cross the Ohio River to reach 124 Bluestone road. For twenty-eight days she enjoys a freed life "Beloved, she my daughter. She mine" (200). In Sethe's monologue, words function as caress and as lament. Sethe begins by explaining that she can speak to Beloved without explanation: "She come back to me of her own before Schoolteacher arrives to take her and her children back into slavery. Rather than allow this to free will and I don't have to explain a thing" (200). Beloved already knows everything Sethe thinks and feels: happen, she tries to kill them all to preserve them from a life of hopeless slavery. there is no need for narrative. Her presence makes it safe for Sethe to remember. In relation to the daughter who is an intimate part, if not the embodiment of her past, Sethe can relive memories that have had to be hidden: The intolerable nature of her life is no different from that of other black characters in the novel. The "But you was there and even if you too young to memory it, I can tell it to you" (202). And so she tells Beloved difference lies in her dramatic response. Various character try to dissuade her from loving too much. Paul about her longing for her own mother, the rape of her breast milk, the escape from Sweet Home, and finally, D describes her love as ‘too thick’, and recognises that to love in such a way is ‘risky’, given the precarious about her act of murder. Until her reunion with Beloved, "my mind was homeless . . . I couldn't lay down nowhere in peace, back then. Now I can. I can sleep nature of slave existence. Nevertheless, her daughter Denver and the spirit of her dead baby, Beloved, become the focus of her life: she will not allow Paul D to criticse them, she gives up her job and centers her world within the wall of 124. She succeeds in dispatching her best thing – her small daughter – to safety by

cutting her throat with a handsaw. She sees this act as one of protection and provision for her young but, Sethe is a pivotal character. The narrative voice of the novel is often hers as she relives and ‘rememories’ the awfulness of her life as a paradoxically, it proves to be an act of destruction, lending gruesome irony to the phrase, ‘mother love was slave. She rarely saw her mother, and was brought― 141 up ― by a one-armed woman named Nan, while her mother worked in the fields as a killer’ (p132). alike slave. the drowned,Her mother have took mercy. her aside She one come day backto show to me,her amy mark daughter, which was and branded she is mine" on her (204). ribcage. A Later, Sethe finds her mother hanged,slave owns along nothing, with many including other herwomen, body; but Sethe's she never use discoversof the possessive the reason pronoun why. Sethe thus is proclaimspresumably a second-generation slave, since Until Beloved’s physical manifestation, Sethe copes with the guilt of her own act and cohabits with her shethat can she remember is no longer her amother slave. speakingKnowing anotherwhat it meanslanguage to andbe property, being told to of exist her repeated "without rape the milkduring the voyage to America. Sethe’s baby daughter’s spirit. However, for all her strength, Sethe is beaten by Beloved. She is punished and that belongs to you" (200), makes Sethe's insistence that Beloved is "mine" all the more memories of her youth are vague, but at the age of thirteen she is sold to Sweet Home, a farm in Kentucky. She is bought to replace allows herself to be swamped by her guilt. Mother and daughter become involved in a terrible deadlock of poignant. But Sethe does not conceive of her relationship to Beloved as a form of ownership, for if Baby Suggs, whose son she later marries and to whose home she escapes. love. Nevertheless, the final exorcism of Beloved and return of Paul D seem to imply the possibility of a Beloved belongs to Sethe, Sethe also belongs to Beloved: "when I tell you you mine, I also mean future, and Denver is instrumental in reintroducing Sethe into the community from which she has been an I'm yours" (203). While Sweet Home is run by Mr Garner and his wife, Sethe lives in relative tranquility. She works in the kitchen and makes ink for Mrs exile. Her last words, ‘Me? Me?’ promise a new life for Sethe in which she, absolved of her guilt, can value

Garner. herself as her own best thing and no longer see herself as only a mother.

In Chapter 21, Denver ponders her brothers' fear of their mother after she tried to kill them. Denver admits to herself that she is a recluse: "Not since Miss Lady Jones' house have I left 124 by myself. Never." Her only forays into the world outside 124 have been a burial and the outing to the carnival. Her mind churning from worry that Sethe will harm her and Beloved, Denver remains alert. She frets, "This time I have to keep my mother away from her." She exults that Paul D is gone and vows to hang on "till my daddy gets here to help me watch out for Ma'am and anything come in the yard." The bright spot in Denver's reality is Baby Suggs, who taught her to appreciate and love her own body. The hope of Denver's future is Beloved, who returned to fill the emptiness left by Baby Suggs's death.

Chapter 21, a companion piece to Sethe's internal monologue in Chapter 20, shifts point of view to the intense needs and Denver is a minor character, without a past, and excluded from the shared pain of the older protagonists. Her birth is something that happened to Sethe and, although Denver loves the story, when she tells it she switches from a third- insecurities of Denver. Like Sethe, Denver — controlled by the past and a victim of persistent nightmares where "she cut my head off every night" — examines her seclusion, which is made bearable now by the company of her ghostly sister. person narrative to experiencing it as Sethe. Her narrative is overpowered by the past and her voice is drowned. So She recalls the advice of her brothers about how to avoid execution if danger should again force Sethe to desperate much of the novel depends on the life at Sweet Home, its dissolution and consequences that Denver is set aside. She parricide. Unpleasant memories float up from Denver's childhood: the sound of scratching, the sight of the dark shed, the herself is aware of the bond that unites Paul D and her mother and resents it ferociously. smell of desperation emanating from Sethe's dress, and "something little" watching from the corners. Denver is the character most sensitive to Beloved and her true identity. She drank her sister’s blood along with Sethe’s Serving a self-imposed sentence of nameless fear, alienation, and yearning, Denver retreats to "the secret house," the milk much to Baby Suggs’s horror. As a child, as ‘lonely and rebuked’ as she claims that the ghost is, she plays with Beloved, and her deafness is broken by the sound of the baby girl trying to crawl up the steps. She needs Beloved in the green chapel that shuts out the hurt. In the sheltering clearing, she envelopes her bruised psyche in Baby Suggs's lore: the joy of being alive and free, the pride in being mistress of her own home, and the admiration of Halle, who worked so same way that Beloved needs Sethe, and we witness her desolation when Beloved disappears in the cold house. She feels that she has lost herself, and it is only when she takes responsibility for her own life at the instigation of Nelson lord that hard to free his mother from slavery and alleviate her pain. Denver believes that nursing from a breast anointed with Beloved's blood made her immune to the ghost's menace. Isolated and longing for sisterly communion, Denver loves this she realises she has a self of her own ‘to look out for and preserve’. visitor: "She's mine, Beloved. She's mine." In many ways, the advent of Beloved is a catalyst for the development in Denver’s character and way of living. Nursing their sick guest makes her become impatient, while her desire to capture Beloved’s attention and divert her makes her This chapter is devoted entirely to Denver's thoughts and feelings, which are again narrated in a stream of consciousness style. It is amazing that Denver still loves Sethe, for she understands that she murdered Beloved and also tried to kill her. become dutiful in the house, inventing chores to do together to pass the time. In the deadlock of love in which Beloved Even though she claims to love her mother, Denver is also afraid of her. She feels she has the power to murder again; as a and Sethe finally becomes involved, Denver realises that she is of no importance. Originally prepared to protect Beloved result, she never really feels safe. from her saw-wielding mother, she now realises that she must save her mother from Beloved. She reacts, not with sullen resentment she feels when Paul D arrives, but as an adult. She is forced to leave the yard and find work. When Paul D meets her in the penultimate section of the novel she is composed and mature. She is searching for a second job, and Because the community has always ostracised her and her mother, Denver has known very few people. As a result, she hangs on to the memory of Baby Suggs, one of the few people she has been able to love in her life. One of the most treats, and is treated by, Paul D as a fellow adult. Finally she is successful in breaking out of the narrowly defined, self- important things that Denver remembers is that Baby Suggs painted a mental picture of Halle for her. As a result, destructive circle of family relationships in 124 Bluestone road. Denver thinks of her father as an angel, just as Baby Suggs described him. Baby Suggs also taught her not to be afraid of the baby ghost that lived in the house. As a result, Denver was able to befriend it. She was also able to accept Beloved as soon as she arrived at 124 Bluestone. It did not take Denver long to realise that this newly arrived stranger was really her dead sister, come to life again. Like Sethe, Denver feels that Beloved belongs to her, since they are siblings. Denver experiences the most positive personal growth in Beloved and represents the African American hope for the future. Sethe comments that Denver is a charmed child, and indeed Denver seems to survive impossible circumstances. However, physical survival Denver claims Beloved as her sister. Her memory of her loneliness as a child, her only company the ghost, is followed by is not enough. Denver displays intelligence and promise as a child, but her innocence is a description of her fear of her mother. Howard and Buglar used to frighten her, and she lived with the apprehension destroyed when she discovers what Sethe did to her sister and planned to do to her as that what made it appropriate for her mother to kill her own children might happen again. She used to dream that her well. mother decapitated her every night and feels that she has to protect Beloved from her mother. The half-ridden memories of the rats and the time she spent in prison return to her. She is convinced that Halle, her ‘daddy’ will return. With the loss of her brothers and grandmother, Denver becomes increasingly isolated and She has spent her childhood waiting for him, and hoarding the stories that Baby Suggs used to recount about her favourite son. Denver dreams of being united with her father and of living with him and Beloved. Sethe is denied place self-centred. Even as a young adult, her attitude is still very childlike; for instance, she behaves rudely when Paul D arrives and wants only to hear stories about herself. in this dream scenario which is ironic as Sethe places her children above everything and identifies only as a mother. Denver's initial immaturity demonstrates how Sethe's inability to escape her past has also trapped her daughters. One daughter, Beloved, is dead and remains forever a child Sethe’s thoughts are followed by a similar monologue from Denver. While Sethe’s interior monologue is motivated by haunting their house, and the other daughter, Denver, lives as a child, never venturing guilt and the need to explain, Denver’s thoughts are full of her fears, dreams and loneliness. beyond her own yard. Denver’s take on love and her relationship with Beloved is both very similar and different than Sethe’s. Like her mother, Beloved's arrival at 124 marks the beginning of Denver's transformation. She finally has Denver wants Beloved all to herself, and states, “She’s mine, Beloved. She’s mine” (247). Also like Sethe, Denver “had” someone to devote herself to — someone to love. Note how Denver becomes industrious her sister once, but lost her when Paul D arrived and chased the ghost out of the house. Now that Beloved has arrived after Beloved arrives, whereas before she was lazy. As Beloved gradually takes over the incarnate, Denver doesn’t want to let her go and wants her sister to herself. She shows Beloved a protective tenderness house and weakens Sethe, Denver recognises that the family's survival rests upon her that is much like Sethe’s, but Denver wants to keep Beloved away from their mother. In fact, Denver believes that shoulders. Denver is finally able to step out of Sethe's world into the outside world and Beloved has come back to wait for their father, Halle, together. Denver wants to have a family to herself that excludes begin her own life. By the end of the novel, Denver is a mature young woman who has Sethe. Though Denver never experienced slavery first-hand, she has experienced loss, which compels Denver to claim become a part of a larger community and who appears to have a future of love and Beloved as hers. family ahead of her.

Beloved, a combination of adult body and infant perceptions, tries to describe her experience on the other side, where death is a "dead man on my face" and "daylight comes through the cracks." The strongest emotion left to her is love for Sethe, whom she observes "chewing and swallowing." Intent on eluding a return to the other side, the spirit emphasizes, "I am not dead — I am not."

This surrealistic chapter is seen from the perspective of the "other side" and is narrated by Beloved, who exists only in the present time. She thinks "there will never be a time when I am not crouching and watching others who are crouching too . . . The iron circle is around our neck." Beloved is waiting in water and looks down below "where the blue is and the grass." She sees a face down there and wants the face to smile at her. She realises that the face she sees is her face, which looks up at her through the water. Her face comes through the water and leads her down to the grass below, where a woman is waiting. She follows the woman, who is Sethe. She whispers to Beloved and touches her. Beloved imagines that "she chews and swallows me." But then Beloved sees herself swim away. When she comes out of the water, she claims that she is not dead. When she opens her eyes, she again sees Sethe, who is smiling. These lines are Beloved’s monologue. The broken sentences and incoherent thoughts show that the reflections of her own race and that trauma of slavery are still present in her language. These are rather fragmented memories of the traumatic experience of being killed and then returning as a ghost

Beloved” is the name given to mark the grave of nameless crawling-already baby, a life snuffed out by the pressures of The first person narrative in this chapter represents the thoughts of a ghost, who is remembering how she society’s racialized terror. Symbolising the “Sixty Million and more” scarred, exterminated, and displaced, Beloved morphs has spent the last eighteen years of her existence. In order to capture the floating thoughts of an into many forms throughout the novel. She is either crawling-already-reincarnate returned to avenge her violent death, or apparition, Morrison foregoes punctuation, leaving only spaces between words and capitalization. She she is Erzulie, fierce lwa of love, or she is the girl who “was locked up with a whiteman over by Deer Creek” (277). also has Beloved exist only in the present, for earthly time has no meaning in the other world. Because Morrison’s collapse and remixing of time and space allow for all these possibilities. For evidence of this, look specifically at she was killed as a young child, Beloved's thought processes are not fully evolved into mature thinking. the two chapters told in Beloved’s voice (pages 248-256). It is here that Morrison chooses to swerve from form and writes in Beloved is fully merged with the world around her. She does not recognise any boundaries, either a type of prose poetry. between herself and her mother or between herself and the world. Everything seems to merge into one. Beginning “I am Beloved and she is mine,” Beloved relays two teologically incompatible stories. The first as a voyage across She describes herself in a crowded place where food and water are scarce and where people are dead the Middle Passage, so unbearable that the enslaved “are all trying to leave our bodies behind,” willing themselves dead and dying. Men without skin are in charge, and the inhabitants wear iron collars that hurt them. rather than bear horrors of the Atlantic crossing. Made to drink piss (morning water), lie constrained among dead and dying bodies, shackled with “circles” around their necks, Morrison confronts the formation of modern blackness upon the Beloved's description of "hell" is really a description of the condition of the slaves during the Middle slave ship. Beloved next remembers her drowning, rebirth, and return to Sethe. Transcending time, Beloved as Passage as they are collared and crowded into the hold of a slave ship. Although Beloved did not ancestor, lwa, child, and mother links past with present and future, instantiating that contemporary black identity is directly experience the hardships of the Middle Passage, she identifies with her ancestors and becomes indelibly linked to the hauntings of the Middle Passage and its denial of realized subjectivity. one of them. Since many of the dead that surround her have been slaves who suffered greatly, she becomes one with them. Although Beloved returns to earth in an adult body, she is still a child in the Finally, Beloved herself wants to have control over her body and Sethe. Her monologue begins, “I am Beloved and she is mine” (248). The following pages relay a disjointed, almost stream-of-consciousness narrative that touches on this idea of having and losing. Beloved repeatedly states, “I cannot lose her other world. She refers to herself as small and remembers events from her childhood. She can still see again”, which could potentially be directed towards herself or Sethe. Either way, Beloved wants to belong and have something belong to her. Morrison Sethe's earrings and reflects on the day that Sethe carried her to the grape arbor and gathered flowers writes, “in the night I hear chewing and swallowing and laughter…it belongs to me…I see her face which is mine…her face is coming…I have to have it” into a basket while her brothers played on the hill. Beloved also seems to have looked into the lives of (251). Beloved is referring to Sethe, which makes a lot of sense considering the love she shows towards her mother. Beloved’s desire to have Sethe to other earthly beings. When she talks about the small animals looking at a child, it seems to be a herself reaches new proportions as she almost entirely dominates Sethe’s being. Her love for her mother is almost bloodsucking, as she wants to have Sethe reference to Denver's terrifying time in jail when rats stared at her and sometimes touched her. In the so desperately. Because Beloved never had a mother until now, her desire to belong to a family and have someone want her makes her love for Sethe so other world, Beloved longs to be recognised by her mother. She imagines going down to see Sethe and intense. Towards the end of Beloved’s musings, a dialogue appears between herself, Sethe and Denver. This close reading demonstrates the idea of love being chewed and swallowed by her. Somehow she manages to escape and swim through the water and possession that is apparent when reading the three women’s monologues. back to the other world. Upon her return, she can still see Sethe's smiling face. "I am Beloved and she is mine" (210). This monologue is not narrative—as Barbara Hernstein Smith says, narrative consists of "someone telling

The complements to Chapters 20 and 21 are these two lyric statements by Beloved, whose sensibilities someone else that something happened"—for the speaker has no clearly defined, separate identity and cannot be described as "someone." From the first phrase, this section emphasizes the degree to which "she" does not exist apart from her fusion with Sethe: "I am not separate from her there is no place and speech revert to babyhood, thus denying her the logic and expression appropriate to her adult body. As she explains, "how can I say things that are pictures." On "the little hill of dead people," she is where I stop her face is my own and I want to be there in the place where her face is and to be looking at it too a hot thing" (210). Sethe, however, is both Beloved's real-life mother and the mother of a child at sea on a slave ship, suggesting the extent to which Beloved's subjectivity, bound up with her troubled by "a hot thing"; the sensory impression Beloved describes represents Sethe's determined spirit, ancestors and to a diffuse, unrepresentable history, is not one. Her voice speaks for a people, across space and time: it is a composite, both personal and which wills her daughter back to earth. Still impelled by the bond to motherly love, Beloved insists, "I collective, joining the tale of a survivor of the Middle Passage with that of the preconscious "consciousness" of a murdered child. cannot lose her again." The horror of decay and of merging with the elements blends with Beloved's Beloved's chapter contains no punctuation. Paratactic rather than syntactic, it is both ruptured and connected, employing spaces between linguistic units alienation. She mourns, "there is no one to want me----to say me my name." Morrison employs rather than grammatical signs to indicate the relations between words. It is written entirely in the present tense because for Beloved there is neither past nonstandard spacing and syntax to probe the mind of the dead child: "again again----night day---- nor future: she exists in a perpetual present in which "it is always now" (210). And, as Valerie Smith points out, "only the first person pronoun and the first night day----I am waiting----no iron circle is around my neck." So strong is Beloved's identification with letter in each paragraph are capitalised." These pages do not narrate a discrete event or series of events but rather mark the point at which narration her mother that the child's spirit loses itself in love: "[S]he is the laugh----I am the laugher----I see her becomes impossible. The account to which Beloved refers—crouching in the slave ship with a dead man on top of her; wanting to die, but not dying; face which is mine." In a surreal depiction of the watery division between earth and the afterlife that watching her mother "go into the sea" rather than continue to live as a slave; waiting on a bridge for her mother's face "to come through the water" fails to separate Sethe from her daughter, the departed spirit remains "in the water under the bridge." (213)—blends the real and the fantastic and insists upon the omnipresence of the unsayable. Analysts read into this chapter a scene resurrected from the collective unconscious, a murky race The account chronicles the sensory impressions of a child trapped in the hold of a slave ship while emphasising that Beloved is both the survivor of memory of the black diaspora — the scattering of Africans by ship to slave ports in the New World. the Middle Passage and Sethe's real-life daughter. Because crouching inside the slave ship is also being coiled within her mother's womb, waiting to die Although Beloved had no knowledge of the fearful passage, her oneness with the dead forces her to and waiting to be born converge. This section expresses the child's loss and abandonment when "the woman whose face she wants" drowns herself "they experience the tight compression of black bodies in the hold of the slaves' galley during the crossings of do not push the woman with my face through she goes in they do not push her she goes in the little hill is gone she was going to smile at me she was going the middle passage. to a hot thing" (212). Beloved's mother has done to herself what Sethe will eventually do to Beloved: kill herself rather than be enslaved. Beloved waits "on the bridge because she is under it" (212) and eventually goes into the water in the hope of finding her mother: "she knows I want to join she chews and swallows me I am gone now I am her face my own face has left me I see me swim away a hot thing I see the bottoms of my feet I am alone I want to be The ghoulish interrogation between mother and murdered child gets at the truth. "Didn't you come from the two of us I want the join" (213). There is no longer a difference between "I," "me," "she," and "her"; the last "paragraph" conflates Beloved's consciousness the other side?" Sethe asks. "Do you forgive me? Will you stay? You safe here now." Beloved questions with that of the abandoned baby. She comes out of the water to find her way to the house she had heard the other whisper about and, seeing Sethe's her about "the men without skin," the white men who tried to take her back to Kentucky. Sethe extends face, recognises it as her "own": "Sethe's is the face that left me . . . she is my face smiling at me doing it at last a hot thing now we can join a hot thing" the strongest of benedictions — a smile that assures Beloved of safety, blessing, and acceptance. (213). Beloved's monologue ends by celebrating her joy in a union that has been endlessly deferred.

This chapter is a continuation of the previous surrealistic one. Beloved is till the first person narrator, speaking from the other world. She thinks about Sethe, who picked flowers "in the place before the crouching." She is convinced that Sethe was about to smile at her when the men without skin came and shoved the dead into the sea. Sethe, however, went into the sea without the men pushing her. Beloved found and then lost Sethe's face in the water under the bridge. When she saw Sethe coming to her, she wanted to join her. Beloved tried to reach Sethe, but her mother floated away, up to the light above the water. Beloved followed Sethe and came to her house. When she sees Sethe, she is smiling at last. Beloved is determined not to lose Sethe again. A voice asks Beloved if she came from the other side and if she came back because of Sethe. Beloved answers yes. The voice tells Beloved that she is safe, for the men cannot hurt them anymore. Another voice talks to Beloved and describes how they played by the creek in the quiet time. The voice says she can give Beloved dreams. Beloved says that when she dreams, Sethe "chews and swallows" me. When she laughs, "I am the laughter." The voice tries to comfort Beloved and promises that "Daddy is coming for us.” The voices then speak together and claim Beloved as sister and daughter. They say, "You are my face; you are mine." One says, "I brought you milk;" the other says, "I drank your blood." One voice adds that she has her milk; another adds that she has her smile. Then the voices repeatedly chant, "You are mine." In the end, the voices promise Beloved that she will not be left again.

In Beloved mourning becomes possible only when the protagonists are able to symbolize and Chapter 23, a trio for three female voices, harmonises the strains of Sethe, Denver, and Beloved, each craving and acknowledge their connection to the past and to one another. Here writing offers a strategy each finding nourishment in love, security, and banishment of the past. The dialogue shifts to Denver, who warns for prolonging attachment, a means of deferring radical separation until the dead have been Beloved not to risk too much by loving too much. Vulnerable since the day Stamp Paid rescued her from a violent death against the shed's plank wall, Denver knows that "she can give you dreams." Like some devouring monster, the embraced, if not restored. In the three successive monologues that occur near the end of the Sethe whom Denver calls mother "chews and swallows." The only safety is found in another dream, the fantasy of the novel and present the "unspeakable thoughts, unspoken" of the women of 124. Morrison does deliverer: "Daddy is coming for us. A hot thing." not so much speak the unspeakable as push language into border zones that welcome what cannot, but must, be said. At issue in each monologue is the task of articulating, at whatever The trio — Sethe, Beloved, and Denver — merge in the final lines, blessed by milk, smiles, and blood. The benediction, cost, the extremity and depth of attachment; in each Sethe, Denver, and finally Beloved are like a voodoo incantation, like a classic admirer's charm, is uttered three times, once for each:,You are mine/ You are able to put their love into language. Each section moves a little farther from narrative, mine/ You are mine. It is a "ritual-like unification of the three" as their voices blend into a chorus. (Brown 2) becoming more like music, emphasizing tone and rhythm rather than meaning. In these most Another writer describes "the flowing interior monologues as a verbalisation of the characters' unspeakable and poetic sections of the text, mourning becomes synonymous with love's articulation, asserting an unspoken thoughts" (Usten). They are the "most poetical passages in the novel" (Usten). The fact that their intimacy with the dead that proclaims its existence in the here and now, preserving the monologues tumble out in a rush of thoughts without breaking, portrays "immediacy and poetical lyricism" (Usten). characters' relatedness to one another in a continuous present in which time's ability to erode They show the unending flow of time especially Beloved's interior monologue which Joe describes as "repetitive and connections is denied. Loss expresses itself as pure lamentation. Mourning does not "detach the cyclic"; it seems to flow, without having punctuations as Beloved's day-to-day speech flows too (Usten) Beloved survivors' memories and hopes from the dead," as Freud would have it, but rather underscores You are my sister the durability of their attachment. In these passages Beloved's return has allowed each You are my daughter character to speak her love and her loss, at first separately and then, at the end, as one. A final You are my face; you choral passage fuses all three monologues. are me Morrison uses the Trinity to develop her three main characters and their relationships to each other, deepening At the level of style the monologues also move toward merger, for each is less differentiated Beloved's already dense plot. Textual evidence for Morrison's exploration of the reality, fear, and enormity of the I have found you again than the one preceding it. In the fourth and final section, for example, the voices become a ; you have come back enslaved experience is also presented, and how Morrison unites these specific psychologically damaging experiences into a singular commentary on post-Civil War African American consciousness through her trinity of characters is chorus in which the characters, speaking in union, declare their love for one another. Written to me without quotation marks or paragraphs, this section looks like a poem: its eight stanzas are demonstrated. Further, the political climate of the 1980s is investigated and the assertion that Morrison uses her You are my Beloved allusion to the Trinity to comment on the tacit reversion of civil rights at the hands of the neglectful Reagan composed of single lines and the concluding verses contain no punctuation. Here consolation You are mine depends upon an affirmation of attachment and the fusion of individual identities. The administration and Rehnquist Court is made. These three interdependent aspects of Morrison's Trinity allusion are also You are mine used to illuminate Beloved's hauntingly obscure closing message. monologue begins with Beloved's proclamation that when Sethe "smiles at me . . . it is my own You are mine face smiling. I will not lose her again. She is mine" (214). It ends only when the three voices have The Catholic Trinity is a literal representation of God in three persons; no subordination of its individual parts is implied, and it is become indistinguishable: You forgot to smile I loved you not simply the metaphorical application of a tri-fold symbol. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “the three divine Persons are only one God because each of them equally possesses the fullness of the one and indivisible divine nature.” This is the Only when their voices merge can the voices separate from the past and from each other; only You hurt me conception of the Holy Trinity that Morrison uses in her novel: she applies the richness of her characters over the framework of when the past’s legacy has been acknowledged can the process of letting go begin. Thus is the You came back to me these three expressions of God that are all equally, at once, and always one God. A basic understanding of this illogical mystery of work of mourning accomplished. But although their merger is necessary, the novel does not You left me faith is necessary to fully appreciate the way in which Morrison references it, and theologian Fr. Leonard Feeney provides a end with unequivocal celebration. The union eloquently celebrated in these passages leads to I waited for you concise explanation with water as his example: liquid water, mineral ice, and water vapour are all at once water. They are never a symbiosis so intense that Sethe and Beloved become “locked in a love that wore everybody anything but formula H2O, and their separate forms are but varied expressions of an identical substance, just as the Father, the You are mine out” You are mine Son, and the Holy Spirit are separate selves natural to one entity. Morrison takes this concept and applies to it Sethe, Denver, and You are mine (216–17) Beloved to it with deliberate dexterity, and through this allusion she creates characters that are innately intertwined. This is not to This chapter becomes a stream of consciousness narrative among Sethe, Beloved, and Denver. say that Morrison takes the Catholic Holy Trinity and inserts it point-blank into her novel with little or no adjustment; her There is no indication of who is speaking or thinking except for the content of the message. penchant for wedding established literary symbols to African American culture does not allow such a concise explanation. Her

Each of the three voices repeats the concerns that they have previously expressed. It is only in simple adoption of the Trinity, in itself, is an ode to the African American tradition. Just as early African American slaves knowing the characters and what has happened previously in the book that the reader can embraced the Christianity offered to them and found room within it to make it their own, Morrison finds room within the Trinity distinguish which lines belong to which character. There are things, however, that hold all three to make this Christian icon hers. When this allusion to tri-fold unity climaxes, in the section 23 that begins, where all three of them together; they crave an escape from their pasts, and they have an extreme need for characters’ consciousnesses are completely interwoven, Morrison’s prose takes on such a halting, staccato beat that readers can actually feel her reference to African tribal drums. Moreover, her decision to transform the established patrilineal structure of this emotional nourishment - to feel secure and loved. All of their voices merge in the last three relationship into an equally potent matrilineal arrangement also signals a direct reference to African culture, as Africa lines, "You are mine; you are mine; you are mine." The repeated phrase becomes a benediction has “been home to some of the world’s only matriarchal societies.” to salve their pain.

Paul D sits on the porch of the Church of the Holy Redeemer and sips a bottle of liquor – he is clearly in a state of depression. He Toni Morrison’s novel contains many secondary characters, of which the most significant is the character of Sixo. Though holds his wrists between his knees because he has nothing else to hold onto. His heart, symbolized by the tin can, has been ripped the novel is based post-Reconstruction America, much of the content is in the form of memories of ex-slaves. It is in apart. "His tobacco tin, blown open, spilled contents that floated freely and made him their play and prey." In his pain, Paul D these memories that the character of Sixo is revealed. Both Sethe and Paul D were among six slaves that lived at Sweet Home, the remaining four of which are long since gone yet live on in their memory. Morrison seems to have remembers his time at Sweet Home and the slowly emerging realisation that the life the slaves had there fostered an illusion of freedom and independence when in fact it was not. Garner had called them men, but they had not been trained to act like men. He intended Sixo’s name and roots to be ambiguous to portray a sense of “everyman” in him. Along with this even convinced some of them that the life he provided was better than freedom. In reality, Mr. Garner did his slaves a disservice, for representation, there are several Christ-like parallels that can be drawn from Sixo’s character. Though only he did not prepare them for the cruelty of people like Schoolteacher and his nephews. Additionally, when Garner's slaves left Sweet a minor character, Sixo is representative of a larger slave ideology that is apparent in Morrison’s depiction of Home they were not prepared to handle the hatred that would be inflicted upon them throughout the South. him.

As a result, it was easy for Schoolteacher to treat them like children; but Paul D felt like Schoolteacher was an anomaly. He did not The name Sixo is extremely important for a number of reasons, the most prominent being found in the dedication in the believe Sixo's stories about the brutal slave system outside Sweet Home. It was not until he was taken to the labour farm in Georgia front of the novel. It reads “Sixty Million and more”. By naming Sixo, Morrison is paying homage to the number of that Paul D got a true taste of the reality of being black in the South. Since his escape from Sweet Home, Paul D feels that slaves that were in America which is what the dedication refers to. This is especially significant because Sixo everything in his life has gone wrong. encompasses the ideology and has the ambiguity that makes him a good representation of those people as a whole. The number six is also representative of the number of slaves at Sweet Home. He is the sixth and of the men his is the Paul D thinks back to the day of the escape and how he lost contact with Halle and Paul A. He travelled away from Sweet Home only one without a last name. for example, in the beginning of the book they are introduced as Paul D Garner, Paul F with Sixo and Three-Mile Woman; but the men were soon caught by Schoolteacher. He remembers how Sixo put up a fight that Garner, Halle Suggs and Sixo, the wild man” both having a number for a name and not having a last name gives an impression of anonymity. This lends to the argument that Sixo is representative of the slave population as a whole. This resulted in his later being burned alive. As he was dying, Sixo sang a song about hatred to his soon to be born son, Seven-O. Since Thirty-Mile Woman managed to escape, he hopes that his child that she carries will be safe and free. Thinking of his future son, he emphasises his rootlessness and, in a sense, his individuality. In addition, calling him “the wild man” brings to mind commonly held perceptions of indigenous peoples which is more applicable to Sixo representing any enslaved person. dies laughing. The death of Sixo clearly stands out as one of the landmarks of Paul D's psychic life. He remembers how Sixo resisted the white men until the very end. He made certain that Thirty-Mile Woman and his unborn child that she was carrying escaped to In several instances Sixo is described in a way that gives his character a sense of ambiguity. For example, twice his skin freedom. Then as he was being burned, Sixo named his child Seven-O and died laughing at the thought that the baby should be colour is described as “indigo”. The colour indigo is a deep, reddish blue colour which is not normally associated with born a free man. skin colour. This image brings to mind not only the dark colour of African Americans but also Native Americans who also fell prey to white injustices. Native American imagery is used another time in relation to Sixo when he comes across As punishment for Paul D, a spiked collar was put around his neck, and chains were placed on his ankles. The decision was also made “a deserted stone structure that Redman used way back when he thought the land was theirs.” This juxtaposition of a to sell him for nine hundred dollars, an amount that will buy two young slaves to replace him. After he is collared and chained, Sethe slave abandoned Indian ruin suggests a strong connection between the two and is a powerful image. Though not comes to see Paul D. He is ashamed of his condition and hates having to tell her that he does not know where Halle is. He also implying that he has a Native American background, there is another aspect of Sixo that makes his roots suspect. explains that Sixo has been burned to death. She tells him she is going to run from Sweet Home and that her children are already Several times there is mention of Sixo speaking another language that is foreign to the other slaves. This of course could hidden in the cornfield. Paul D thinks about how she was later taken to the barn and brutalized by the nephews. He guesses that be an African language but is never made clear. It is this ambiguity that makes Sixo’s character one that could fit any after they whipped her so badly, none of them suspected that she would run. When she did flee, they tracked her all the way to of the cultures that have been oppressed and enslaved. Cincinnati because she had value to them. She was "property that reproduced itself without cost." Sixo represents the ideology of freedom. Of all the slaves, “he was the only one who crept at night.” Paul D remembers Sixo's words "Seven-O." He knows they meant that the Thirty-Mile Woman got away with his child in her womb. This sets him apart from the others because he knows what is good beyond Sweet Home. He has a better Paul D remembers Sixo's laughter. They hitch him to a buckboard and then he sees Halle with butter all over his face and then the sense of what freedom is and he wants it. He is never satisfied being a slave. For example, when Mr Garner rooster. Paul D admires Sixo as a strong and powerful person; he wishes that he had a way to define himself as a man. He knows that dies, Sixo is “the only one of them not sorry to see him go”. Though the other slaves feel lucky to have an he is more than a piece of property to be traded for nine hundred dollars, but he does not know his true worth. He feels that allowing owner to seem decent, Sixo knows that it is not right to be owned at all. His knowledge gives him a certain himself to love Sethe has weakened him, for his life is now more miserable than ever. He even accepts that Sethe has more strength amount of freedom and also draws attention to the ignorance of the other slaves. When Paul D wonders than he, for she managed to get her children and herself to freedom and was willing to murder her child to keep her from becoming why Mrs Garner sent for the schoolteacher to come to Sweet Home, Sixo plainly says “she need another white a slave. on the place.” This is obvious to Sixo though not to the others. The need to escape is obvious to him – “it was Sixo who brought it up.” The other slaves haven’t even considered this possibility. He organizes everything Paul D endures the sweet noose of love for Halle's former wife, the only woman he has allowed close enough to touch his atrophied and in his way tries to save his people. emotions. In her house, he becomes "a rag doll"; without her, he probes "what-if thoughts that cut deep but struck nothing solid a man could hold on to." The stark reality of his helplessness is made clear through details — his lack of material goods such as shoes for The idea of Sixo as a savior calls to our attention the Christ-like imagery in regard to Sixo’s death. the journey and his overwhelming ignorance of geography, road signs, and interaction with a free populace. On the night of the escape when everything begins to go wrong, “only Sixo shows up, his wrists bleeding, his tongue licking his lips like a flame.” The bloody wrists brings to mind the execution of Jesus Christ because of Although Sethe and Paul D are both dehumanised during their slave experiences, their responses to the experience differ due to their the nails he had through his wrists. It also portrays Sixo as a martyr. This may, like his name, be an homage different roles. Sethe derives strength and resolve from her role as a mother. To Sethe, the threat of losing her sons to the auction to all the people who died in slavery. Upon being caught, the Christ-like imagery continues as he is strung block and the very real loss of sustenance for her breastfed baby are enough to send her fleeing Sweet Home, despite her heavy belly, her separation from her husband, and the trauma of a severe lashing. Meanwhile, the only role Paul D knows is that of being a up to a tree and tortured while still alive. He is not in pain because he is finally free. The idea of freedom man. For Paul D, slavery's devaluation of his personhood equals emasculation. The three-pointed collar shames him in front of Sethe, upon death transcends the pain and “By the light of the hominy fire Sixo straightens… He laughs. A rippling a woman whose acceptance he obviously values. Paul D flees Sethe's strength and determination after he learns that she murdered sound like Sethe’s sons make when they tumble in hay or splash in rain water”. The image of the children is a child to spare it a similar life of subjugation. In stereotypical convention of male behaviours, Paul D soothes his wounded ego with one of true freedom because of their innocence. Sixo’s laugh is one of the most persistent images in the novel because it is engrained in Paul D’s memory. Therefore it is repeated throughout the novel only to be liquor, a perverse communion ironically celebrated while seated on the front steps of the Redeemer's church, which is too cold to afford him comfort. explained at the end. This makes it an even more powerful images because something associated with joy is brought about by the most horrific circumstances.

Stamp Paid, still faithful to his Christian calling, finds Paul D at the church, begs his pardon for interfering, and offers him shelter in any home in the black Stamp Paid has a key role in the novel’s events. He is the man who meets neighbourhood. Paul D relieves Stamp Paid's anguish by admitting that Reverend Pike did open his residence to him. Paul D refused the offer because he preferred to Sethe and ferries her across the Ohio River. He brought the blackberries be alone. Stamp Paid insists that his black neighbours are hospitable, even if they do react harshly to excesses of pride. that started the feast that overstepped the boundaries of proprietary. Baby Suggs’s extravagant generosity cause bad feeling and prevented the Trying to make amends for interfering with Paul D and Sethe's relationship, Stamp Paid tells Paul D about the anger that caused him to consider killing his wife, community warning Sethe of Schoolteacher’s arrival. Once more, he is there Vashti, for her months-long sexual relationship with her white owner. The humiliation he felt from his wife's relationship caused him to change his name from Joshua to the next morning, chopping wood as the white men arrive to remove Sethe Stamp Paid. He states that his desire to murder was as low as slavery ever made him. and the children. He saw Denver shortly after she was born and saved her As Paul D presses for information about Judy, a black neighbour who has offered to open her home to him, Stamp Paid interrupts with an eyewitness account of from being killed by Sethe: he is fond of her. He shows Paul D the Sethe's infanticide. He declares, "She ain't crazy. She love those children. She was trying to outhurt the hurter." Stamp Paid presses Paul D about what he newspaper clipping about Sethe, thus precipitating Paul D’s departure. It is fears in 124. Paul D acknowledges that Beloved's abrupt appearance and behaviour disturb him. His rapid calculation of a lifetime of suffering leaves him with one the thought of Denver, combined with the memory of Baby Suggs that question, "How much is a nigger supposed to take?" prompts him to try to remedy the damage he has caused through telling Paul D about Sethe. The communication between Stamp Paid and Paul D reveals that they both continue to struggle with the emotional upheaval caused by slavery. We've seen how Paul D is haunted by his slave experience, and here Stamp Paid shares the pain of the demoralising humiliation of his wife's sexual enslavement to a white master who The tale of Stamp’s life which he recounts to Paul D, demonstrates yet adorned her with a cameo and ribbon. Just as Paul D is unable to accept Sethe's murder of her daughter, Stamp Paid describes how he could not forgive his wife for another way in which white people sullied the lives of black people. After her relationship with their white master. Additionally, like Paul D, Stamp Paid escaped slavery through a long journey. With a symbolic name and the determination his wife, Vashti, was taken from him to please his master’s son, Stamp to break for the North, he walked out of slavery and headed toward Memphis and ultimately Cumberland. renames himself with his present name. Before he was called ‘Joshua’. His choice of a new name, ‘Stamp Paid’, signifies that he considers himself Paul D, driven to a deep despair about his life, wonders why he has not died sooner. Now sleeping in the church and drinking himself into greater misery, he feels responsible for his own salvation, that he is debt-free and has no remaining isolated and in great pain. He knows that opening his heart to Sethe has made matters worse for him; he feels exposed and worn down. obligations. He devotes the rest of his life to helping others. His payment is always being a welcome visitor, never having to knock on a door. The issue

When Stamp Paid approaches and offers to help, Paul D grows sarcastic and suggests that perhaps Stamp Paid can arrange for Judy, the town prostitute, to take him of naming illustrates Morrison’s fundamental worries about language. in. Stamp Paid's story about the abuse of slave women by their masters and the masters' sons counters Paul D's callousness about the woman named Judith whom the Names can be appropriated and used to impose ideologies and identities, white man on the horse is seeking. In a like manner, Stamp Paid's story about Sethe killing her daughter in order to "out hurt the hurter" is an effort to make Paul D understand her motivation. Finally, Stamp Paid's story about his wife emphasises an important point that has been developed throughout the novel: family structure just as language can be manipulated according to codes of the user and is destroyed under slavery, for slave children cannot enjoy the company and teaching of their parents and husbands are deprived of their wives. Losing his wife, first to the reader. the sexual desires of a white master and then to death, Stamp Paid changes his name from Joshua to symbolize his break with the past and a new life of freedom. His sense of community is fully developed, as is evidenced by his anger with Ella when he discovers that Paul D has been dossing in the church cellar. After listening to Stamp Paid's stories, Paul D asks how much a "nigger" can endure. Stamp Paid, with resignation, says that they must all endure as much as they can. Stamp was a friend of Baby Suggs, and saw her as a woman with the When Paul D questions the reason for human suffering and the extent to which a man must bear the burden, Stamp Paid, the stoic sage, remarks that humanity must strength of a mountain. He realises that he was wrong to upbraid her, and suffer all it can tolerate. comes to understand her resignation, and why ultimately she renounced her religious duties.

Toni Morrison employs the story of Vashti, wife of King Xerxes of Persia, as told in the Old Testament Book of Esther. Morrison gives the name Vashti to a minor character in Beloved, the wife of Stamp Paid, who is taken by the master’s son as a sexual partner. The connection of this character with the Vashti of the Old Testament, which demonstrates the biblical intertextuality so prevalent in Morrison’s fiction, enriches the meaning of ownership and identity in the novel.

Morrison explains, “The bible wasn’t part of my reading, it was part of my life.” It serves as a referent, argues Sharon Jessee, as Morrison incorporates “spiritual elements: parables, epigraphs, names, and so forth” in each of her novels. Patricia Hunt asserts that Morrison’s works constitute “ a theological discourse” in which “scripture has primary, not secondary consequences.” Her novels are “inscribed theological, and therefore political, mediations which insist on liberation, community and love as central principles for home and life in this world” (Hunt).

At times her biblical allusions are overt, but others come with great subtly like Vashti in Beloved. Danielle Taylor-Guthric has offered an intriguing analysis of Beloved’s Vashti but identifies Gomer, the adulterous wife of Hosea, as her biblical antecedent. Names are highly significant in Morrison’s works, and while a number of literary critics acknowledge the references of Vashti of the Old Testament, a critical exploration of the significance of this naming has been lacking.

The meaning of the name Vashti is uncertain. As a modern Persian name it is understood to mean "goodness" but most likely it originated from the reconstructed Old Persian *vaištī, related to the superlative adjective vahišta- "best, excellent" found in the Avesta, with the feminine termination -ī; hence "excellent woman, best of women". A very fitting title for the Vashti in Beloved who possesses immense strength.

Vashti's refusal to obey the summons of her drunken husband has been admired as heroic in many feminist interpretations of the Book of Esther. Early feminists admired Vashti's principle and courage. Harriet Beecher Stowe called Vashti's disobedience the "first stand for woman's rights." Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote that Vashti "added new glory to [her] day and generation...by her disobedience; for 'Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.'" Vashti is the name of Stamp Paid's wife in Toni Morrison's novel Beloved. She convinces Stamp Paid to look the other way while their young, white slave master takes Vashti for himself for the better part of year. When Vashti returns to her husband, he can no longer love her. Her efforts may be deemed by feminists as being heroic. She sacrifices her body in order to protect herself and her family.

The mood of the house at 124 Bluestone has changed to silence, foreshadowing that the resolution of the novel is approaching. The unnatural quietness is caused by the hunger that the inhabitants feel. Since Sethe has been fired from Sawyer's Restaurant and has not gotten another job, there is no money to buy food. It is ironic that in Throughout the novel, the characters have been emotionally crippled by their pasts. Sethe and Denver especially are disabled by their histories. The mental spite of the lack of food, Beloved grows larger as Sethe seems to be wasting away. The quiet of 124 is the quiet of and spiritual wounds caused by slavery are still fresh and have not been allowed to heal. Sethe cannot overcome her outrage and sense of violation from her death. It is the quiet of a present which has been overpowered by the past. It is also the death of the trinity Sweet Home experiences, nor can she work through the guilt she feels about her daughter's death. Meanwhile, although Denver has never lived as a slave, which was so strong (and loud) in the second section of the novel: "now it was obvious that her mother could die she suffers from the ramifications of her mother's experiences. Her development was arrested upon her discovery of Sethe's murder of Beloved and Sethe's and leave them both and what would Beloved do then? Whatever was happening, it only worked with three- attempt to murder Denver. The magnitude of this discovery caused Denver to withdraw from the community and to retreat into the sheltered but not two." The trinity is, in a sense, broken by Beloved's greed-her greed for more than the other two had. unhealthy world of 124.

Denver undergoes a huge change in this chapter. Realising what is happening to her mother, she switches her With Beloved's arrival at 124, Sethe and Denver have been faced with the physical manifestation of the very thing that haunts them and keeps them from allegiance from Beloved to Sethe. She knows that if any of them are to survive, she must take matters into her moving on with their lives. Beloved embodies not just the spirit of the child Sethe killed but also all of the past pain and suffering from which Sethe and own hands. With great fear, she goes out into the world alone for the first time. It is a great act of bravery since Denver have never been able to escape. Initially they are fascinated by Beloved and what she represents, but in this chapter Morrison demonstrates how she has been taught that the outside hurts people so badly that they lay down and die or kill their children. destructive centring one's life around the past can be. As Beloved feeds upon their fascination, Sethe and Denver's lives devolve into chaos and then into Denver becomes the hope at the end of this painful novel for the next generation. A resolution for the character near-starvation. Denver's recognition that she needs to "step off the edge of the world" and leave the house to find help signifies the beginning of her of Denver occurs in this section of the novel. Throughout the book, Denver has been characterised by an movement from the paralyzing world of the past into the freedom of the present. By taking this step, Denver re-enters the black community and propels immaturity stemming from both a fear of her mother and also a dependency on her. Here, she realizes for the herself into womanhood. Every connection she makes to other community members draws her farther from her mother and Beloved's unhealthy love and first time that it is not her mother to be afraid of, but Beloved. She also realises that her mother was not at fault deeper into a life of possibilities. She learns to read, gets a job, and experiences her first feelings of attraction to a man. Carrying on the pervasive theme of the day of the murder, that "The best thing [Sethe] was, was her children. Whites might dirty her all right, but the lingering trouble caused by slavery, Lady Jones epitomizes the half-breed, "Gray eyes and yellow woolly hair, every strand of which she hated." An not her best thing." Perhaps most importantly, though, Denver takes her first step outside of the house-her first altruistic lover of children, she exerts maternal love to vault over her own isolation, widowhood, and failing vision. Recognizing Denver's needs, she envelops step to maturity. Here, she takes her life into her own hands and enters the community in an effort to do the young woman in love. Lady's intuitive assessment of the situation at 124 Bluestone Road leads her to share "rice, four eggs and some tea" with Denver. something about her situation. There is resolution here for many minor characters as well. Nelson Lord, who first blocked up Denver's ears with the innocent question about her mother's crime, now opens up Denver's mind to her own existence. Lady Jones's outpouring of charity serves as partial payment for the sufferings that every ex-slave has known in servitude. Morrison describes the pain that assaulted Baby Suggs, Ella, Stamp Paid, and Paul D: "That anybody white could take your whole self for anything that came to mind. Not just work, kill, or maim you, but dirty you. Dirty you so bad you couldn't like yourself anymore. Dirty you so bad you forgot who you were and couldn't think it up." Denver's Despite all her deprivations, Denver understands that one of the most important tools for survival is community. initial visit to Lady Jones and her subsequent visits to the other women in the community serve to re-establish the connections between the community and As a result, she bravely knocks on the door of Lady Jones, who invites her in for tea and calls her "baby." It is her family. To Janey Wagon, Denver's story is worthy gossip. To some hearers, it is gospel; to others, fiction. To Ella, it seems unlikely that family members ironic that this word is used to describe Denver at the point in her life when she is finally accepting responsibility could "just up and kill" their own kind. Whatever the people think of the situation at 124, they feel connected enough to the family again to try to help in and becoming a woman. She explains to Lady Jones that the family is going hungry, for Sethe is out of work. different ways. While some people simply offer food, others decide they need to exorcise Beloved from the house. This decision represents a long-awaited Lady Jones takes matters into her own hands. Soon the women of the neighbourhood are bringing food to the reversal of their decision to shun Sethe and punish her for her excessive pride. 124 Bluestone and leaving it outside on the stump. They also leave their names so that Denver will know where to return the dishes. Inspired by the caring of the community, Denver decides to go and see the Bodwins, who have helped her mother and grandmother in the past. When she knocks on their door, she is greeted by a black The final scene of the chapter, in which Sethe tries to kill Edwin Bodwin, seems to be an echo of the scene in which the schoolteacher comes to 124 to reclaim Sethe and her children. However, whereas that event led to the destruction of a family and its place in the community, this situation leads to healing and woman named Janey. Denver instinctively trusts Janey and tells her what is going on at 124 Bluestone. Janey tells the black community about the ghost that is haunting 124 Bluestone and rallies them to come to Sethe's aid. At reintegration. In this scene, members of the community have come to offer help rather than turn away as they did when the slave catcher came for Sethe. Additionally, the white man coming to take Sethe's child this time is coming to help rather than to hurt. Finally, Sethe chooses to destroy the perceived the end of the chapter, thirty of the neighbourhood women have armed themselves with amulets and their Christian faith and arrive at Sethe's house to help drive the ghost away. The women arrive on the same day threat here rather than sacrifice Beloved for a second time. The combination of all these elements leads to Sethe leaving Beloved on the porch and rushing into the crowd of women, followed closely by Denver. Beloved watches Sethe and Denver disappear into the "hill of black people, falling" which is that Denver is to begin work at the Bodwins. When Sethe hears the voice of the women singing, she opens the door to see what is happening. Just as she looks out, Mr. Bodwin pulls up in a cart. In her weakened state, Sethe overshadowed by the white man with a whip. This image is obviously one of slavery — the massive number of blacks who have been dominated by the slave master's whip. Sethe and Denver blend into this image; they cannot escape the ramifications of slavery any more than any other African American. thinks he is Schoolteacher come to take Beloved away. She grabs the ice pick and rushes out to stab him and protect her daughter. However, as we have seen with Denver throughout the chapter, past oppression and suffering do not mean that people cannot build new lives for themselves. Ironically, Edwin Bodwin, a well-off white gentleman, shares the horror of slavery to the degree that he and fellow Quakers have warred against it. As it did for Paul D, Stamp Paid, Ella, Lady Jones, and Sethe, the inhumanity of the slave era has drawn Bodwin and his associates into the fray. Several important points are brought out in this chapter. Sethe voices the central problem of her life when she His generosity with the Bodwin family home led to local scandal after Sethe, his tenant, murdered her child. When Sethe was jailed, quick-witted Quakers says that "the best thing she was, was her children." Unable to differentiate between herself and her sons and "managed to turn infanticide and the cry of savagery around, and build a further case for abolishing slavery." daughters, Sethe has not been able to grant herself a separate existence that has needs of its own. In order to overcome her past and heal herself, Sethe needs to recognise and accept her own value as a person, separate and apart from being just the mother of her children. Another important point is made through the Bodwins, who are supposed to be "good whitefolks." In spite of their reputation as abolitionists, they have a horribly racist Here, it is finally clear just how destructive a single-minded love can be. By blocking out all others and their own physical needs, Sethe and Beloved are figurine in their kitchen; it is a statue of a small black boy kneeling and saying, "At Yo'Service." Edward Bodwin destroying themselves. Denver develops maturity. While children love selfishly, maturity teaches her how to love less selfishly, and she goes out to help find a also waxes nostalgic over the "heady days" he enjoyed during the trial of Sethe Suggs. Earlier in the novel it was way to help her mother survive. said of the Bodwins that they hated slavery worse than they hated slaves. While it is true that the Bodwins saved There are two ways to read why Beloved disappears after the incident with Sethe, the crowd of women, and Mr. Bodwin. It is possible that Beloved disappears Sethe's life by keeping her from being hanged for her daughter's death, it was done for the abolition movement, not because they cared about Sethe as a human being. They do not even seem to have many feelings for Janey because Sethe finally took her violence out on a white man instead of on her own children, which is more appropriate. In attacking Mr. Bodwin instead of her children, she is attacking the powerful instead of the weak, and so the guilt she feels loses its power. Wagon, the black woman who has served them twenty-four hours a day for twenty years. The theme of the banality of evil is furthered here: The Bodwins, dedicated to the abolition of slavery, do not even realise the The other way to think about it is that the women of the community are finally there to support Sethe. When she is alone, all she has is the fierce implications of that statue-it has been so ingrained in their heads. love a mother feels for her children. But, when the entire community is there, they all take on responsibility for what happened, and so Sethe no longer has to feel the guilt that Beloved holds over her. Each of these interpretations has merit, and in fact, they are probably both correct. Only with the support of the community can Sethe face the Some of the most respected characters in the novel, including Baby Suggs, Halle, and Sixo, believed that whites, without exception, were untrustworthy, for they always inflicted pain on the blacks. During the course of the power structure of white people who created this awful situation. Their support helps break the hold of the past, and so Sethe is novel, whites are repeatedly shown inflicting pain. In fact, the only white who is fully good is Amy Denver. She empowered to act differently this time. Of course, she is weakened by the entire experience, left empty because all she has had for so long has been unselfishly helped Sethe deliver her baby and headed her towards freedom. Sethe senses the basic goodness of that isolation and guilt. When Paul D comes and says he is going to help her, she has a healthier kind of love to rely on. Even though they went through such the girl and names her baby after her. awful things together, their relationship is not destructive, instead, it is constructive.

 In this chapter, Paul D returns to 124 Bluestone, for he has heard that Beloved is gone. Some say she simply disappeared; others say Throughout the community, rumours are spread about Beloved and grow into legends. Everyone she exploded. Ella fears she is hiding in the woods waiting for another chance to come out and get Sethe. seems to believe something different about her. In the end, she becomes a repository for everyone's pain, loss, and guilt.  Paul D, however, is convinced that Beloved is gone for good, for Here Boy, the old dog, has returned to the house, signalling that

there are no ghosts in the neighbourhood. Several of the images of Beloved are connected to water: she becomes a woman with fish for hair and a woman who takes a man to an "ocean-deep place he once belonged to." One interpretation  Paul D has also heard the story about Sethe trying to attack Mr. Bodwin with the ice pick Supposedly, Bodwin never knew she was of the sea-deep place is to see it as the waters of the womb, in which an embryo shares a bond with after him, for he assumed she was after the women singing in her yard. Fortunately, Ella stopped Sethe before she could get to its mother. The sea also represents the waters of life and new beginnings. But the sea can also cause Bodwin and hurt him. As a result, no harm was done; and in her delirious state, no one blamed Sethe. death. During the Middle Passage, "six million or more" slaves died and were cast into the ocean. A third interpretation has been suggested by African scholars who draw parallels between Morrison's  Paul D's return is the most positive thing that has happened in the novel. It is beginning of new life for both him and Sethe. When he imagery of the other world and African myths about a watery afterlife. The value of the water arrives at her house, he finds Sethe sitting with her expressionless eyes fixed on the window. image is that it can touch different readers in different ways; each reader can come away with a unique experience of this novel.  Realising that Sethe is giving up, just like Baby Suggs had done, Paul D becomes angry and decides he will save Sethe. He tells her he will take care of her and be there every night for her. He begins by heating up some water in order to bathe her. When he tells Sethe In the last scene of the novel, Paul D mothers Sethe. It is a flashback to the times that Sethe was

what he is doing, she wonders if there is anything left of her to bathe. She also callously asks him if he is going to count her feet. He cared for by Amy Denver, Ella, and Baby Suggs. The difference is that Paul D is determined to care for Sethe for a long time in order to make her whole again. Paul D has been through a tough time responds by tenderly saying he is only going to rub her feet. himself and managed to survive. Now he wants to help Sethe heal. By helping and loving her, he  Paul D is amazed by the change that has come over Denver. She appears confident and full of life. She is now working in the outside knows that he will further heal himself. world in order to make some money to help Sethe. She feels like a real person for the first time in the novel. As a result, she does not resent Paul D's presence this time; she just asks him to be careful about how he talks to Sethe. Paul allows Sethe to do the talking. When Paul D tells Sethe at the end of the chapter that she is her own best thing, Sethe is amazed at He listens as she tells him that Beloved has left her and admits that it is probably the best thing. the thought and asks, "Me?" For the first time in the novel, she is thinking of herself as an independent being, separate from her family. It is the first step in accepting the value of her own self.  When Paul D sits down in the rocking chair, he again reflects on the past. He thinks of Sethe's scarred back, her delicious mouth, her mean eyes, and her tenderness when she saw him chained by the collar back at Sweet Home. He remembers how Sethe never Although the novel does not end by giving the reader an image of Sethe and Paul D's future, it does provide hope that they will find a way to wholeness. Having suffered great loss, they are now ready looked at the collar, leaving his manhood intact. He then tells Sethe that "he wants to put his story next to hers." He adds that to give themselves to each other. To help in the healing process, the community has finally they have more of yesterday than anybody else and that they need each other for tomorrow. He then takes her hand and says, surrounded them with love and care. Even Denver, who is now a happy working woman, has blessed Sethe, in disbelief, says, "You your best thing, Sethe. You are." "Me? Me?" Paul D's return.

Linked with water images, Beloved, who dwelled in water beneath the bridge during her tenure in Paul D asks Sethe what she is planning and she declares that she has ‘no plans at all’. The absence of plans denotes the lack of a future. In the third section the land of the dead, engulfed Paul D in an ocean wave of possessive emotion. On his return to the of One, Denver describes her vision of a floating dress and interprets it as the baby’s plans. Sethe, years later, remembers Denver’s words and, with Paul D shed, he relives the powerlessness of being devoured by "a life hunger" that he could control no more asleep beside her, thinks of the implications of the word. Plan-making is regarded as a luxury, since the one plan that she did make went so disastrously than he could stop his lungs from gulping air. After the overwhelming passion ended, he realized that wrong. This plan, was of course, the escape from Sweet Home, which is described by Paul D in the same terms. The impossibility of making plans is linked their coupling "wasn't even fun." Like a landed fish, he lay "beached and gobbling air," safely with the power of memories of the past. Sethe has ‘no room to imagine, let alone plan for anything for, the next day.’(p.70). Thus Paul D’s declaration returned from "some ocean-deep place he once belonged to." As though reliving a prenatal that he and Sethe must create ‘some kind of tomorrow’ expresses the hope having exorcised the past, embodied by the carnal manifestation of Beloved, experience, he views his release from Beloved as a kind of birthing. they can gain access to the future and to the right plan. The female/water images segue neatly into Paul D's wartime experiences. He perceived the land as a This penultimate section is replete with repetitions. Paul D’s ability to make women cry is described with the same words as in the first section: ‘because with him, in his presence, they could’. The composite nature of the narrative fills the text with past references and phrases. For example, Paul D uses the breast and "fingered its earth for food, clung to its banks to lap water and tried not to love it." Toiling phrase ‘Devil’s confusion’, just as he replied on the occasion of their first meeting or the references to bathing in sections, as performed by Baby Suggs. first in a Confederate body reclamation squad and then in foundry work, he wandered in Alabama from Selma to Mobile and then took a skiff from Mobile Bay to a Union gunboat, which carried him Morrison has said she likes to know the ending of her books early on, and to write them down once she does. With Beloved, she wrote the to Wheeling, West Virginia. On his own, he journeyed to Trenton, New Jersey, and remained seven ending about a quarter of the way in. "You are forced into having a certain kind of language that will keep the reader asking questions," she years before wandering west toward southern Ohio and Sethe. told author Carolyn Denard in Toni Morrison: Conversations. In contrast to Paul D, Sethe's tie with womanhood pushes her dangerously toward death. Her body is The character of Paul D finds resolution when he comes back to 124. This is the first time he has come back to a place he fled from, and the action symbolises an end to his running. He has finally found time to live in the present, as is reflected by his stopping outside the shed to admire the flowers; the depleted, her will expired, and her maternal breasts — the ones that nourished four children — symbolically exhausted. Paul D — himself wearied, but grateful to be back with his woman — recalls tobacco tin has been emptied, and he no longer has to flee the past. What is missing in 124 that is "larger than the people who lived there" is history. The past is gone, and into the house Paul D brings the present. Sethe, however, remains consumed by the past when he enters. She dwells upon the ink Sixo's definition of love: "The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order." In a touching role reversal, Paul D takes on the task of massaging Sethe's body and soul. Sethe schoolteacher wrote in his notebook in, and comments that she doesn't have any plans. Paul D assures Sethe that they will make a tomorrow for themselves, while simultaneously teaching her to take care of herself: "You your best thing, Sethe. You are." This teaching mirrors Baby Suggs's ("love your leans on Paul D and confesses her stunning loss: "She was my best thing." Paul D, the patient, flesh"), and in a way Sethe's eventual emergence from the bed (which we hope will happen) gives a resolution to Baby Suggs's plight. Though Baby Suggs maternal, Christ-like confessor, strikes the fitting chord with his reminder, "You your best thing, Sethe. never got up after being defeated, there is a sense that Sethe will, to endure what there is to endure. You are."

In this final chapter, Beloved has disappeared not only as a presence in Sethe's house, but also as a source of gossip for the townspeople. She is soon "disremembered and unaccounted for." Her footprints, however, sometimes appear and disappear by the stream that flows near 124 Bluestone.

The novel's last chapter is mesmerising; Morrison turns to poetry to trap us in this world It is clear from Morrison's dedication ("Sixty Million and more") that she intends to embrace the social document potential of the novel, as, indeed, any novel that treats injustice of rhyming phrases through the voice of one so distant that it's almost dream like. She and its effects must do. This acceptance of the novel's power to shape opinion actually frees her to do anything she wants artistically - novelists who are careful to avoid social focuses on the way in which Beloved has naturally been forgotten: It captures the questions tend to limit their subjects to personal relationships or aesthetic questions that seem, on the surface, to be perennial, though in fact the novelist is usually simply imperceptible passing of grief. avoiding the social and economic implications of what he or she is saying. For Morrison and most other writers of the 1980s, though, everything about the novel, from plot to style to characterisation, that had once seemed fairly neutral was seen to be fraught with political implications. Like Tolstoy, who also embraced the novel as a social document and She continuously uses the explanation, “It was not a story to pass on,” of Beloved's story, openly used it to express his opinions, Morrison had a theory - a vision of slavery and black/white relations in America - that was in some ways old-fashioned, but still and you know in your heart that what she means is the exact opposite. We can choose inflammatory and unresolved. The task was to remake the old story in a compelling way, and also to separate her own telling from that of earlier writers, especially Harriet to push away the memories that hurt us, or we can sit up and remember why. Things Beecher Stowe. never disappear; they just fade away, always waiting to jump up and bite you at the most surprising moments. It's a difficult book to read, but in order to understand the Morrison's evocative blend of detail, memory, and lyrical commentary forms a liquid stream that carries the reader along, sometimes blind or only half-aware of a significance or present it's important to understand the past. Morrison gives us this lesson for a reason, nuance but always attuned to the sad-expectant outlook of the channelling voice. The mesmerizing skill with which Morrison spins her tale lures the reader along with nuggets of we should embrace it for what it is and make sure it never happens again. fact — a date, an event, a motive — until the story jells in spite of the veiled meanings of the speaker's truths, half-truths, and suppositions. The precise detail of Morrison's fiction has the ring of truth, as though she were recalling some oddment from an evening's story session long past in her childhood. For example, she explains that Sixo marks Patsy in Beloved details Morrison's characters' descent into fantasy, and as is often the case in order to deceive her master; he "punctured her calf to simulate snakebite so she could use it in some way as an excuse for not being on time to shake worms from tobacco novels, the ending ties up many of the loose ends, and pulls the characters back into leaves." reality, with the events of the novel seeming simply, "...like an unpleasant dream during a troubling sleep"(324). On the other hand, while perhaps fitting and logical, Morrison's Morrison uses the present tense throughout Beloved, although the narrative spans a period of some fifty years, stretching back to Baby Suggs’s youth and Sethe’s earliest ending is not perfect. Morrison's style and storyline up until the ending is far from memory of her mother. The prevalence and priority given to memories and remembering obscure the boundaries of time, so often used to structure literary works. Morrison concrete, dealing with that which is implied, illusory, and symbolised, rather than what is flouts the confines of physical presence and consciousness by which novelists are usually restricted. While in her earlier novels she made use of premonitions, visions and plainly in view; she writes with suggestion rather than description. This pattern, however, coincidences, in Beloved, she unambiguously endorses the supernatural. One of the characters is a ghost. The novel, like the miserable house of 124, pulsates with unnatural is broken in the final chapter of Beloved. energy. The narrator now, in the final chapter, takes a mainly external and therefore unemotional position, unlike earlier in Morrison's work where the emotions, personalities, Moreover, the readers are denied vital knowledge: we neither learn why Beloved appeared, nor where she has gone. The shifting voices of the narrator, which flits in and out of

and often fractured thoughts of the characters would be included in the narration. different characters’ thoughts, conveys a similar process of defamiliarisation for the reader. We hear the cogitations of Edward Bodwin, the thought process of Schoolteacher, and Stamp Paid’s voice, as well as that of the central protagonists. Apparently outside the story, in the final chapter, the narrator blandly reports that "...they [had] forgotten her like a bad dream...quickly and deliberately."(323). In In section Two there are four sections that represent the interior monologues of Sethe, Denver and Beloved. Those that belong to Beloved are most interesting when we come to comparison to the suggestions of events previously occurring in the novel, such as when consider the novel’s style. The first of these is completely unpunctuated. Its language and content are highly repetitive and circular. It represents a time and place beyond the Sethe flees with her children, and "...[she] collected every bit of life she had made, all the constructs of sentences and sense: the place from which Beloved came and where she existed as a spirit. It is possible to read this in terms of theories, appropriated by Feminist parts of her that were precious and fine and beautiful, and carried, pushed, dragged critics, that children, before they succumb to the patriarchal dictates of formalised language, perceive the world through a female language that has an entirely different set of them through the veil."(233), the tired, run-of-the-mill account on page three hundred rules, shunning a linear time-scale, ‘all of it is now’ (p.210) in favour of patterning. This supports our sense of beloved being a baby. The technique is stream of consciousness. and twenty-three seems almost as if it had been written by an entirely different author. Here the style is accentuated, even on a typographical level, and disregards the common rules of writing. This style is not confined to Beloved’s thoughts alone, but is used, to This change in narration, while perhaps thought of as trivial by some, adds a slight sense some extent, throughout. This means that there is no fixed point of reference for the reader, as memories meld and flow. Sethe’s violent act in the woodshed is related from of discord to the ending, and leaves the reader slightly uncomfortable. several different viewpoints: Baby Suggs, Stamp, Schoolteacher and Sethe herself. We are given no indication as to whether we should approve or otherwise. We are forced to relive the same scene many times, and the facts of the bay’s death are present from the very first pages. Morrison could not recall the chapter where the infanticide took place. The last chapter begins in such a general mode that the reader wonders if the subject-- "her"--is really the character Beloved. It seems to be alluding more to all those people Her intention was to deliberately ‘burry’ the act within the text, like the central characters attempt to bury their pasts. who have been forgotten and who haunt the living. Only in the last words of the novel is the name Beloved spoken; and the word takes on a more general meaning. Beloved is These techniques and others mean that Beloved is open ended. Morrison aspires to this quality and identifies incompletion as a feature of black music: “Jazz always keeps you on the edge. There is no final chord… spirituals agitate you…there is something underneath them that is incomplete…I want my books to be like that… I want that feeling of not just Sethe's daughter, but all those unfortunate souls who were lost to slavery and racism and who deserve to be beloved. something held in reserve and the sense that there is more.” (N McKay ‘An Interview with Toni Morrison’). Music is a rich source of metaphor for Morrison and is referred to in the preface of Playing in the Dark, as well as being used as a structural and thematic principle in her novel, In the end, Beloved should truly be beloved. She became the catalyst for Sethe, Paul D, Jazz. She aims to unsettle her readers by drawing their attention to the gaps in her novel, which took Morrison five years to write. Morrison states explicitly: ‘I must use my craft Denver and the community to acknowledge their loss of culture, pride, and life due to the injustices of slavery; in dealing with their past hurts, they can finally heal. to make the reader see the colours and hear the sounds’ (A Conversation with Toni Morrison). Sound is central to her style of prose poetry, for example, the phrase: ‘sifting daylight dissolves the memory, turns it into dust motes floating in light’ (p.246) with its assonance of sibilant sounds and the hinted rhyme of ‘motes..float(ing)’.

Morrison, who has carried ghost conventions far past their gothic origins, ends her story Morrison plays with repetition, a musical device, repeating memories and images, and, on a more local level, uses repetition as a device to recreate the thought processes of her with a well-earned and gratifying peace. Some of Beloved's yearnings remain distant, characters. As in Section One, when Denver reiterates Paul D’s words: ‘only those who knew him well’ and her own weariness ‘wear her out’. The same phrase is later repeated particularly "the underwater face she needed," a reference to her lack of personhood, in the past tense. In One, section 2, sexual tension is built up by a highly eroticised account of the preparation of corn. The voyeurism in which Paul D and the other men engage which was cut off in its formative stage. The neighbours hush their ungentle gossip, and whilst watching the corn move as Halle and Sethe have sex is reflected by a lingering and repetitive description of the way in which they prepare the damaged corn to eat that harmony returns to Bluestone Road. Sethe and Denver, no longer imprisoned by the evening. Sethe and Paul D’s memories blend and fuse together. The phrase, ‘how loose the silk’ is repeated four times with only one variation. The choral effect slows down the invidious third party, sink into the rhythm of the seasons. The backyard creek, symbolic narrative, and recreates a sense of satiety. Repetition of a phrase is similarly used to create a sense of clam, as it imitates the rising and falling of Paul D’s chest as he sleeps, or to of time, womanhood, and, by extension, all life, continues to flow. The ghost's footprints imbue a sense of panic when Paul D tells Stamp that the picture of Sethe is not hers, since her mouth is drawn incorrectly. The phrase: ‘That aint her mouth’ is repeated seven recede into nature as Beloved, returned to her grave, no longer clamours for her times and does much to embody Paul D’s stubborn refusal to accept Stamp’s tale. When Sethe and the two girls go ice skating the phrase ‘Nobody saw them falling’ is repeated mother's kiss. many times and effectively establishes the unity of the three women. This is one point in which the reader is made aware of their position as audience and outsider.

Oscar Wilde ’s only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), is a superb example of late- Victorian Gothic fiction. It ranks alongside Robert Louis Stevenson ’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897). The Picture of Dorian Gray first appeared in the July 1890 number of Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine and immediately The 19th century was a practical, business-like time. It was marked by urbanization, industrialization, function, and an emphasis on wealth. The caused an outcry due to its perceived references of homosexual desire. The review in the Scot’s Observer memorably middle class rose in power during this period. As is common historically, when one social trend emerges, other movements arise to push in opposite described the book as having been written for ‘outlawed noblemen and perverted telegraph -boys’ – a reference to a directions. Early in the century, England saw romantics embracing nature as an alternative to industry. Just after the middle of the century, the recent scandal involving a homosexual brothel in London’s Cleveland Street. In response to such hostile criticism Wilde aesthetic movement emerged. Members of the aesthetic movement believed in the motto popularized by French poet Théophile Gautier: "Art for considerably amended the text and a longer, noticeably ‘toned-down’ version of the book was published by Ward art's sake." The Victorians valued art that supported a useful social cause or that carried a moral message. For the aesthetics beauty was enough in Lock and Co in April 1891. It is this later version that forms the standard text of the novel. Even so itself. Wilde was strongly influenced by this movement. He knew people, like art critic Walter Pater, who helped shape the movement in Britain. the Lippincott’s version was used by opposing counsel in evidence against Wilde in two of his trials in an attempt to Pater influenced Wilde heavily, and Wilde took the critic's book on the Renaissance with him when he travelled. He even went so far as to memorize show him guilty of ‘a certain tendency’. For many people Oscar Wilde the artist – with his flamboyant public persona sections of the volume. A skilled author, Wilde incorporated the aesthetics' philosophy of beauty in The Picture of Dorian Gray while also critiquing it and his secretive private life – and his novel with its two distinctly different versions and its duplicitous central character in the same work. After Dorian, Lord Henry Wotton is the most important character in the novel, and he spends more time explaining his philosophy mirrored each other from the start. The aphorisms that make up the “Preface” of Wilde’s novel were his response to than Dorian does his. Lord Henry is a dandy who places a great deal of importance on keeping up appearances and engaging in leisurely pursuits. those critics who had denounced the immorality and unhealthiness of this story after its scandalous first appearance The philosophy he articulates is very much an aesthetic one. In Chapter 2 he gives a speech to Dorian in Basil's garden that changes Dorian forever by in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine. However, for all its transgressive delights, The Picture of Dorian Gray could easily be awakening him to the power and importance of his own beauty, saying, among other things, "And beauty is a form of genius—is higher, indeed, than read as a profoundly moral book, even a cautionary tale against the dangers of vice. genius, as it needs no explanation. It is of the great facts of the world, like sunlight." This is an unflinching celebration of sensual beauty. However, Wilde follows this by showing Dorian living this philosophy and ruining many lives in the process. Its assault on repressive Victorianism was immediately controversial. Though appreciated by some, the novel provoked hostile reactions from many members of the British press. The outcry prompted Wilde to cut portions of the text when While much of The Picture of Dorian Gray delights in the beautiful and the intoxicating indulgence of the senses – the novel’s opening paragraph for he later prepared it to be published as a book, but, in fact, the version originally published by Lippincott's had already example describes the heady pleasures to be derived from the scents of roses and lilacs – it can be argued that Wilde intended his book neither as a celebration of decadence nor as a fable about the perils of its excesses. As Wilde states in the preface to the novel ‘There is no such thing as a moral or been subject to censorship. The vast majority of Stoddart’s deletions were acts of censorship, bearing on sexual matters an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. That is all’. In other words, any moral disgust or vicarious pleasure derived from the book of both a homosexual and a heterosexual nature. Much of the material that Stoddart cut makes the homoerotic reflects more upon us as readers than it does on the novel itself. The book is a tale, pure and simple. It is we, the readers, who force it to bear the nature of Basil Hallward’s feelings for Dorian Gray more vivid and explicit than either of the two subsequent published weight of a moral dimension. The idea lying behind Aestheticism, the controversial theory of art that was newly fashionable at this time, was that art versions, or else it accentuates elements of homosexuality in Dorian Gray’s own make-up. But some of Stoddart’s should be judged purely by its beauty and form rather than by any underlying moral message (‘art for art’s sake’). This is exemplified in the novel by deletions bear on promiscuous or illicit heterosexuality too – Stoddart deleted references to Dorian’s female lovers as the dandyish Lord Henry Wotton. Lord Henry advocates the hedonistic pursuit of new experiences as the prime objective in life. In his view, ‘one could his “mistresses,” for instance -- suggesting that Stoddart was worried about the novel’s influence on women as well as never pay too high a price for any sensation’ (ch. 4). Dorian, although seduced by Wotton’s poisonous whisperings, is increasingly interested in the men. Stoddart also deleted many passages that smacked of decadence more generally. moral consequences of his behaviour. He stands before his decaying portrait, comparing the moral degradation as depicted in oil with his unblemished innocence as reflected by the mirror. The contrast gives him a thrill of pleasure: ‘He grew more and more enamoured of his own beauty, more and more interested in the corruption of his own soul’ (ch. 11). Dorian – via his wish to remain handsome, while the painting bears the weight of his corruption – muddies the boundary between art and life, aesthetics and ethics. The painting is made to serve a moral purpose, being transformed from an object of beauty into a vile record of guilt, something ‘bestial, sodden and unclean’ (chapter 10). This tainting of the picture perhaps constitutes, for the aesthete, Dorian’s greatest crime – namely the destruction of a beautiful artwork. Oscar Wilde was born on October 16, 1854, in Dublin, Ireland. He was educated at Trinity College in Dublin and at Magdalen College, Oxford, and settled in London, where he married Constance Lloyd in 1884. In the literary world of Victorian London, Wilde fell in with an artistic crowd that included W. B. Yeats, the great Irish poet, and Lillie Langtry, mistress to the Prince of Wales. A great conversationalist and a famous wit, Wilde began by publishing mediocre poetry but soon achieved widespread fame for his comic plays. The first, Vera; or, The Nihilists, was published in 1880. Wilde followed this work with Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892), A Paintings often play a sinister role in Gothic fiction. The first Gothic novel, Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764) includes a figure stepping Woman of No Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895), and his most famous play, The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). from a painting and into reality while Melmoth the Wanderer (1820), written by Oscar Wilde’s great-uncle Charles Maturin, describes the haunting Although these plays relied upon relatively simple and familiar plots, they rose well above convention with their brilliant dialogue gaze of a portrait as it follows the viewer around a room. The picture hidden in Dorian’s attic may be the most disturbing portrait in Wilde’s book, but and biting satire. In 1891, the same year that the second edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray was published, Wilde began a it is not the only canvas in the novel which provides a pointer to Dorian’s behaviour. At one point Dorian walks through the picture-gallery of his homosexual relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas, an aspiring but rather untalented poet. The affair caused a good deal of country home, looking at the portraits of his ancestors: ‘those whose blood flowed in his veins’. The saturnine and sensuous faces stare back at him, scandal, and Douglas’s father, the marquees of Queensberry, eventually criticized it publicly. When Wilde sued the marquees for causing Dorian to reflect whether ‘some strange poisonous germ crept from body to body till it had reached his own?’ (ch. 11). This poses the question libel, he himself was convicted under English sodomy laws for acts of “gross indecency.” In 1895, Wilde was sentenced to two years of as to whether Dorian is free to determine his own actions, and is thus entirely responsible for his behaviour, or whether his actions are dictated by his hard labour, during which time he wrote a long, heart-breaking letter to Lord Alfred titled De Profundis (Latin for “Out of the genetic inheritance – an inheritance, as the faces of his ancestors indicate, ‘of sin and shame’. The eminent mental pathologist Henry Maudsley wrote Depths”). After his release, Wilde left England and divided his time between France and Italy, living in poverty. He never published in his book Pathology of Mind (1895): ‘Beneath every face are the latent faces of ancestors, beneath every character their characters’. This idea under his own name again, but, in 1898, he did publish under a pseudonym The Ballad of Reading Gaol, a lengthy poem about a already seems present in much Gothic fiction, including Wilde’s novel. prisoner’s feelings toward another prisoner about to be executed. Wilde died in Paris on November 30, 1900, having converted to Roman Catholicism on his deathbed.

The Picture of Dorian Gray provides both a standard ‘Gothic’ account of Dorian’s actions – the supernatural picture and the lascivious ancestors There is no explicit homosexuality in the edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray most people read. However, there is extensive gazing from their portraits – but also a forward-looking scientific rational for his depraved desires, namely the importance of inheritance in homoeroticism and implied or suggested homosexual activity. This starts in Chapter 1, when Lord Henry Wotton and artist Basil determining behaviour. Dorian resembles his mother physically, inheriting from her ‘his beauty, and his passion for the beauty of others’ (ch. 11), while, Hallward discuss a painting of Dorian Gray. They linger on Dorian's beauty, and Basil reports going pale when Dorian first met his as his corruption accelerates, the twisted portrait in Dorian’s attic increasingly resembles his wicked grandfather. This latter idea suggests Dorian is a eyes. After Basil introduces Lord Henry to the flesh-and-blood Dorian, he continues to work on a portrait of the young man. Lord scientific case study, as well as a moral one. Throughout the book Lord Henry treats Dorian as a beautiful subject upon which to experiment – partly Henry doesn't focus on the painting but instead stares at the beautiful Dorian. There is an atmosphere of possessiveness among the via his encouragement of Dorian to pursue a philosophy of pleasure, and partly through a call to social evolution – a wish to abandon the restraints of three men, along with a jockeying for position, which makes more sense if readers assume physical attraction. Later in the Victorian morality on the grounds that sin and conscience are outmoded primitive concepts to be swept aside in the pursuit of new sensations. Lord book, Chapter 12, Wilde comes close to making Dorian's homosexual activity explicit. Basil asks Dorian, "Why is your friendship so fatal to young men?" and says there are rumours about Dorian—"stories that [he has] been seen creeping at dawn out of dreadful Henry locates progress in the overcoming of hereditary fears: ‘Courage has gone out of our race … The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the houses and slinking in disguise into the foulest dens in London." Period reviewers found the novel scandalous and immoral because terror of God, which is the secret of religion – these are the two things that govern us’ (ch. 2). His call to youth is a call to courage. Dorian’s ultimate of these insinuations. One reviewer linked the novel to a famous homosexual incident from the period: the "Cleveland Street Affair," failure to live up to Lord Henry’s ideals is due to his inability to escape his conscience as depicted in the portrait. By attempting to destroy the involving English aristocrats frequenting a male brothel. More generally, homosexuality played a major role in Wilde's life, and he painting, and thus free himself from the constant reminder of his own guilt he, ultimately, manages only to destroy himself. It also succinctly sets forth was carrying on a so-called unseemly relationship with the younger poet, Lord Alfred Douglas. Britain's attitude toward the tenets of Wilde’s philosophy of art. Devoted to a school of thought and a mode of sensibility known as aestheticism, Wilde believed that art homosexuality also shapes this novel. Homosexual activity was considered a criminal act in Britain and was punishable by death possesses an intrinsic value—that it is beautiful and therefore has worth, and thus needs serve no other purpose, be it moral or political. This attitude until 1861. Such consequences are a glaring violation of human and civil rights. Sexual activities between consenting adult men was revolutionary in Victorian England, where popular belief held that art was not only a function of morality but also a means of enforcing it. In the remained punishable by prison terms into the mid-20th century. In the latter half of the 20th century, Britain's Sexual Offenses Act Preface, Wilde also cautioned readers against finding meanings “beneath the surface” of art. decriminalized homosexual activity, and associated legislation has lowered the age of consent to 16.

The Picture of Dorian Gray is the only novel published by Oscar Wilde. The novel is considered to be one of According to the Bible When God created the world he made everything in pairs and doubles, the doubles are opposites that counteract each other. The the most controversial literary works of the 19th century. In his novel Wilde uses his three main characters to battle between good and evil exists in every human with freewill. reflect the battle of good and evil that exists in every man. The conflict of choosing between good and evil In his first and only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, author Oscar Wilde uses his main character, Dorian, to represent the everyman who faces the dilemma exists in every human with free will. This essay explores how the battle between good and evil is represented in the characters of Basil Hallward and Lord Henry Wotton in The Picture of Dorian Gray. It also discusses of having to take a side of either good or evil. Evil forces tempt Dorian and a battle begins between good and evil over Dorian’s soul. Wilde uses the how Dorian Gray represents the everyman that deals with the battle of having to choose a side between characters in the novel to represent the battle. Wilde was influenced by Goethe’s play Faust, and there are similarities and differences between the good and evil. The Picture of Dorian Gray is a story about the spiritual journey of Dorian Gray, a beautiful corresponding representatives of good and evil, Lord Henry and Mephistopheles, Basil, the Lord and the three angels and Dorian Gray and Faust. Faust and young man tempted by the concept of eternal youth and beauty. Wilde uses personal experience and The Picture of Dorian Gray have many similarities, both in the structure of the stories, as well as in themes and plot. The characters correspond with each different literary themes to create his novel. In the novel there are elements of gothic fiction, aestheticism and other, not only in personality and actions but also their relationships. Faust and Dorian both suffer from the great desire of wanting more than life has to gh0the -Faustian bargain. Faust and The Picture of Dorian Gray have many similarities, both in the structure of offer. Without fully realising the consequences, they both go beyond human limitations to try and fulfil their wishes. Both stories represent the battle between the stories, as well as in themes and plot. This essay looks at the similarities and differences between the good and evil, they can be looked at as cautionary tales of what can happen if a person yields to the temptation of evil and proving that happiness is not corresponding representatives of good and evil, Lord Henry and Mephistopheles, Basil, the Lord and the three found in beauty or pleasure. Faust, also know known as Faustus or Doctor Faustus, is a character in books, poems, films, operas and plays. These different angels and Dorian Gray and Faust. This essay explores how Wilde uses the similarities and differences to versions of Faust are all based on the hero of one of the most durable legends in Western folklore and literature. Faust was a German necromancer or Goethe’s Faust and the Book of Genesis from the Old Testament to add emphasis to the moral opposites of astrologer who in exchange for knowledge and power sold his soul to the Devil. Mephistopheles is the spirit of the Devil in Faust. Many authors have based good and evil in his novel. their work on the legend of Faust and it has become somewhat of a theme in literature. The act of selling one’s soul to the Devil has become known as the Faustian Bargain or Faustian Pact. Not all stories of Faust have the same ending. The legend of Faust is based on one or two men who died around the year 1540. Not much is known about him or them, except an evil reputation. The story of Faust has become the prototype for the “pact with the Devil” theme in literature, however The Book of Job contains a pact with the Devil, although it is not quite the same as in Faust. The theme of the Book of Job is the eternal The battle between good and evil starts in a garden, both for Adam and Eve as well as Dorian, the Garden problem of unmerited suffering and it is named after its main character, Job. The Book of Job questions if God is good and almighty why would he do bad of Eden and the garden at Basil’s house. Basil is like God the creator, Dorian acts as the first man so innocent things to his loyal servants. Similar to Faust, The Book of Job includes a prologue in Heaven, a conversation between God and Satan. God is very pleased and pure and Lord Henry acts as the serpent. The serpent is the tempter that persuades Eve to eat from the with Job and He asks Satan his opinion on Job. Satan says that the only reason Job is such a loyal servant to him, is because God has blessed Job with so much. forbidden tree in Eden. The Book of Genesis speaks about relationships, mainly those between God and Satan and God then make a deal, Satan can punish Job and try to turn him from God and test his faith. God believes that Job will remain a good servant. humankind and between human beings. Wilde uses the relationship between Lord Henry, Basil and Dorian This is very similar to the conversation and pact between the Lord and Mephistopheles in Faust, which also takes place in heaven. Both Faust and Dorian to reflect the battle of good and evil. The relationship of the three characters resembles relationships in the make a pact with the Devil. In Job’s case the pact was made between God and Satan, Job did not know or understand why all these bad things were Book of Genesis. Therefore highlighting the contrast of good and evil that the relationship and characters happening to him. Dorian and Faust may not have realised the bad consequences of their pact. Job can be looked at as a fable, an example of how his faith represent. and goodness is rewarded by God. While Faust and Dorian Gray are cautionar y tales of what can come from making a pact with the devil.

The stories of Dorian Gray and Faust share many similarities, especially when it comes to the plot, relationships between the main characters and the characters themselves. The stories also share literary themes; in both works we can find Gothic elements, the double life theme, also known as the doppelganger theme and of course they share the Faustian Bargain. Wilde was influenced by the Faustian theme. He began with a familiar and classic theme in literature, of a young man selling his soul in exchange for eternal youth. He then gave the theme a new form, which came from localizing this theme in the contemporary controversy of art versus life. Even though Wilde is using a common theme in literature it is reduced to the simple polarity of aesthetic and hedonistic pleasure versus morality. “Of the metaphysical breadth of Goethe’s Faust little remains except the basic conflict between good and evil. In The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde wrote the Faust that suited him” (Kohl 162). The main focus of both works is the decline of the main character. The fall of innocence for Dorian is symbolized by his infatuation with himself. The fall of Faust is his want for more knowledge than is available for a human. Faust and Dorian both go on a journey of some type. For Faust it is a physical journey and for Dorian it is a spiritual journey. Dorian and Faust are both men of means and have attained either economic or intellectual freedom, which makes the fall from grace available to them, according to Joyce Carol Oates’s theories (424). Faust has mastered philosophy, medicine and theology and Dorian is a very beautiful young man who inherited money from his grandfather. Despite that, neither of them is satisfied with what they have. Dorian and Faust both desire more than life has to offer. Their desires are so strong that they are willing to sacrifice their souls for their wishes to be granted. Dorian wishes for eternal beauty and youth while Faust hopes to gain eternal experience and knowledge (Kohl 162). Faust and The Picture of Dorian Gray are both divided into two parts. In the first part of Dorian Gray the main character wishes for eternal beauty and he meets and falls in love with Sibyl Vane. He also meets Lord Henry and falls under his influence. In the first part of Faust, the main character also meets his love, Gretchen and makes his pact with Mephistopheles. In part two of both works Faust and Dorian both go on a bad road that leads to their destruction. Dorian’s love for Sibyl Vane and her tragic end corresponds to the story of Gretchen in the tragedy of Faust. Gretchen and Sibyl both fall head over heels in love; however, Faust and Dorian do not return their love. The rejection drives them both to madness and in the end they both take their own lives. James Vane, Sybil’s brother who tries to avenge his sister and dies while trying, has his counterpart in Valentin, Gretchen’s brother who has a similar fate (Kohl 162). Joyce Carol Oates writes that in Dorian Gray the consequences of a Faustian pact with the Devil are “dramatized, but the Devil himself is absent” (424). However, there are many similarities between Mephistopheles and Lord Henry. Faust makes a deal with Mephistopheles and signs a contract with his blood, while Dorian’s wish was an innocent remark made in the company of friends, including Lord Henry. Dorian: “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! I would give my soul for that!” (Wilde 17-18). Dorian does not know he is entering into a deal with the Devil. There are no signs of the wish being granted until later in the novel, the night he breaks off the engagement to Sybil Vane and he notices changes in the portrait (Wilde 58-59). The Picture of Dorian Gray and Faust represent the battle between good and evil, a battle every person encounters in life. Dorian and Faust even mention this divide: “Each of us has heaven and hell in him, Basil” (Wilde 100); “Two souls, alas! Are lodged in my wild breast”. Which evermore-opposing ways endeavour” (Goethe 60). The battle between good and evil in Dorian Gray begins when Dorian, Basil and Lord Henry, first meet all together. Henry breaks the promise he made to Basil, not to spoil Dorian and straight away Dorian falls under his influence. The battle in Faust begins when the Lord and Mephistopheles make their deal in heaven. In the original version of The Picture of Dorian Gray there was a passionate and erotic link between Basil Hallward and Dorian Gray. In the revised version, the emphasis falls on Basil’s idealism, his sense of responsibility and his good nature. Wilde stresses the destructive side of Lord Henry – his irresponsibility and his cynicism. That way he shows the reader the clear contrast between Lord Henry and Basil, thereby bringing out the moral alternative that they represent (Kohl 142).

God created the world in doubles and opposites. He made the opposite of good and evil however humans did not know about it until the serpent convinces Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The battle between good and evil is a common theme in literature, as well as a battle that still exists in the world today. In his only Novel Oscar Wilde draws on different literary themes, sources and personal experience. The novel contains many themes, motifs and allusions. Wilde uses The Faustian bargain and the battle between good and evil, two very common literary themes. He uses the Faustian bargain to add emphasis on Dorian’s dilemma of having to choose a position between Basil and Henry. His allusions to Biblical text and Faust make the battle fairly evident to the reader. Wilde uses the Faustian bargain and Biblical text to show the Basil and Lord Henry represent the opposite forces of good and evil and that Dorian represent the everyman struggling with that battle. THE MYTH OF FAUST - The story is allegorical and it can be interpreted as a 19th century version of the myth of FAUST , the story of a man who sells his soul to devil so that all his desired can be satisfied. The picture represents Dorian’s soul, which records the signs of experience, the corruption, the horror and the sins concealed under the mask of Dorian timeless beauty.

At the opening of the novel, Dorian Gray exists as something of an ideal: he is the archetype of male youth and beauty. As The theme of the double is largely present in this story. The picture is not an autonomous self: it stands for the dark side of Dorian’s personality, his such, he captures the imagination of Basil Hallward, a painter, and Lord Henry Wotton, a nobleman who imagines double he tries to forget locking it in the attic. The final stabbing of the picture can signify the triumph of art over life (It is not possible to live a life fashioning the impressionable Dorian into an unremitting pleasure-seeker. Dorian is exceptionally vain and becomes as a work of art): it is the picture that survives in the glory of beauty. But it can also means that it is impossible to lead a life pursuing sensual and convinced, in the course of a brief conversation with Lord Henry, that his most salient characteristics—his youth and beautiful sensations without taking any moral responsibility Finally the horrible corrupting picture can be seen as a symbol of the immorality and physical attractiveness—are ever waning. The thought of waking one day without these attributes sends Dorian into a bad conscience of the Victorian middle class ,while Dorian and his pure , innocent appearance are symbols of bourgeois hypocrisy tailspin: he curses his fate and pledges his soul if only he could live without bearing the physical burdens of aging and sinning. He longs to be as youthful and lovely as the masterpiece that Basil has painted of him, and he wishes that the portrait could age in his stead. His vulnerability and insecurity in these moments make him excellent clay for Lord Henry’s Wilde totally adopted “the aesthetic ideal” as he affirmed that his life was a work of art. He lived in the double role of the dandy and the rebel. willing hands. Dorian soon leaves Basil’s studio for Lord Henry’s parlour, where he adopts the tenets of “the new The Wildean dandy is an eccentric aristocrat whose elegance and refined manners is a symbol of the superiority of his spirit with respect to the Hedonism” and resolves to live his life as a pleasure-seeker with no regard for conventional morality. His relationship with vulgar and common morality of the bourgeois Victorian society. The Wildean dandy used his wit to shock the vulgar materialistic middle class who

Sibyl Vane tests his commitment to this philosophy: his love of the young actress nearly leads him to dispense with Lord devoted themselves to material progress. The dandy, on the contrary is not part of masses but he is an individualist, who demands absolute Henry’s teachings, but his love proves to be as shallow as he is. When he breaks Sibyl’s heart and drives her to suicide, freedom of leading a life of sensations because the more sensations the dandy could absorb, the more perfect his personality would be. So life is Dorian notices the first change in his portrait—evidence that his portrait is showing the effects of age and experience while identified with pleasure (the philosophy of a new Hedonism) and pleasure was an indulge in the beautiful. Wilde perceived the dandy and the his body remains ever youthful. Dorian experiences a moment of crisis, as he weighs his guilt about his treatment of Sibyl artist as alien beings in a materialist world which couldn’t understand them. His pursuit of beauty leads to be isolated and ostracised in the against the freedom from worry that Lord Henry’s philosophy has promised. When Dorian decides to view Sibyl’s death as Victorian society and after his years of prison for the accusation of homosexuality he turned out a broken man: his vicissitudes proved that only art the achievement of an artistic ideal rather than a needless tragedy for which he is responsible, he starts down the steep survives people, art is eternal. and slippery slope of his own demise. As Dorian’s sins grow worse over the years, his likeness in Basil’s portrait grows more hideous. Dorian seems to lack a conscience, but the desire to repent that he eventually feels illustrates that he is indeed human. Despite the beautiful things with which he surrounds himself, he is unable to distract himself from the dissipation of his soul. His murder of Basil marks the beginning of his end: although in the past he has been able to sweep infamies Wilde epitomised the ideals of the Aesthetic Movement of the last decades of the century: he challenged the conventions of his time from his mind, he cannot shake the thought that he has killed his friend. Dorian’s guilt tortures him relentlessly until he is by cultivating an extravagant style of living. The search for Beauty in life was a constant in the Aesthetic movement that refused the forced to do away with his portrait. In the end, Dorian seems punished by his ability to be influenced: if the new social didactic function of art, advocating the principle of “Art for art’s sake”. The contrast between art-life should be solved by making life order celebrates individualism, as Lord Henry claims, Dorian falters because he fails to establish and live by his own moral as a work of art and by exalting the external form which can guarantee beauty. As Lord Henry states “only shallow people do not code. judge by appearances …the true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible”. Wilde’s aestheticism was an attempt to cut free from the moral restraints and prejudices of Victorian society opposing “ a new Hedonism” Wilde refuses to subordinate ART to moral,

didactic and religious ends , maintaining that ART has no other end but ITSELF: “ Art’s for art’s sake”. Lord Henry is a man possessed of “wrong, fascinating, poisonous, delightful theories.” He is a charming talker, a famous wit, and a brilliant intellect. Given the seductive way in which he leads conversation, it is little wonder that Dorian falls under his spell so completely. Lord Henry’s theories are radical; they aim to shock and purposefully attempt to topple Walter Pater is regarded as the high priest of the Aesthetic Movement, the Movement of the last decades of the century, born in France with Théophile Gautier. established, untested, or conventional notions of truth. In the end, however, they prove naïve, and Lord Henry himself fails The conclusions of his Studies in the History of the Renaissance is that the secret of happiness is in the absorption of beauty and life should be treated “in the spirit of to realize the implications of most of what he says. Lord Henry is a relatively static character—he does not undergo a art” .It is Life that should copy art and not he opposite, as nature’s imperfect design is far inferior if compared to the perfection of Art. The basic principles of his significant change in the course of the narrative. He is as coolly composed, unshakable, and possessed of the same dry wit philosophy are his relativism and his individualism: the personal experience is the only criterion of judgement. Theories are useless, only impressions are real. But in the final pages of the novel as he is upon his introduction. Because he does not change while Dorian and Basil clearly do, impressions are fleeting, personal, elusive. The true end of life is not the fruit of experience but experience itself that is the capacity of experiencing the greatest his philosophy seems amusing and enticing in the first half of the book, but improbable and shallow in the second. Lord number of impressions. The finest sensations are to be found in art which, on the other hand, must not have any moral or didactic aim. He portrays the solitary aesthete who keeps separated from the vulgarity of the outside society. The reasons why the aesthetic trend spread so largely are not difficult to detect: the Henry muses in Chapter Nineteen, for instance, that there are no immoral books; he claims that “[t]he books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.” But since the decadent book that Lord Henry lends craving for excess; the fondness of irresponsibility; the interest in exoticism, represented the reaction to the repression of the instincts imposed by the Victorian mentality. The principle that art has no moral implication was the revolt against the heavy moral standards which were only exterior observances. The individual Dorian facilitates Dorian’s downfall, it is difficult to accept what Lord Henry says as true. Although Lord Henry is a self- proclaimed hedonist who advocates the equal pursuit of both moral and immoral experience, he lives a rather staid life. rebelled against the tyranny of the overpowering public opinion and demanded to assert himself unrestrainedly, indulging in any caprice of imagination. Wile was He participates in polite London society and attends parties and the theater, but he does not indulge in sordid behavior. not the kind of man who would keep himself isolated from the vulgar society because he was eager for publicity, he looked at the world as a stage on which he intended to play a leading role: his eccentric behaviour, his refined and sophisticated manners, his brilliant and paradoxical conversation made him famous. Unlike Dorian, he does not lead innocent youths to suicide or travel incognito to the city’s most despised and desperate quarters. Lord Henry thus has little notion of the practical effects of his philosophy. His claim that Dorian could never commit a murder because “[c]rime belongs exclusively to the lower orders” demonstrates the limitations of his The purpose of art is to have no purpose. In 1. Illustrate the analogies between The strange case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr.Hyde and The Picture of Dorian Gray in understanding of the human soul. It is not surprising, then, that he fails to appreciate the profound meaning of Dorian’s order to understand this claim fully, one needs relation to the theme of the double and the myth of FAUST. downfall. to consider the moral climate of Wilde’s time 1. Can you define the Wildean dandy making references to the philosophy of the new Hedonism and Aesthetic and the Victorian sensibility regarding art and creed? morality.  The Victorians believed that art

Basil Hallward is a talented, though somewhat conventionally minded, painter. His love for Dorian Gray, which seems to could be used as a tool for social education and 2. Illustrate the theme of the double and the myth of Faust as represented in The Picture of Dorian Gray reflect Oscar Wilde’s own affection for his young lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, changes the way he sees art; indeed, it defines moral enlightenment, as illustrated in works by a new school of expression for him. Basil’s portrait of Dorian marks a new phase of his career. Before he created this writers such as Charles Dickens . The aestheticism 3. Wilde can be considered the epitome of Aestheticism . Give reasons. masterwork, he spent his time painting Dorian in the veils of antiquity—dressed as an ancient soldier or as various movement, of which Wilde was a major 4. “ There was a cry... The cry was so horrible in its agony ....a splendid portrait of their master ...a dead man romantic figures from mythology. Once he has painted Dorian as he truly is, however, he fears that he has put too much of proponent, sought to free art from this responsibility. The aestheticists were motivated ...with a knife in his heart . He was withered, wrinkled and loathsome of visage” . Explain why these words himself into the work. He worries that his love, which he himself describes as “idolatry,” is too apparent, and that it betrays taken from the end of the book The picture of Dorian Gray convey the final meaning of the novel too much of himself. Though he later changes his mind to believe that art is always more abstract than one thinks and by a contempt for bourgeois morality—a sensibility embodied in Dorian Gray by Lord that the painting thus betrays nothing except form and color, his emotional investment in Dorian remains constant. He 5. Why is Lord Henry a central figure in the novel The picture of Dorian Gray? Henry, whose every word seems designed to seeks to protect Dorian, voicing his objection to Lord Henry’s injurious influence over Dorian and defending Dorian even shock the ethical certainties of the middle class— 6. Bertha Mason in JANE EYRE , Mr. Hyde in THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL & MR. HYDE and the picture after their relationship has clearly dissolved. Basil’s commitment to Dorian, which ultimately proves fatal, reveals the and by the belief that art need not possess any in THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY can be considered mirrors of the protagonists’ subconscious feelings . genuineness of his love for his favorite subject and his concern for the safety and salvation of Dorian’s soul. other purpose than being beautiful. Illustrate the theme of the double making references to the three different novels.

“All art is quite useless,” claims Oscar Wilde as an introduction to his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (2). The reader knows by now that Basil’s plea for Dorian to recognise the reality principle– that he needs to moderate his pleasure-seeking to avoid Contrary to this radical claim, however, Wilde’s ensuing story, a work of art, is immensely useful in painting a moral claiming more victims– comes as a threat to Dorian’s id and consequently must be snuffed out; just so, Dorian murders Basil in a show of fanatical lesson: an example of the potentially fatal consequences of an unbalanced personality. Reading such a personality is devotion to the pleasure principle, which thusly claims another victim through its acolyte. Still unchecked, the id drives Dorian to further destruction most facilitated through the principles of psychologist Sigmund Freud and his theories on the id, ego and superego. which eventually must culminate in his own demise. Dorian Gray can only stop his pleasure principle’s destructive rampage by allowing it to claim his Most notably, the story of Dorian Gray exposes how the willing allowance of the id to supersede the superego, own life. Dorian himself never realises this; however, his necessary sacrifice is apparent to the reader after he continuously resolves to change his resulting in a physically and mentally unhealthy devotion to the pleasure principle, can only end in destruction and pleasure-seeking ways before reconsideration and rejoicing in the tragedies which he sows, such as calling his brief escapade with Sibyl a “marvellous can only be ended by the destruction of self. The titular portrait, then, exists to Dorian as a manifestation of his experience” and wondering “if life has still in store for me anything as marvellous” (Wilde 100). Indubitably, when the narrator begins to expose superego , with its gradual worsening an indicator of the severity of his unbalanced mind. Dorian’s thoughts, claiming that “he would never again tempt innocence. He would be good,” the reader recognizes not an impending change but rather more destruction (Wilde 212). Dorian’s subsequent attempt to temper his pleasure principle once and for all cannot be successful, just as all other efforts conceived from his alleged changes of heart have not succeeded; without the superego to influence him, Dorian cannot truly abandon his Lord Henry leads both the characters in The Portrait of Dorian Gray and the reader of the same to believe that an idish desires. Because change is impossible for the story’s main character, the story’s only possible resolution is the death of Dorian. Just so, in his final imbalance of the id, ego and superego is desirable. The id, or instinctual desires, acts in opposition to the superego, or attempt to “be good,” Dorian ends up killing himself along with his id and its desires, and too– finally– the destruction which accompanied them. the recognition of the consequences– often times negative– which those desires will have. The ego, then, mediates the Consequently, the work of art which his destructive, pleasure-seeking nature tainted so vilely returns to its normal, beautiful state; it no longer portrays desires in accordance with the superego. With an ideal harmony between these three counterparts, a person is able to a man whose unrestrained id led him into unfathomable destruction, but a man who allows his superego to temper his id and thus is psychologically– please him- or herself in ways which do not detriment the society or self, i.e. ways which are not destructive. Raise one and physically– healthy. Though the ruin of Dorian Gray may seem to the reader too harsh given his efforts to change his hedonistic ways, he or she of the triarchy to greater import than the others, though, and there will be destructive results to either others, self or understands that the once-innocent man’s death is necessarily tragic in order to make the “useless” art piece’s moral lesson impactful. Whether both parties. Lord Henry suggests that “Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense,” instigating in coincidence or– more probably– principle, Wilde’s sole novel provides a legitimizing study for a psychoanalytic reading of literature, and Freud’s the reader’s mind the notion that the superego– the human’s natural inhibition to elevating the id unreasonably– is in theories place Dorian Gray in an illuminating psychological context. Through psychoanalysis, the reader finds him- or herself within the troubled mind fact the cause of destruction, rather than an imbalance of the three parts (Wilde 40). Thinking of the superego as of a young man instead of an implausible fantasy. Once acknowledged, the troubling story of this troubled, id-dominated mind, mirrored by a work inherently destructive is a twisted and untrue idea, but it is enough to have Dorian consider abandoning the superego of art that portrays the man’s psychological state instead of his physical one, leads the reader to the conclusion that the quest for unrestricted pleasures to allow his id to run free with his ego. Furthermore, Lord Henry’s assertion allows the reader to conceive how Dorian ends only in destruction. The story therefore warns readers against treating others’ humanity as a means to self-serving pleasure instead of an changes from a harmonious individual to a selfish, destructive man. The push that catalyses the change itself lie in immutable reality to avoid a fate such as Dorian’s. Lord Henry’s words “I represent to you all the sins you have never had the courage to commit,” thereby giving both Dorian and the reader a manifestation of the id: Lord Henry Wotton (Wilde 76). With no one stepping forward -To what extent does Lord Henry Literature has often found it useful to employ ideas and terminology from psychoanalysis, and vice versa. to vocalize for the superego, Dorian submits himself entirely to the id and disenfranchises his psychological checks and Wotton embody the qualities of the Psychoanalytic critics of Dorian Gray have found a fruitful crossover in the work of French psychiatrist Jacques balances. Aesthete and the Dandy? Lacan (1901–81). In 1949 he began to explore ‘the mirror stage’ in human development. As he points out, a baby of around six months, still unable to stand independently and held tightly by an adult, will become entranced -What aspects of Lord Henry’s character suggest Wilde’s personal The prominence of Dorian Gray’s id over his superego creates in him an unbalanced personality, which the reader by his or her image in the mirror. The baby is still uncoordinated, its hands flailing aimlessly, and experiences its observes manifested in his interminable devotion to the pleasure principle and the transformation of the titular own body as fragmented and uncontrollable. In contrast, the image seems whole and in command of itself. To life and attitudes? portrait. Whereas the id has received a vocal representation, the superego has representation solely in Basil Hallward’s deal with its fear and rage at confronting a superior ‘rival’, the baby identifies with it, and remains trapped in -To what extent does Dorian Gray portrait of Dorian, just as Mark Edmundson interprets Freud’s theories in Group Psychology and the Analysis of the fascination with the illusory image forever. Lacan describes the recognition of the self in the mirror as ‘jubilation’ embody the qualities of the Ego : “we want to sink back into easy pleasures… by letting a masterly object take the place of the super-ego” – a sense of mastery – but as the baby realises how fragile its own mastery is compared to the power of the quintessential Aesthete and the (Edmundson 28). However, not only is this “masterly object” a non-vocal source, Gray actually locks the portrait away, adult holding it up to the mirror, it is devastated. Throughout our lives, we continue to experience the baby’s Dandy? What aspects of Dorian’s thus removing it from the story and consequently the reader’s attention. Without the superego immediately present, sense of loss and are haunted by the hopeless desire of the mirror stage. character suggest Wilde’s personal the reader sees only the id and its pleasure principle in Dorian’s life save for the occasions when Dorian returns to the life and attitudes? uppermost room and confronts his portrait– the manifestation of the superego and its reality principle. It is during This process can be seen in Dorian’s own relationship to his portrait, in front of which he flushes with pleasure as he 'recognise[s] himself for the first time'. The picture is at once his rival, with the eternal youth he can never -What is the significance of male- these confrontations that Dorian (and thereby the reader as well) can observe the grotesque transformations of the male relationships in The Picture of painting which non-vocally urge Dorian to recognize the destructive consequences of his actions. The painting’s have and inspiring his murderous rage, and an object of desire that he refuses to give up to Lord Henry. Loving it and hating it, he can never let it go: it is himself. But he also believes, like the baby confused by the apparent Dorian Gray? What range of male- transformations are more than a simple moral compass, though: they are a representation of the man’s severe male relationships is suggested in psychological un-health due to the imbalance between his id, ego and superego. Whereas the beautiful, unmarred wholeness of its image, that it has a power he does not have, and at times imagines that it is making demands the novel? painting is of Dorian in his natural, balanced state, the deformation of the painting mirrors the dissolution of Dorian’s on him to kill or to confess his sins. Dorian also experiences a distorted version of what Lacan called entry into the Symbolic order. Lacan describes the roles of Father and Mother in initiating the child as a speaker of -To what extent might the novel be harmonious psyche, exhibiting the supremacy in his mind of the destructively unrestrained pleasure principle. Dorian’s confrontations, then, do not serve well at all to reinforce the existence of the reality principle, as the narrator points language (both terms are used symbolically, rather than to denote the actual biological parents). It is the interpreted as a semi- Father who bears the true responsibility because he possesses the phallus while the mother does not; thus the autobiographic account of Wilde’s out that Dorian, when thinking of the portrait, speaks with “the madness of pride,” and furthermore, the man himself attributes his perception of the portrait’s changes as a product of “that tiny scarlet speck that makes men mad” Father makes the child aware of difference, the basis on which language is founded. affairs? (Wilde 146, 88). Although to Dorian this explanation saves him from confronting his superego and its implicit -What does the novel’s Dorian is an orphan. He knows his mother only through paintings, which show her in disguise – dressed as a consequences, to the reader the explanation serves as an example of the “delusions or hallucinations… [which] have Bacchante, for example – and without Dorian. He has, however, several men to fill the role of father: the preoccupation with decadence and their origins primarily in the fears and wishes within [the mentally ill]” (Brenner 2). As Dorian essentially admits that elderly, cruel Kelso, the image of what he does not wish to be; the detached Lord Henry, who tells him to treat excess suggest about Wilde’s his desire for an imbalance in his id, ego and superego has made him mentally ill, the reader no longer even expects others like works of art, with no more capacity for feeling than images in a mirror; and Basil, who in a sense personal life? him to acknowledge the reality principle, leaving him solely with the id and pleasure principle and their destructive ‘fathers’ him more than once. Basil triggers a second ‘birth’ in Dorian by creating the painted image that allows -To what extent might Lord Henry’s ends. The reader finds in the imbalanced, mad antihero a life which, due to its subscription to the pleasure principle, is his body to enjoy an eternal youth. Through murdering Basil (as Oedipus murdered his father) after eighteen attitude toward marriage suggest thus inescapably destructive to others and self alike. With the reality principle’s general absence from the novel, years of changeless good looks, Dorian embarks on a third phase of life. Despite his name (‘Basil’ derives from Wilde’s own attitude toward Dorian’s devotion to the pleasure principle leads to the deaths of his friends and acquaintances and ultimately Dorian the Greek for ‘king’) and his attempts to make Dorian do right, Basil cannot impose the law because he cannot marriage? himself. Since the mentally ill Dorian has no drive but for pleasure, he fails to sympathize with the needs of others and impose difference. He has painted his love into the picture – Dorian’s mirror – so completely that his own self -How might the writing of The only cares for the immediate satisfaction of himself. When Sibyl admits that “I have not pleased you,” Dorian has no cannot be disentangled from Dorian’s. Lacking both mother and father (in the symbolic sense) Dorian is qualms about leaving his unpleasurable fiancé in her grief, and though after reflection he believes that reconciliation Picture of Dorian Gray have condemned to eternal desire, with no chance of true adulthood. He never fully enters into language by functioned as a vehicle to express with her is possible, the reader knows by now that Dorian cannot be sincere about indefinite, committed relationships, articulating new ideas, but simply parrots Lord Henry. And without the Law that a less blindly adoring Basil Wilde’s secret desires? only immediate gratification (Wilde 85). Hence, Sibyl’s suicide comes not as a surprise but rather as the obvious might have brought him, he retains all the selfish amorality of a baby. Lacan claimed (in Écrits: A Selection, resolution of an encounter with the unbalanced Dorian and his formidable pleasure principle. After some time, Basil trans. Alan Sheridan, 1977, p. 1) that his writings were not meant to be intellectually understood, but that -What is the significance of confronts Dorian with an entire list of victims: Why is your friendship so fatal to young men? There was that wretched reflections upon them would produce a meaningful effect in the reader. Certainly his ideas have generated a decorum, social propriety, etc. in boy in the Guards who committed suicide. You were his great friend. There was Sir Henry Ashton, who had to leave large number of articles on Dorian Gray with a range of very different perspectives Wilde’s personal life? In the novel? England with a tarnished name. You and he were inseparable. What about Adrian Singleton and his dreadful end? What about Lord Kent’s only son, and his career?… What about the young Duke of Perth? (Wilde 144)

‘Feminism is essentially non-existent throughout the novel. The two main women we meet are Sybil and her mother and neither The Marxist approach to literature is based on the philosophy of Karl Marx, a German philosopher and economist. His major are really respected and at times, both are mocked. argument was that whoever controlled the means of production in society controlled the society—whoever owned the factories Sybil’s mother is described as extremely melodramatic. The depiction of this character seems to be exactly what feminist critics “owned” the culture. This idea is called “dialectical materialism,” and Marx felt that the history of the world was leading are trying to work against. Non-married women of a certain age are considered crazy spinsters, unbalanced, and hysterical, and Sybil’s mother is a classic example of this stereotype. toward a communist society. From his point of view, the means of production (i.e., the basis of power in society) would be placed in the hands of the masses, who actually operated them, not in the hands of those few who owned them. It was a Sybil, on the other hand, represents the other stereotype of woman that feminist critics want to change: the subordinate, powerless, non-respected, “just-there-for-looks” wife. On page 25 of the reading, Showalter quotes Grant Allen when he says, perverted version of this philosophy that was at the heart of the Soviet Union. Marxism was also the rallying cry of the poor and “…the first business of a girl is to be pretty.” Women have no other substance, meaning, or use in life. The minute that Sybil did oppressed all over the world. To read a work from a Marxist perspective, one must understand that Marxism asserts that something out of the ordinary, something that Dorian didn’t like (acting poorly on stage), he dropped her like a bad habit. This literature is a reflection of culture, and that culture can be affected by literature (Marxists believed literature could instigate reinforces the face that although Dorian seemed to be so incredibly in love with Sybil–seemed to be wrapped around her little revolution). Marxism is linked to Freudian theory by its concentration on the subconscious—Freud dealt with the individual finger–he held the power in the relationship the entire time. It is said in the reading that “feminine weakness contrasted with subconscious, while Marx dealt with the political subconscious. Marx believed that oppression exists in the political subconscious masculine strength: masculine egotism with feminine self-devotion. ‘If you compete with us we shan’t marry you.’ ” This just of a society—social pecking orders are inherent to any group of people. Four main areas of study: furthers the argument that in marriage, and relationships in general, woman are supposed to have no power whatsoever. When • economic power Sybil abandoned her acting skills, it was a symbol of her power and therefore, Dorian had no reason to marry her anymore.’ • materialism versus spirituality

• class conflict Oscar Wilde does not conceal his scorning of women through his philosophical character, Lord Henry. Lord Henry functions as a portal for Oscar Wilde to send out his Aesthetic and hedonistic values into the turn of the century society in which art was • art, literature, and ideologies ‘Dorian’s use of money illustrates the manipulative corruption of the aristocracy and the helplessness of the proletariat to considered a measure of morality and hedonism a path toward sin. Wilde used Lord Henry to juxtapose the commonly held conceptions of the time period with his own philosophies acquired from his Oxford professor, Walter Pater. Lord Henry like Wilde resist. Dorian’s wealth allows him to visit the opium dens, he compels the hansom driver to obey his commands with a surplus payment of made no mistake to not only Aestheticism and hedonism were addressed as the superior thinking over morality but also that two sovereigns. Upon his arrival, the crazed Dorian stifles the speech of a “halfcaste…in a ragged turban and a shabby ulster” with some men ruled not only in thinking but also in love over women. Lord Henry openly regards women "as some witty Frenchman once “coins”; “Don’t ever talk to me again,” he says as he silences her with “money”. Dorian possesses the monetary might of the upper class, and put it, inspire us with the desire to do masterpieces, and always prevent us from carrying them out" (Wilde 83). Wilde he uses this power to manipulate his inferiors.’ incorporates the Aesthetic philosophy that art exists as beauty alone not a means of morality but also that women reflect  The use of money in the novel illustrates the manipulative corruption of the aristocracy and the helplessness of the proletariat to beauty but do not encompass the concept. In the same way, a dress may be absolutely gorgeous but doesn't fit once you try it resist. on. In Wilde's reasoning, what good is the beautiful dress if you never get to wear it? What good are beautiful women when  Sibyl’s suicide, although Lord Henry reports it, represents the duty of the oppressed classes to initiate revolution against social justice they offer nothing else of value? Personally, I think women offer much more than some pretty hair and long eyelashes; however, by means of radical demonstration. Wilde regarded man as the superior from of beauty through his descriptions of Dorian: "Yes, he was certainly wonderfully  Wilde uses lower-class characters further to elicit a moral response from the reader. handsome, with his finely curved scarlet lips, his frank blue eyes, his crisp gold hair...All the candor of youth was there as well as  It is evident that the political theories of Karl Marx influenced the works of Wilde because of the way he praises the working class as all youth's passionate purity" (Wilde 18). In comparison to the description given by Lord Henry of the beautiful Sibyl, "Don't run an agent of social change and moral criticism. down dyed hair and painted faces. There is an extraordinary charm in them, sometimes" (Wilde 55). Wilde presents Sibyl plainly

and brashly as a mere actress who serves no purpose in love while the author describes Dorian as a thing of beauty to be Who are the powerful characters in the novel? admired and in Lord Henry's case influenced. Sibyl, one of only two influential female characters of novel, is disregarded and even insisted upon by Henry as unimportant to the point that Dorian becomes so influenced by Lord Henry's ridicule of Sibyl Who are the powerless? What kind of power do the powerful characters have? that Dorian renounces his love and engagement claiming Sibyl was beneath him socially anyway. The author presents his open Why do the powerful in the novel have power? How do Lord Henry and Dorian finance their lavish lifestyles? degradation of women as worthy of any effort through the criticism displayed by Lord Henry toward Dorian's love for Sibyl. In What attitudes toward the lower classes does Lord Henry exhibit? Basil? Dorian? addition, Lord Henry forms generalizations about women concerning the Duchess of Monmouth: "'She is very clever, to clever for What can you infer from the novel about the distribution of wealth? a woman. She lacks the indefinable charm of weakness'" (Wilde 185). The author insinuates that women should have a "weakness" like a damsel in distress waiting for a beautiful man to save the day. Also, Wilde claims that women should only possess a certain level of wit or else something is wrong with them. Now as a female, I can take offense to Wilde's comments in many ways, but instead I choose to analyse his philosophy according to the time period. During Wilde's time, women were all Oscar Wilde was on the one hand the first man who lived in homosexual relationship in public and on the other hand he represented the but powerless with men ruling the jobs, the money, and the power while women sat around pleasing the husbands and looking theory of new hedonism. Hedonism preaches the pleasures of life and soul and therefore all human senses are extremely brought out. This pretty. Wilde does have a point that women in his time period were quite pathetic in investing themselves in silly romances and means that the teaching is: It is better to do what you like than to regret it afterwards not having done it. The main difference between society events; however, women were not granted the opportunity by men to gain an education and think for themselves. hedonism and new hedonism is in the fact that new hedonism focuses more on pleasures in art than on the mere bodily pleasures. New Although I don't have much pity on pathetic women relying on men, I can understand women in Wilde's time faced numerous hedonism says that every moment of life should be fulfilled with art. Oscar Wilde did not just represent the theory, but also lived after it. This obstacles created by men in order to keep men in and women out of power. The author holds a valid point that women of the is one of the reasons that he was called immoral and also a bit crazy. In his novel “The picture of Dorian Gray” all his theories of life are time period were all but useless compared to a man, but women had all the potential in the world to become greatness but contained. So the book is very close to his own life. Oscar Wilde was influenced by Walter Pater, who was his professor at Oxford. Pater said were never granted an opportunity. that human life was short and that everyone should seize the day (or carpe diem) and turn it into a work of art.

Sybil was portrayed in a very interesting way throughout the novel. Her character was created as a helpless and powerless woman who was completely controlled by outside forces and had no thoughts of her own. First, she was completely consumed Dorian Gray can be read with an anti-colonial view of the Irish author as by the roles she was playing in Romeo and Juliet. She completely became whichever character she was playing that night, with an inhabitant of a colonialist country such as England and would criticize colonialism, imperialism and neo-colonialism as well as aesthetic movement via no trace of herself in her roles. When she did begin to come into her own, she was completely controlled by Dorian. Everything in discourse analysis. It is worth noting, despite the fact that Wilde was by no means a colonial author, yet colonial clues can be easily traced in his novel. Since her life becomes based around him and what he thinks of her. When he is so horribly disappointed in her acting, she is extremely Wilde in his The Picture of Dorian Gray mainly deals with negative and destructive consequences of influence from/on people and phenomena and upset by his disappointment and ends up committing suicide as a result. She is so affected by what he said to her and has no capturing them, their relation and subjectivity can be defined in terms of the colonizer and the colonized. Lord Henry’s colonialist actions and behaviour as one of the main characters of the story towards story’s protagonist and victim as the symbol and representative of the colonized finally influence him, reason to live when Dorian is upset with her. Women, particularly Sybil, are seen as helpless creatures with no power and control leading to his colonization and annihilation. Yet, the main character of the story is as guilty and responsible for his colonization and annihilation as some in their own lives in this novel. From a feminist point of view, this is definitely harsh portrayal of the female sex. Lord Henry’s other people and environmental factors without consciously meaning to do so. The bases for this research paper were the theories of postcolonial critics such epigrams (a statement contradictory to what is accepted as a self-evident or proverbial truth) are little zingers that are part of as Edward Said and Homi Bhabha as well as Wilde’s biography as an aesthetic writer, by which several questions have been answered. These questions Wilde’s wit and not meant to be realistic social commentary? The worst thing you can do is take them out of context: range from the basis on which Wilde was – either consciously or unconsciously – writing against colonizers and their ideologies to the way by which “My dear boy, no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they colonialism had influenced his thought and ideas as well as his characters in the novel. Colonial discourse analysis of destructive power of living a life empty say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of of moralities via devotion to hedonism and mere beauty and pleasure under the name of art was another goal of this research. In addition, the direct mind over morals. ”AND “Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious: both are relevance and linkage between aestheticism in this novel with colonial and anti-colonial theories have been surveyed and each one’s destructive Structuraldisappointed.” Analysis In ofan The epigram Picture everyone of Dorian is treated Gray like an object. They’re all generalisation and stereotype. That’s the point. consequences has been described, criticizing when there is little (if any) distinction between ethics and appearance.

The Picture of Dorian Gray - The portrait of Dorian Gray is the biggest symbol in the novel. The picture represents the degradation of the soul, and portrays the The Picture of Dorian Gray is a novel full of metaphors, analogies, symbols, and imaginative language. Written by consequences of pursuing pleasure above all else. The picture teaches the audience the dangerous effects that sin and excess can have on the soul. Wilde believe in the life style of Hedonism, but does not endorse it fully. He says in modesty, the Hedonistic life style is the way to live. Wilde uses Dorian and his portrait as a tool to show what the Oscar Wilde in 1890, much of the language and diction is influenced by the serious and formal English language of true, full Hedonistic lifestyle would lead to. He wanted readers to learn from Dorian and see what his consequences are. Through the novel, as the pictures documents the the time period. Oscar Wilde wrote his book with an omniscient view, fluctuating tone, and hidden symbols. The effects of sin, the readers follow the degradation of Dorian’s state of mind and morale. point of view used in The Picture of Dorian Gray is the third person omniscient narration. This style of narration The Opium Dens - The opium dens represent the degradation of Dorian’s state of mind. Dorian flees to the opium dens after he commits the heinous act of murdering allows the reader to set themselves in the story with an unbiased perspective and see the emotions and chemistry Basil. After this act, Dorian’s state of mind is an absolute mess. He cannot think properly and does not want to be surrounded by anything familiar. The dens are located in as the characters do while also having insight that the characters do not. Because the characters themselves are a remote, dark part of London. Dorian seeks to forget the act, to lose consciousness through the use of the drugs. He has a can of opium at his home, but chooses to leave very distant and keep their emotions to themselves, this adds to the chaos and drama of the plotline as the reader the pristine, neat safety of his home and chooses instead to travel to the dismal opium dens that reflect his state of mind and soul. can see the downfall of every character. Oscar Wilde uses a fluid sentence structure to join the characters and their James Vane - James Vane is a fleeting character in the novel. He appears and disappears just as easily. The reader remembers him as Sibyl Vane’s overly protective feelings together. The language style in the novel is very sensual for the time period, with many immoral things brother. When he appears later in the novel, Dorian feels as though he is a ghost. James Vane serves to Dorian as a reminder of his past, of his sins against others. He drives being insinuated between characters. It also focuses on the aesthetics of every scene, relating back to Oscar Wilde’s Dorian towards the impulse to accept responsibility for his crimes. James Vane was an important character to Wilde, who felt he must be in the novel. He serves almost the same purpose as the ghost of Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, who is there to warn Scrooge of the sins he must face. James Vane is simply a call back aesthetic ideas. Both of these language styles are seen in characters such as Lord Henry. Dorian Gray was Wilde’s first lengthy prose narrative, and he did not find it easy. After the Lippincott’s version he wrote of feeling tired and to reality for Dorian Gray, a reminder that he will not get away with all his sins forever. Decadence - The Decadent movement was the later generation of the Aesthetic movement. Oscar Wilde and others associated with the movement labelled themselves dissatisfied: ‘I am afraid it is rather like my own life – all conversation and no action’ (Ellmann, p. 296). The 1891 version allowed him to incorporate the James Vane revenge plot and develop the social comedy. The resulting “decadents”. These artists sought inspiration, both in their lives and in their writing, in aestheticism (art for art’s sake, free from moral and social concerns). The difference between the decadent and the aesthete lies in the moral and social concerns of each movement. For the aesthete, the social world is not important compared to the mixture is, as Richard Ellmann puts it, ‘elegantly casual’ (Ellmann, p. 297). It seems as if the rules of novel-writing pursuit of beauty. Morality is irrelevant. The decadent, however, is very much against the dominant culture. They expressed their dislike for prevailing37 values in society have been torn up, and the reader never knows whether their next experience will be Gothic terror, social satire, a through their sense of superiority and amorality38 of art. For example, if society considers sex between husband and wife a private matter, the Decadent might write a discourse on art or a short account of the more decadent Caesars. poem that describes his night with a prostitute in graphic detail. Dorian Gray is the definition of decadence in his combination of the criminal (in his visits to opium dens39) and the aesthete (in the high culture that he is part of). However, underlying the casualness is a solid framework. By 1892 Wilde would complete his first successful comedy, Lady Windermere’s Fan, and the shape to which virtually all Victorian plays conformed is also Basil’s painting and the mysterious yellow book that Lord Henry gives Dorian - They are not presented in aesthetic but in Victorian sensibilities, which means the basic shape of Dorian Gray. The well-made play, as it was known, begins with a clear exposition which that both the portrait and the French novel have a purpose. The portrait is a kind of a mysterious mirror which shows Dorian the physical aging his body will not go through, while the French novel is a kind of a map which leads Dorian further towards infamy. Readers know nothing about the composition of the French novel, but they can see provides the audience with the information they need to understand the action. It goes on to the development Basil’s state of mind while painting the picture. He states that all art is “unconscious, ideal, and remote” but his portrait of Dorian is everything but unconscious, ideal and and complication of the story, raising the level of tension as to how events will resolve themselves. About three- remote. The first principle of aestheticism is that art serves no other purpose than to offer beauty, and throughout The Picture of Dorian Gray, beauty reigns. It is a way to quarters of the way through, the action reaches a crisis (in the theatre, just in time for the third act curtain) as the revive the tired senses, as indicated by the effect that Basil’s painting has on the cynical Lord Henry. It is also a way of escaping the brutalities of the world. Dorian distances strands of the plot entwine. Matters come to a head with a series of shocks and surprises, and while we know that himself, as well as his consciousness, from the horrors of his actions by devoting himself to the study of beautiful things—music, jewels, rare tapestries. In a society that cherishes the end is imminent, we are still in suspense as to how it will happen. The dénouement accomplishes it – whether beauty, youth and physical attractiveness become extremely valuable. When they meet for the very first time, Lord Henry reminds Dorian that soon enough he will lose his with death or marriage, repentance or revenge, happiness or pathos, will depend on the nature of the play. Wilde most precious attributes. The Duchess of Monmouth says to Lord Henry that he values these things too much, and indeed, Dorian’s eventual demise confirms that. And may not have been conscious of using the format, but it could explain why Dorian Gray has been so frequently although beauty and youth remain of greatest importance at the end of the novel, the novel suggests that the price one must pay for them is extremely high, which Dorian dramatised. proved by giving his soul for them. Logically, society which cherishes beauty above all else is a society which is shallow and values only what is on the surface. What matters most to Dorian, Lord Henry, and their polite company, is not whether a man is good at heart but rather whether he is handsome. Despite Dorian’s “mode of life,” he remains at the heart of the London social scene because of the “innocence” and “purity of his face. ” Both the portrait and the French novel have a great influence on Dorian’s life. The well-made structure happens to fit very closely the narrative stages necessary for the story of the devil’s bargain, and virtually every version of the Faustus story conforms to it, even if written in a different convention. They influence him to behave in an immoral way for almost twenty years. By reflecting on Dorian’s power over Basil and deciding that he would like to seduce Dorian in The exposition sets up the conditions that explain why the bargain is made – in this case, the chapters which bring the same way, Lord Henry points out that there is something fascinating in practicing this kind of influence. Falling under influence cannot be avoided. Basil’s idolatry of Dorian leads to his murder, and Dorian’s devotion to Lord Henry’s hedonism and the yellow book precede his own downfall. In a novel that prizes individualism, the sacrifice together for the first time Basil’s adoration, Dorian’s beauty and Lord Henry’s seductive praise of youth. The of one’s self, whether to another person or to a work of art, leads to one’s destruction. The picture of Dorian Gray, “the most magical of mirrors,” shows him what he has been development confirms that the bargain has actually occurred. The section in which Dorian loves and rejects Sibyl spared- physical aging. also makes it clear that the bargain has consequences for others, not just the protagonist, laying the ground for James Vane’s role in the outcome. The complication explores the extent and meaning of the unholy power For a period of time, Dorian has only one goal in life, and lives according to it, not paying attention to his conscience, and that goal is only pleasure. On the other hand, acquired. Wilde reveals shifts in Dorian’s relationships with Basil, Lord Henry and the world at large, and the Dorian’s portrait represents his conscience and haunts him. The portrait knows his crimes, it reminds Dorian of the cruelty he has shown towards Sybil Vane, and the murder relationship with his own image that increasingly governs his actions. Chapter 11 in particular has the scope and of Basil Hallward. Another motif which plays a large role in Oscar Wilde’s novel is the homoerotic bond between men. Basil’s portrait of Dorian develops from his adoration sweep that makes the leap over a period of eighteen years credible. We do not know the details of Dorian’s sins, of Dorian’s beauty, and Lord Henry has a strong desire to seduce Dorian. This relationship between men represents aesthetic values that Wilde was fighting for, because it but the arrival of Basil in Chapter 12 provokes the crisis – in the story of the devil’s bargain, the point at which brought him back to antique times, when youth and beauty was appreciated most, and it was fundamental in society and often expressed through a relationship between two men. Since Wilde was a homosexual himself, living in an intolerant society, fighting for this philosophy was his way of justifying his lifestyle. He thought homosexuality the protagonist may want to escape damnation but commits a sin from which there is no way back. was a sign of refined culture and not a sin. He thought that a relationship between an elder and a younger man resembled the tradition of Plato, Michelangelo and The murder of Basil shifts this phase of the action into the realm of the detective story. While the portrait may Shakespeare. conceal Dorian’s debauchery, he is as likely to be hanged for murder as anyone else. All his subsequent actions, The use of the white colour can represent Dorian’s transition from the figure of innocence to the figure of degradation. White usually implies innocence and blankness, and it from dining in polite society to smoking opium, are some form of mental or physical flight, and even the most is true in the case when the readers are first introduced with Dorian. And that ‘’white purity’’ actually catches Lord Henry’s attention. Basil tries to invoke whiteness when he leisurely chat seems charged with an underlying speed as Dorian’s terror mounts. James Vane brings the strands of finds out that Dorian has sacrificed his innocence. He stares horrified at the portrait and quotes a biblical verse from the Book of Isaiah: “Though your sins be as scarlet, yet I the story together, providing not just the suspense of a revenge plot but a modern version of a Gothic haunting. will make them as white as snow” but to no avail, since Dorian’s innocence is lost. When the white colour appears again, it is seen on the face of James Vane, but now it is His sudden appearances in different locations are perfectly realistic, but they shock Dorian with the force of an transformed from the colour of innocence to the colour of death. At the end of the novel, Dorian yearns for his “rose-white boyhood” but the hope is lost, and he cannot wash avenging ghost. away his sins. In the novel, the portrait stands for the most magical of mirrors, duplicating the corruption of Dorian’s soul, while his ageless handsome face is a mask hiding the soul’s progress in evil. The mask can hide the lack of identity and emptiness, and although everyone fears exposure of his own nothingness, to others one’s mask is one’s Wilde surprises his readers by allowing Dorian to escape all the obvious forms of justice, such as being killed by face, the only one they know. On the other hand, the mirror reflects not only the mask but the hidden truth of one’s face. While the mask is to be worn for the world, the James Vane. In the legends, the devil himself would provide the dénouement, arriving to claim the soul that is mirror is used for facing the truth about oneself. The mask is for others’ inspection, the mirror for one’s own introspection. The opium dens, which is located in a remote and owed to him. Here, Dorian does the job himself. His psyche seems to disintegrate in front of us. As in Marlowe’s derelict section of London, represents Dorian’s state of mind. After killing Basil, Dorian goes there to forget the awful crime he has committed by losing consciousness and play, it is left to the minor characters, the servants, to pick up the pieces and assert the identity of the remains. becoming numb. He has a canister of opium at home, but he still travels to the dark dens, which represents the degradation of his soul. Another representative of Dorian’s Not only does the plot carry its own structural weight. We also navigate the text through a series of images dark and tortured soul is James Vane, the brother of Sibyl Vane. He represents Dorian’s conscience, as well as the relative seeking revenge. He is like a ghost resembling stage tableaux: Dorian at the piano, young and innocent, and again, playing Chopin to Lord Henry in with his white face, and he makes Dorian accept the crimes he has committed. Lord Henry gives Dorian a yellow book, which is only described as a French a very different spirit; Dorian sleeping sweetly after increasingly terrible acts; the combination of Dorian, the novel, which describes the experiences of its main character who is seeking pleasure. Dorian buys a dozen of copies of this book, and bases his life and actions painting, a knife, and Basil – in the final repetition represented only by a spreading bloodstain. These freeze- on it, and in this way the French novel becomes a sort of a holy grail to Dorian. The book represents the profound and damaging influence that art can frame moments allow us to evaluate the protagonist as he changes and to re-evaluate our own responses. have over an individual and serves as a warning to those who would surrender themselves so completely to such an influence. In the end we can see that the philosophy that Oscar Wild proposes in The Picture of Dorian Gray can be extremely seductive and liberating. Wilde shows the readers that the society and conscience both make living the philosophy he fought for extremely difficult and, in the end, even painful.

The artist creates beautiful things. Art aims to reveal art and conceal the artist. The critic translates impressions from the art into another medium. Criticism is a form of autobiography. People who look at something beautiful and find an ugly meaning are "corrupt without being charming." Cultivated people look at beautiful things and find beautiful meanings. The elect are those who see only beauty in beautiful things. Books can’t be moral or imm oral; they are only well or badly written. People of the nineteenth century who dislike realism are like Caliban who is enraged at seeing his own face in the mirror. People of the nineteenth century who dislike romanticism are like Caliban enraged at not seeing himself in the mirror. The subject matter of art is the moral life of people, but moral art is art that is well formed. Artists don’t try to prove anything. Artists don’t have ethical sympathies, which in an artist "is an unpardonable mannerism of style." The subject matter of art can include things that are morbid, because "the artist can express everything." The artist’s instruments are thought and language. Vice and virtue are the materials of art. In terms of form, music is the epitome of all the arts. In terms of feeling, acting is the epitome of the arts. Art is both surface and symbol. People who try to go beneath t he surface and those who try to read the symbols "do so at their own peril." Art imitates not life, but the spectator. When there is a diversity of opinion about a work of art, the art is good. "When critics disagree the artist is in accord with him[/her]self." The value of art is not in its usefulness. Art is useless. The preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray is famous in its own right as a sort of manifesto of the Aesthetic Movement in art and literature. It consists of a series of aphorisms or epigram s (short sayings) which affirm the notions of art for art’s sake. Many of these aphorisms form the basis not only of Aesthetic writing, but also Modernist writing, which was to reach its height in the 1920s. In the nineteenth century, art was supposed to be useful for the moral instruction of the people. It was supposed to mirror life and also teach its readers to live the good and m oral life. Oscar Wilde opposes this view of art. For Wilde, art was valuable in its own right, not for its usefulness for other aims. His sayings about art seem strange and against the norm even for late twentieth century readers. People often read them as a humorous overstatement of principles. However, each of the statements is exactly in accord with the ideas of the Aesthetes. They are not necessarily exaggerations. Wilde consistently defended the autonomy of art, that is, the separateness of art from us e value.

The setting Wilde describes is a decadent paradise, formed of a mixture of the beauty of nature and the beauty of man-made objects, the relative merits of which he will interrogate throughout The Picture of Dorian Gray. The reader is presented with a sensual ov erload; sights, sounds and particularly smells are described In a richly decorated studio an artist, Basil Hallward talks with a guest, Lord Henry Wotton about a new portrait he in great detail, beginning in the very first sentence, when the ‘rich odour of the roses’ is complemented by both ‘the heavy scent of the lilac’ and ‘the more delicate perfume of the has standing out. Lord Henry exclaims that it is the best of Hallward’s work and that he should show it at Grosvenor. pink-flowering thorn’. The synonyms ‘odour’, ‘scent’ and ‘perfume’ are far more evocative than ‘smell’ and help form the decadent register the narrator adopts. Hallward remarks that he doesn’t plan to show it at all. Lord Henry can’t imagine why an artist woul dn’t want to show his work. Hallward explains that he has put too much of himself in it to show it to the public. Lord Henry can’t It is significant that the reader first glimpses Lord Henry smoking on a ‘divan of Persian saddle bags’, for this image epitomises his nature as a pleasure -seeking dandy, and gives him understand this since Hallward isn’t a beautiful man while the subject of the portrait is extraordinarily beautiful. As an air of exoticism. As an aesthete, Lord Henry is also a great admirer of beauty and a keen observer of life generally; thus, it is significant that it he is introduced to the reader in the he is explaining himself, he mentions the subject’s name--Dorian Gray. He regrets having slipped, saying that when act of observing the beauty of the garden. It is from his perspective that the reader sees the beauty of the garden, and the assonant language matches the beauty of the scene; he likes people, he never tells their names because it feels to him as if he’s giving them away to strangers. alliterative ‘b’ sounds and then ‘f’ sounds dominate the languorous description: ‘Honey -coloured blossoms of a laburnum, who se tremulous branches seemed hardly able to bear the Lord Henry compares this idea to his marriage, saying that "the one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of burden of a beauty so flame -like as theirs; and now and then the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across…’ A subtle sibilance that words such as ‘blossoms’, ‘tremulous’, deception absolutely necessary for both parties." He adds that he and his wife never know where the other is and ‘fantastic’ and ‘shadows’ introduce is heightened in the next sentence (‘The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering’), contributing to the ‘oppressive stillness’ Wilde describes. Thus, in that she’s always a better liar than he is, but that she just laug hs at him when he slips. Basil Hallward is impatient spite of the beautiful setting, a sense of ennui, which will be a dominant mood of the book, is immediately introduced. The description of ‘the dim roar of London’ as ‘distant’, conveys with Lord Henry for this revelation, accusing Lord Henry of posing. He adds that Lord Henry never says anything the isolation of the three main characters from the urban life of the city. Detached from London and teeming with life, Basil 's garden seems almost its own world, and given that it will moral and never does anything immoral. Lord Henry tells him that being natural is the worst of the poses. become the scene of Dorian’s temptation, leading to his eventual fall, is perhaps comparable with the Garden of Eden in the Book of Genesis. Hallward returns to the idea of the portrait. He explains that "every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not the sitter." The sitter only occasions the production of the art. The painter is revealed, not the sitter. He won’t, therefore, show the secret of his soul to the public. Chapter 1 introduces two of the major characters of the book, and the reader learns a good deal about them. Basil is an artist of apparently independent means. He is secretive, and Wilde even mentions that Basil has disappeared without notice in the past. In addition, the distinctive toss of his head, the one that "used to make his friends laugh at him at Oxford," characterizes Basil as someone who is thought of as an odd, yet endearing, fellow. Although Basil claims to be independent, he is instantly overpowered by Dorian upon meeting him, He tells the story of how he met Dorian Gray. He went to a "crush" put on by Lady Brandon. While he was walking becoming dependent on Dorian immediately as his muse, spirit, art, and life. Basil's attraction to Dorian seems to be both professional and personal. Dorian inspires Basil to a new around the room, he saw Dorian Gray, "someone whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to vision of art, combining Greek perfection with Romantic passion. However, there is every implication of something more person al in the attraction. Basil is also a jealous person, do so, it would absorb by whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself." He was afraid of such an influence, so he wanting to keep Dorian from Lord Henry so that he can have Dorian all to himself. The other main character introduced in Chapter 1 is Lord Henry Wotton, a very intelligent, avoided meeting the man he saw. He tried to leave and Lady Brandon caught him and took him around the room confident, manipulative man. He decadently smokes opium-tainted cigarettes and has a commanding presence no matter where he is or whom he socializes with. He is very introducing him to her guests. He had recently shown a piece that created a sensation, so his cultural capital was judgmental and enjoys sounding profound. Like Wilde himself, Lord Henry often speaks in aphorisms. As he speaks with Basil, Lord Henry picks a daisy from the grass to examine it, quite high at the time. After numerous introductions, he came upon Dorian Gray. Lady Brandon says she didn’t later pulling the daisy apart, an act that symbolizes his role throughout the novel as a manipulator and destroyer of beauty for his own amusement. Although it may seem strange to know what Mr. Gray did, perhaps nothing, perhaps he played the piano or the violin. The two men laughed at her categorise a painting as a character, Basil's portrait of Dorian plays such an important role in the book that the reader is actually introduced to the painting as if it were a character and became friends with each other at once. before meeting Dorian himself. Perhaps Wilde is indicating that Dorian's reputation for physical beauty precedes him and is more important to his character than any other attribute. In any case, the presence of the portrait in Chapter 1 allows the reader to hear something about Dorian before his character appears in the novel. Basil speaks at length about Dorian, He tells Lord Henry that soon he painted Dorian Gray’s portrait. Now, Dorian Gray is all of Hallward’s art. He stating that he is charming, but also that "Now and then, however, he is horribly thoughtless, and seems to take a real delight in giving me pain." This characterisation links Dorian explains that in art, there are two epochal events possible: one is the introduction of a new medium for art, like the with Lord Henry as a manipulator and foreshadows their close relationship later in the story. Chapter 1 also introduces some of the major themes of the novel: the importance and oil painting, the second is the appearance of a new personality for art. Dorian Gray is the latter. Even when he’s not power of beauty in relation to the intellect and the soul, and the fleeting nature of beauty. While discussing the merits of beauty as opposed to intellect, Basil states that there is "a painting Dorian Gray, he is influenced by him to paint extraordinarily different creations. It is like a new school of art fatality about all physical and intellectual distinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the faltering steps of kings." Basil's statement indicates that physical and emerging. Dorian Gray is his motive in art. As he is explaining the art, he mentions that he has never told Dorian intellectual excellence are often the downfall of those who possess them. The reader should note how Basil's statement rings true throughout the novel. Wilde claimed that Lord Gray how important he is. He won’t show his Dorian Gray inspired art because he fears that the public would Henry represented his public image but that the author actually was more like Basil and yearned to be more like Dorian. While the reader must always take care in accepting Wilde's recognize his bared soul. Lord Henry notes that bared souls are quite popular these days in fiction. Hallward hates comments at face value, he was like Basil in that he was a creative artist and privately perhaps less secure than his public image. He certainly did admire youth and beauty, which this trend, saying that the artist should create beautiful things, and should put nothing of his own life into them. Dorian possesses. Still, Lord Henry is the Wildean character in this novel: bright, witty, and controlling. Dorian Gray is often quite charming to Basil, but sometimes he seems to take delight in hurting Basil. Basil feels at such moments that he has given his soul to someone shallow and cruel enough to treat it as a flower to ornament his lapel. Lord Henry predicts that Basil will tire of Dorian sooner than Dorian will tire of him. Basil refuses to believe The opening of the novel is sensuously descriptive and seems to set a leisurely pace. However, a key theme is already being established – the interplay between this. He says as long as he lives, Dorian Gray will dominate his life. Lord Henry suddenly remembers that he has art and nature. There is a constant shifting of sensations between the studio, the place of art, and the garden, the place of nature. The bird-shadows on the silk heard Dorian Gray’s name. His aunt, Lady Agatha, has mentioned him in relation to some philanthropic work she curtains may be real, creating the illusion that they are painted, or painted, creating the illusion that they are real, and the sound of the city is transformed into does, saying he was going to help her in the East End. Suddenly, Dorian Gray is announced. Basil Hallward asks his organ music. This theme is further developed by the description of the setting Basil has devised for himself. Wilde based it on the studio of his friend Charles servant to have Mr. Gray wait a moment. He tells Lord Henry not to exert any influence on Dorian Gray because he Ricketts, who designed the original cover for Dorian Gray. The 'divan of Persian saddlebags' reflects the East of the Victorian orientalist imagination, a place of depends completely on Dorian remaining uncorrupted. Lord Henry scoffs at the idea as nonsense. drugs and erotic pleasures. Basil’s art will evidently have some kind of relationship with the idea of pleasure – possibly forbidden pleasure. There is, too, a flicker of something sinister in the allusion to Basil’s 'sudden disappearance some years ago'. So brief that it is easily overlooked, this casual planting of a clue is typical of Chapter 1 sets the tone of the novel. It is witty, urbane, and ironic with only brief moments of deep feeling expressed a genre new to the nineteenth century, the detective story. It implies that conflict may not be confined to a conversation but may be violently acted out. There is and then wittily submerged. The artist of the novel is Basil Hallward. He seems to be in love with his most recent model, Dorian Gray, whom he considers more than a beautiful man, but an inspiration to a new form in his art. The a hint that this may be a tragic novel, with Basil’s remark 'there is a fatality about all physical and intellectual distinction'. Tragedy is often associated with over- intensity of his feelings for Dorian Gray and the art that Dorian Gray inspires has to do with his sense of identity. He reaching ambition, and Basil is at the peak of his career. His success is not only commercial – although the luxuries in his studio suggest that he does have success of doesn’t want his portrait of Dorian to be shown in public because he feels as if he’s put something essential of himself this kind – but also intellectual. Basil’s project, inspired by his relationship with Dorian, is ambitious: to create a synthesis of two schools. But Dorian is also in it. That is the seed of the novel. The artist paints himself when he seems to be painting another. Lord Henry is associated with arrogance and its fall by Lord Henry’s praise of him as an ‘Adonis’ or ‘Narcissus’: both were known for their beauty, but both died through here for ironic relief and the production of aphorisms (short statements of truth) that irony spawns. He voices Oscar rejecting others and living for themselves alone. The tragedy may also be rooted in emotion rather than ambition. Basil’s confession reveals a gap between his Wilde’s signature expressions. He says, for instance, "It is only the intellectually lost who ever argue." One of the most feelings and those of Dorian: on his side obsession, inspiration and longing, on his friend’s only casual affection. By deferring Dorian’s arrival, the text builds often quoted of his aphorisms: "there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not up suspense, but we may already be expecting that this relationship will have a painful outcome. being talked about." He thinks of the luncheon he missed in lingering with Hallward. It had a philanthropic motive, upper class people gathering to discuss ways to share a bit with poor people, the idle people discussing the dignity of Lord Henry appears detached. Comments such as 'being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know’ provide a refreshingly witty contrast to the labour, the rich people discussing the value of saving money. Basil Hallward also has his own aphoristic rules of life. earnest Basil. They offer a new viewpoint on the theme of artifice versus nature and widen the discussion into the area of social hypocrisy. However, there is an He never tells people where he’s going when he travels as a way to keep mystery in his life. He never introduces extraordinary bond between the two friends: Lord Henry 'felt as if he could hear Basil Hallward’s heart beating'. Perhaps Lord Henry’s 'self-conscious and satisfied people he likes to other people because he feels it would be like giving them away. air’ may also be vulnerable to change.

When they walk from the studio into the house, they see Dorian Gray at the piano. He tells Chapter 2 is one of the most important chapters in the novel. First, it introduces the title character, Dorian. The reader is assured of his physical beauty, with his "finely curved scarlet lips, his frank Basil that he’s tired of sitting for his portrait. Then he sees Lord Henry and is embarrassed. blue eyes, his crisp gold hair." Basil and Lord Henry are older, perhaps in their early thirties, but Dorian is past twenty and no child. Still, he has retained remarkable innocence and even "purity." Basil tries to get Lord Henry to leave, but Dorian asks him to stay and talk to him while he He seems less mature than his years: He pouts; he is petulant; he acts spoiled. He blushes, becomes unreasonably upset, and cries. Lord Henry, who enjoys manipulating people, spots Dorian's sits for the portrait. He adds that Basil never talks or listens as he paints. Lord Henry agrees vulnerability immediately and goes to work. He soon has planted the seeds of terror in the young man, an unreasonable and immature fear of growing old and losing his youthful beauty. When to stay. They discuss Dorian’s work in philanthropy. Lord Henry thinks he’s too charming to Basil complains about Lord Henry's manipulating Dorian, Lord Henry responds that he is merely bringing out the true Dorian, and maybe he is. do that kind of thing. Dorian wonders if Lord Henry will be a bad influence on him as Basil thinks he will be. Lord Henry thinks all influence is corrupting since the person influenced no Dorian is easily swayed by Lord Henry's seductive ideas, revealing that Dorian's true morals are vague, to say the least. At the beginning of the chapter, Dorian has no greater friend than Basil, longer thinks with her or his own thoughts. He thinks the "aim of life is self-development." He but by the end of the chapter, he has abandoned Basil for Lord Henry after a very short afternoon. The reader might first attribute Dorian's weakness and fickle nature to youth, but the change doesn’t like philanthropy because it makes people neglect themselves. They clothe poor in his nature occurs only after he has realized the importance of his own beauty, a very worldly attitude. In this short chapter, the reader not only meets the main character of the book; the reader also witnesses a complete transition in his nature from innocence to self-involved worldliness. Dorian's fall from grace takes place in just a few short pages. Chapter 2 is also very important because people and let their own souls starve. Only fear governs society, according to Lord Henry. it introduces the vehicle that propels the rest of the story — Dorian's wish that the painting show those horrible signs of age that he fears, leaving him forever young. Dorian's wish about the Terror of God is the secret of religion and terror of society is the basis of morals. If people painting introduces the Faust theme, which Wilde develops throughout the book. (The Faust legend was well known to Wilde through popular culture.) Faust, legend has it, sold his soul to the would live their lives fully, giving form to every feeling and expression to every thought, the devil in exchange for knowledge and power. The Faust legend raises the question of eternal damnation due to the unpardonable sin of despair. Certainly it is a sin for the Faustian character to world would be enlivened by a fresh impulse of joy. He urges Dorian not to run from his make a pact with the devil. However, he can escape, even at the end of his life, if he repents and asks for God's forgiveness. Usually, the character feels he is beyond God's help, which is an insult to youthful fears. God, who is all-powerful, according to Christian philosophy. Despair is the only unpardonable sin because it keeps the sinner from asking for God's help.

Dorian becomes upset and asks him to stop talking so he can deal with all that he has said. As Dorian's character evolves throughout the novel, the reader should keep in mind the Faust legend and how Oscar Wilde applies it to Dorian's character. In light of the Faust legend, the reader He stands still for ten minutes. He realises he is being influenced strongly. He suddenly might ask at this point what Lord Henry's role is. If he is not the devil literally, he certainly seems to be playing the devil's part. More accurately, he plays the devil's advocate, leading Dorian into understands things he has always wondered about. Lord Henry watches him fascinated. He an unholy pact by manipulating his innocence and insecurity. Lord Henry's role in Dorian's downfall is implied rather than explicitly defined, and the reader need not conclude that Lord Henry is remembers when he was sixteen he read a book and was immensely influenced. He wonders aware of his demonic role. However, he does enjoy controlling people and playing with their minds. In the context of the Faust theme, perhaps he is the devil's unwitting representative. Our first if Dorian Gray is being influenced that way by his random words. Hallward paints furiously. glimpse of Dorian shows him with his back turned, as if, like Basil, the text is reluctant to allow us to meet him. We are already aware of other people’s images of Dorian – Basil’s inspiration; Dorian asks for a break. Basil apologises for making him stand so long. He is excited about the 'ivory and rose-leaves' (p. 6) admired by Lord Henry; even the 'creature with spectacles and lank hair' (p. 14) that Lord Henry imagines from his conversation with Aunt Agatha – so we will be wondering what he is really like. But Dorian will always be bound up with his picture and its fate, and the text ensures that we see the portrait before the original. For the first time, too, we read the portrait he’s painting, and praises Dorian for standing so perfectly still as to let him get at that the portrait is 'life-size' (p. 16). It lodges itself in the imagination with a shock as we realise how closely it mirrors its subject. the effect he had wanted. He says he hasn’t heard the conversation, but he hopes Dorian won’t listen to anything Lord Henry tells him. In this chapter different kinds of force are brought to bear on Dorian, and the first is personal. As Basil plies his trade, Lord Henry chats with Dorian as one aristocrat to another, demonstrating their shared access to certain circles as of right, in contrast to Basil’s status as tolerated outsider. This may be what provokes the sulkiness in Basil that Dorian complains of. The sharply observed Lord Henry and Dorian go out into the garden while Basil works on the background of the exchange over Lord Henry’s decision to stay prefigures Wilde the comic dramatist. Basil makes it plain he does not want him there, with what seems, on the surface, a friendly joke about portrait in the studio. Dorian buries his face in a flower. Lord Henry tells him he is doing just Dorian’s 'whims' being 'law' (p. 17). But Lord Henry understands Basil’s true feelings. His remark 'you are very pressing' (p. 17) teeters on the edge of sarcasm and his excuse is transparently as he should since the senses are the only way to cure the soul. They begin to stroll and Dorian fictitious, its purpose being to compel Basil to give his reluctant invitation more warmly. Beneath the mask of good manners the two young men are discreetly struggling for Dorian’s favour. Gray clearly looks upset. He’s afraid of Lord Henry’s influence. Lord Henry urges him to come and sit in the shade to avoid getting a sunburn and ruining his beauty. Dorian wonders why Having won this round, Lord Henry exerts a different kind of force and advances an argument that will be crucial for Dorian: the idea that 'to realise one’s nature perfectly' (p. 18), even by giving in to temptation, is the highest duty to the self. On one level this is an argument about life and art. This view is essentially that of Walter Pater, who taught Wilde at Oxford. It effectively it’s important. Lord Henry tells him it matters more than anything else since his youth is his contradicts Basil, who in Chapter 1 implied that his world would manage to combine the era’s two prevailing views about the nature and role of art. The idea of pursuing self-fulfilment should greatest gift and that it will leave him soon. As they sit down, he implores Dorian to enjoy his not in itself be taken to imply that Lord Henry is a corrupting influence. However, his rhythmic delivery adds another dimension: 'You, Mr Gray, you yourself, with your rose-red youth and your youth while he can. He shouldn’t give his life to the "ignorant, the common, and the vulgar." rose-white boyhood, you have had passions…' (p. 18). This is incantation rather than argument, a spell to induce a trance. Mesmerism, as hypnotism was then known, was in its infancy: it seems He thinks the age needs a new Hedonism (pursuit of pleasure as the greatest goal in life). that Lord Henry can exercise power in more devious ways than by intellectual argument. Dorian Gray could be its visible symbol. Another force comes into play as Lord Henry begins his praise of youth and beauty. The theme of carpe diem, or ‘seize the day’, features in poetry from ancient Rome onwards. It is a lover’s Dorian Gray listens intently. Suddenly, Basil comes out to get them. He says he’s ready to argument: ‘we will all grow old and die, so sleep with me while we are young enough to enjoy ourselves’. But if Lord Henry’s tone is seductive, he does not get his way. Basil’s entrance disrupts the mood and focuses Dorian’s mind on the real object of his love – himself. 'The sense of his own beauty came on him like a revelation' (p. 23). Lord Henry’s role has been that of the serpent in resume the portrait. Inside, Lord Henry sits down and watches Basil paint. After only a Eden who tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. Afterwards, she and Adam realised that they were naked. Dorian’s 'simple and … beautiful nature' (p. 15) has been transformed into a quarter of an hour, Basil says the painting is complete. Lord Henry proclaims it his finest work consciousness of his body and its power. He no longer sees his beauty as a gift but as something he must fight to retain at any cost. After Dorian’s wish there are several shifts in narrative tone. and offers to buy it. Basil says it’s Dorian’s painting. When Dorian looks at it, he realises he is The most obvious is the movement into action with the near-fight over the painting, when Wilde establishes a resonant image that will recur: Dorian, Basil, the portrait and the knife. But there beautiful as Lord Henry has been telling him. He hadn’t taken it seriously before. Now he is also a new strand in the discussion of art and nature, a dispute over what constitutes the ‘real’ Dorian. The young man himself sees the picture as 'the shadow of his own loveliness' (p. 23). In his knows what Lord Henry has meant by youth being so short-lived. He realizes the painting jealousy of the picture and his willingness to give his soul to look like it for ever, Dorian shows that he prefers shadow over substance. The phrase 'as though he was praying' (p. 25) a little later will always be beautiful and he will not. He wishes it were reversed. He accuses Basil of liking suggests the intensity of that desire. For Basil, 'the real Dorian' is the picture that reflects his beauty, but his comment 'at least you are like it in appearance' (p. 27) implies that he knows he has his art works better than his friends. Basil is shocked at this change in Dorian. He tells him his lost Dorian to Lord Henry and that the picture is ‘real’ in the sense that it is all he really has of Dorian. When Basil and Lord Henry resume their struggle over who will spend the evening with friendship means more to him than anything. Dorian is so upset that he says he’ll kill himself Dorian, it is no longer comic. Basil suffers, and Dorian knows it. Has the boy with the 'simple and … beautiful' (p. 15) nature gone for good? One of the most popular novels of the period, George the moment he realises he’s growing old. Basil turns to Lord Henry and says it’s his fault. Then Du Maurier’s Trilby (1894), is also set in the art world and tells the story of a young woman who has a beautiful voice but is tone-deaf. Hypnotised by her sinister mentor Svengali she becomes a great soprano, but when he dies her talent disappears. However, when confronted by his portrait, she falls into a trance and sings one last glorious burst of music. One of the best-known English he realises he is arguing with his two best friends and says he’ll destroy the painting to stop poems on this theme is Robert Herrick’s ‘Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May’, a song urging girls to ‘Be not coy, but use your prime / And while ye may go marry’, as otherwise they may lose their the argument. Dorian pulls the knife away from him to stop him. He tells Basil he’s in love looks and never achieve it. Plato explored the relationship between reality and image in his famous Myth of the Cave. Men are confined to a cave, seated around a fire. On the walls they see with the portrait and thinks of it as part of himself. flickering shadows cast by the world outside. These shadows are all they know of the splendour of the world, just as all we know of ultimate reality are the imperfect earthly copies of the true nature of things. The butler brings tea and the men sit down to drink it. Lord Henry proposes they go to the theatre that night. Basil refuses the invitation, but Dorian agrees to go. When they get up to go, Basil asks Lord Henry to remember what he asked him in the studio before they went in to see Dorian. Lord Henry shrugs and says he doesn’t even trust himself, so Basil shouldn’t try to trust him. An aristocrat and hedonist, Lord Henry Wotton is the middle-aged, rich, and powerful nephew of Lord Fermor, and he is also the friend of Dorian Gray's friend and painter, Basil Hallward. As a hedonist, Lord Henry's life is dedicated exclusively to searching for pleasure and for "sensations"; such yearnings can only be satiated by engaging in any of Overview: Beauty lives only for a moment. The theme of this chapter is also one of the central themes the many temptations available to man. “Yes, there was to be, as Lord Henry had prophesied, a new Hedonism that was to recreate life, and to save from that harsh, of the novel. Dorian Gray is introduced as an un-self-conscious beauty. In the course of this chapter, he uncomely puritanism that is having, in our own day, its curious revival.” Part of his "hedonist manifesto" also precludes the search and adoration of the ultimate forms of is made self-aware. He recognises his beauty when he sees it represented in Basil Hallward’s portrait. He beauty. Henry takes particular interest in Dorian Gray because the young man is described as the epitome of male physical beauty. Lord Henry's fixation with Dorian could is prepared for this recognition by Lord Henry who, in the garden, urges him to spend his youth on be interpreted from a homoerotic perspective, but Wilde gives less importance to this and more importance to the aesthetically-motivated purpose of Lord Henry: to make youthful pursuits, not on philanthropy, and warns him that his youth is his best gift and that it won’t Dorian his ultimate creation by injecting this angelical-looking man's soul with the poison that comes out of giving into a life of extreme pleasures. last. All of Basil Hallward’s fears of Lord Henry corrupting Dorian Gray seem to have been borne out.

It is 12:30 in the afternoon and Lord Henry Wotton is walking to his uncle’s house. Lord Fermor had in his youth The chief contribution of this entertaining chapter is that the reader learns about Dorian's background. Fermor's details about been secretary to his father, an ambassador to Madrid. When his father didn’t get the ambassadorship of Paris, Dorian's troubled family establish the young man as a romantic and tragic figure. he quit in a huff and Lord Fermor quit with him. From them on Lord Fermor had spent his life devoted "to the serious study of the great aristocratic art of doing absolutely nothing." He pays some attention to the coal mines The only other important information that the reader gets in this chapter is about the relationship between Dorian and Lord Henry, in the Midland counties, "excusing himself from the taint of industry on the ground that the one advantage of which appears to be solidifying quickly. Early in the chapter, Lord Henry recalls that talking with Dorian the night before had been having coal was that I enabled a gentleman to afford the decency of burning wood on his own hearth." like "playing upon an exquisite violin." He likens his influence on Dorian to a sculptor's shaping of a statue out of beautiful marble. Lord Henry is not subtle about his motives toward Dorian: "He would seek to dominate him — had already, indeed, half done so." Lord Henry is visiting him to find out what he knows about Dorian Gray’s parents. He doesn’t belong to the Bluebooks (the lists of English nobles), but he is Kelso’s grandson and his mother was Lady Margaret Devereux, Readers should note the ironic contrast of Lord Henry's speeches and his actions. In Chapter 2, he advises Dorian that all influence is an extraordinary beauty of her day. She married a penniless man and upset everyone in the process. Her bad because it corrupts a person's true spirit; in this chapter, he willfully states that he intends to influence Dorian's development. At husband died soon afterwards, killed in a duel set up by her father. She was pregnant. In childbirth, she died, the end of the chapter, Dorian has fallen fully under the spell of Lord Henry's influence. For example, Dorian backs out of his leaving Dorian to grow up with his ruthless grandfather. afternoon appointment with Basil, saying, "I would sooner come with you [Lord Henry]; yes, I feel I must come with you." Lord Henry leaves from his uncle’s and goes to his aunt’s house for lunch. He becomes engrossed in his thoughts The luncheon, which spans the bulk of the chapter and does little to progress the plot or enlighten the reader, seems to have been about Dorian Gray’s background. He decides he will dominate Dorian just as Dorian dominates Basil Hallward. devised to entertain the reader and show off Lord Henry's clever table talk. Lord Henry is witty, but it is no accident that friends of When he gets to his aunt’s he is happy to see Dorian is at the table. He begins to regale his aunt’s guests with his Wilde recognized several of the author's favorite lines as they came out of Lord Henry's mouth. hedonistic philosophy of life. He scorns the motives of philanthropy, which his aunt and most of her guests espouse, and carries on about the joys of the pursuit of pleasure for its own sake. He is pleased to see that Dorian is fascinated by his speech. All of his aunt’s guests are, in fact, and he receives several invitations. Classical Greek drama sometimes used a deus ex machina to resolve difficult plot points: playwrights had an actor (the god) lowered onto the stage from a crane where he then resolved difficult situations in the plot. In Chapter 3 Wilde employs a deus ex When lunch is over, he says he will go to the park for a stroll. Dorian asks to come along and begs him to keep machina in the form of Henry's uncle, Lord George. He appears in this chapter and never again. Lord George is a useful, if talking. Lord Henry says he is finished talking and now he just wants to be and enjoy. Dorian wants to come somewhat unlikely, fountain of information about Dorian's background. On the one hand it makes sense that an older aristocrat anyway. Lord Henry reminds him he has an appointment with Basil Hallward. Dorian doesn’t mind breaking it. would know the gossip of his class. On the other hand, if Dorian is so beautiful and this scandal so extreme, why hadn't Henry known this before? In any case Dorian's romantic background contributes to the fairy tale nature of the plot. He's an orphan and has a The third element of the triangular relationship among Basil Hallward, Dorian Gray, and Lord Henry is in this history that's extremely dramatic. chapter fully established. Lord Henry decides to dominate Dorian Gray as Dorian Gray dominates Basil The second half of the chapter, when Henry goes to his aunt's for lunch, might at first glance seem unrelated to the first half, or to Hallward. The chapter is framed by this realisation. It opens with Lord Henry walking to his aunt Agatha’s house for lunch at which he knows he will see Dorian Gray. On that walk he decides he will work his strong the rest of the novel. However, the scene serves several functions. It further establishes Henry's character and the breadth of his influence on Dorian. At the lunch, Lord Henry charms everyone present with his Hedonistic philosophy, even knowledge, as he can dispense persuasive comments on any topic introduced. It reinforces his cynicism, and his role as an active those who are staunch supporters of philanthropy. He works his influence on them all with a view toward combatant in the war of the sexes. Henry becomes aware of Dorian watching him and wants to "fascinate" Dorian. This shows influencing Dorian Gray. The plan works. At the end of lunch, Dorian asks to accompany him on his walk Dorian's power in general and the novel's homoerotic tendencies more specifically. And finally Henry's advice to the duchess on how to become young again prefigures the action of the novel: Dorian can do whatever he wants precisely because he doesn't age. through the park. He will stand up Basil Hallward, with whom he has an appointment. Because only his portrait ages, he is free to make the same mistake over and over.

Henry engages in an extended private contemplation about influence and its meaning: this long paragraph serves as a bridge The reader might be puzzled at the scorn that is heaped on charitable work in this chapter. It’s useful to look at between the two portions of this chapter. Henry has just recently spoken to Dorian about influence being undesirable because it is the history of the nineteenth century to see what Oscar Wilde is respondin g to in this attack on philanthropy. unnatural and displaces the originality of the person influenced. However, in this section Henry paints quite a different portrait of For many years, England had dominated the world, invading countries like India, Africa, and China (not to influence. He compares it to playing a violin, and makes it clear it is a satisfying art form in itself. mention America and Ireland) and taking over, establishing colonial regimes and enslaving the people of those lands or making subordinates of them. The end of the nineteenth century saw the decline of the British Empire. Colonized people began successfully to revolt and England began pulling out of these other lands. Entering his aunt's dining room and greeting his aunt, Henry sees Dorian, the Duchess of Harley, Sir Thomas Burdon, Mr. Erskine of Treadley, Mrs. Vandeleur, and Lord Faudel. They Colonization had always been done in the pursuit of raw materials, cheap labour, and land, but the outright are in the middle of a conversation about Dartmoor; Aunt Agatha is expressing her theft of other lands and peoples went against England’s sense of itself as a Christian nation. Therefore, it needed indignation tha t such a marriage would occur, Sir Burdon tries to defend America, and Lord a moral justification for colonizing other lands. That justification came in the form of a sense of moral Henry makes fun of the situation by insulting America. Lady Agatha, confused by the superiority. The English were doing these colonized people a favour by bringing them the light of a superior conversation, changes the subject to Dorian; she wants him to play to the unhappy poor civilization, including a superior religion. people in the East End, but Lord Henry would rather he play to him. He says that although the East End is a problem, he does not desire to change anything. He says, "Humanity takes itself At the same time that justification was being built up, people were starving in the streets in England itself. The too seriously. It is the world's original sin. If the cave-man had known how to laugh, History colonizers realised it was important to help those at home as well as "help" those abroad. Hence, the would have been different." The subject is again changed to youth; the Duchess remarks that philanthropic societies of the late nineteenth century. Oscar Wilde was well aware that of the hypocrisy at the she would like to go back to her youth, and Lord Henry assures her that all she needs to do is heart of much of the philanthropy of his time: workers were ruthlessly exploited, making possible the gourmet commit the mistakes of her youth again. He goes on for quite some time about this subject, dinners of the philanthropic dinners put on for their benefit. The poor remained poor and the rich didn’t feel delighting and fascinating his listeners, after which the Duchess leaves, asking him to come visit quite as guilty. her, as does Mr. Erskine. As Lord Henry is leaving, Dorian asks to go with him, even though he has already promised the evening to Basil. Lord Henry consents.

One month later, Dorian Gray is waiting at Lord Henry’s for him to come home. He is impatient since he’s Of primary interest in this chapter is the development of Dorian's character. Throughout the first three chapters, Lord Henry was the centre of attention; Dorian was little been waiting for a while. Lord Henry’s wife comes in and they chat for a while about music. She notices more than a pretty face who envied his own portrait and was devoted to his mentor. In Chapter 4, however, Dorian begins to take over the novel. He comes into his own as that he parrots her husband’s views, as many people in her social circle do. Lord Henry arrives and his wife a character, beginning to drive the plot of the story by acting independently of Lord Henry. His pronouncements, however, echo Lord Henry's, an indication that he is still leaves. After Henry advises him not to marry, Dorian says he is too much in love to consider marriage. He is in love with an actress. He thinks of her as a genius. Lord Henry explains that women can’t be geniuses very much under Lord Henry's influence. At least twice, the reader hears that an adage spoken by the protégé — Dorian — was originally spoken by the mentor — Lord because they are made only for decoration. He adds that there are only two kinds of women, the plain Henry. However, Dorian's relationship with Sibyl Vane, superficial and immature as it may be, illustrates a burgeoning independence. It will soon lead to crisis and force and the coloured. Plain women are useful for respectability and coloured women are useful for charming more changes on the title character. men. Dorian claims to be terrified by Lord Henry’s views. Lord Henry pushes him to tell more about the actress. Dorian has not just fallen in love with an actress; he has fallen in love with her performances. He does not know the girl at all; yet, by the end of the chapter, they are engaged to be married. His ambition is not to build a relationship but to develop a star. If Dorian has learned nothing else from Lord Henry, he has learned the joy of Dorian says that for days after he met Lord Henry, he felt alive with excitement and wanted to explore manipulation. He wants to become Sibyl Vane's agent, not her husband. That Dorian's first love is so flawed with selfishness and manipulation is a bright indicator of the the world intensely. He walked the streets staring into the faces of people to see into their lives. He decided emerging dark side of his nature. As for Lord Henry, he may not be jealous of Dorian's love interest, but he is somewhat sceptical. He feels that Dorian is "premature," one night to go out and have an adventure. He was walking along the street and was hailed to come into a second rate theatre. Despite his repulsion for the caller, he went in and bought a box seat. The play was noting early on that an actress is a "rather commonplace début" for a young man entering the world of romance, but he quickly drops that approach when he sees how Romeo and Juliet. He hated all of it until Juliet came on stage and then he was entranced. Since that night intensely in love Dorian is. Lord Henry is wise enough to avoid confrontation. However, he must be stunned by the telegram announcing the engagement. he has gone every night to the theatre. He met her on the third night and found her exquisitely innocent, knowing nothing at all of life but art. He wants Lord Henry and Basil Hallward to come to see her the A modern audience might find one disturbing factor in the chapter. Mr. Isaacs, who runs the theatre and holds Sibyl Vane under contract, is described in such flagrantly racist next evening. His plan is to pay her manager off and set her up in a good theatre. Lord Henry invites him terms that the reader cannot ignore them. Someone might argue, in Wilde's defence, that he describes one specific Jew, not necessarily a stereotype. A better defence is that to dinner that evening, but he refuses, saying he has to see her perform Imogen. He leaves. Dorian is speaking, not Wilde, and the crude, racist observations may be early indications of Dorian's character. Certainly, the young man can be superficial. It may be unfair to conclude that the narrator's views are Wilde's views. However, either way, anti-Semitism was thriving in nineteenth-century England as well as in much of the rest of Lord Henry thinks about what he’s learned. He thinks of Dorian Gray as a good study. He likes to study Europe, as witnessed in Charles Dickens' portrayal of Fagin in Oliver Twist or in the real-life Dreyfus affair in France. people like a scientist studies the results of an experiment. He thinks of Dorian as being his own creation. He had introduced his ideas to Dorian and made him a self-conscious man. Literature often did that to people, but a strong personality like his could do it as well. As he thinks over his thoughts, he’s interrupted by his servant reminding him it’s time to dress for dinner. As he arrives home that night, he finds a The time and place One month later. In Lord Henry’s house and Dorian is waiting for '"Harry". Their friendship has developed. They are now intimate. The setting: on Mayfair. Urban as telegram on the hall table announcing that Dorian Gray was to marry Sibyl Vane. opposed to Basil's garden. There is a cosy atmosphere, luxury: cream coloured walls, felt carpet, silk long-fringed rugs. But also very cultural. Lord Henry is an adept of all kinds of pleasures, particularly those of the mind. Statuette, Les Cent Nouvelles. Lord Henry, like Wilde, reads French. A month later, the relationship between Dorian and Lord Henry has developed just as Lord Henry wished.

Dorian has avoided Basil Hallward and has become a protégé (follower) of Lord Henry, quoting him in The appearance of women in the novel. Lady Henry: Plays no role in the story. Her portrait here is just an "acte gratuit" by Wilde who has apparently taken pleasure in picturing her. everything and looking to him for guidance on all his decisions. Lord Henry is a spectator. He is setting up We don't know why she has come. She forgets it herself. It is a very vivid and pleasant portrait. She is an untidy, tempestuous woman who is not in love with her husband at all. Light-headed, Dorian Gray with what he thinks of as premature knowledge, so that Dorian will live his youth in the full contradicts herself without the slightest hesitation. "a bird of paradise that had been out all night in the rain". knowledge that it is fading daily. He recognizes that Dorian will burn out and he doesn’t seem at all affected by this. He isn’t jealous of Dorian’s new passion for Sibyl Vane. It adds to his pleasure as a She is first and foremost an actress. Dorian once speaks about her personality, he says she is shy and gentle, but in fact he describes her roles to his friend. She has genius because "one evening spectator. He regards himself as something of a social scientist. The bigotry of the late Victorians is brought she is Rosalind, and the next evening she is Imogen"(the heroine of "Cymbeline" who was a king of Britain). She is Juliet, she is Cornelia, she is all of Shakespeare's heroines, but she is not in out in this chapter, expressed by Lord Henry about women’s inferior status as human beings and by Dorian Gray about the repulsiveness of Jews. Dorian's eyes anything else. Sybil is a seventeen-year-old girl who was the only one calling Dorian “Prince Charming.” She was the first love of him. They spend time a very good way; moreover, they feel so good in a company of each other that decided to marry. Dorian made a proposal, she agreed. Sybil doesn’t have a lot of lines in a book, but we like her. And why we like her is still unknown; she is a simple girl, but she has something charming, something that we love a lot. Sibyl’s love for Dorian compromises her ability to act, as her experience of true love in life makes her realise the falseness of affecting emotions onstage. One day Dorian decided to visit the performance of Sybil, and to his surprise she performed was so bad, and, disillusioned, that he treats her with extreme cruelty. She is also a pretty young woman to the end, and like Lord Henry she has a lovely voice description much longer than that of her face. How she reacts to D's courtship: Falls in love with him at first sight. Pure and naive. Calls him immediately Prince Charming which reveals her childlike purity and Innocent. Probably unable to defend herself. A Wilde never explicitly explains Lady Henry's nervousness around Dorian. However, since she comments on perfect victim for a tragedy. Wilde’s relationship to actresses (Oxford romance, Sarah Bernard for whom he wrote "Salomé" in French, the imaginary actress who was supposed to be his mistress her husband's 17 pictures of Dorian, at least part of it seems to be jealousy. She is nervous to be around when he wanted to conceal his homosexuality from his wife). someone her husband adores (whether they are having sex or not). This jealousy seems at least somewhat justified since Lord and Lady Henry are clearly such a bad match. He is stylish, witty, and always in control. The homage to Shakespeare (the Bard). In this particular chapter and in chapter 7, the plays with the greatest feminine roles are evoked or (in chapter 7) quoted. To the Shakespeare She lives in her illusions and is untidy. Theirs is not a deep or happy marriage, and Henry's dismissive lover, or just to the educated English person the magic of Shakespeare is added to that of Wilde’s In fact he uses Shakespeare’s aura. comments after his wife leaves document this. The male characters in this novel inhabit a largely homosocial world, of all men. However, Henry's Wilde’s anti-Semitism. One of the darkest sides of the book. We could suppose that it is the character Dorian who is anti-Semitic, but there is nothing to atone for his horrible description of disregard for Sibyl Vane's genius—and his disparagement of women in general—at times tips over into the owner of the theatre.. This man has decidedly all the faults in the world. He is dirty, obsequious, and vulgar. His theatre is to his image, tawdry, dingy. One contradiction, however: this active misogyny on his part. As for Dorian's love, several points about it are essential. First, Henry's influence on Dorian is at the root of horrid man loves Shakespeare. Wilde not quite nice from a political point of view. No compassion for people. Only when in jail did he really understand that the others are like himself, that he it. The things Henry said to Dorian the first time they met filled him, Dorian says, with a "wild desire to is not superior or inferior to them. Hence his most beautiful work of art: "The Ballad of Reading Goal". This disdain of the others was not constantly with him (absent from his fairy tales which know everything about life." That set him walking the streets in search of experience, and those walks led are also full of humanity). But it is present in The Picture of Dorian Gray in which Wilde, like Basil in his portrait, "put too much of himself". He does not only despises the Jews but also the him to the theatre where he met Sibyl. Second, the context in which Dorian meets Sibyl is exceedingly working classes, people in general. Such an attitude is most of the time the result of a form of suffering. Wilde suffered from not being able to be like the others, so he had the choice either to picturesque: in the middle of a tawdry theatre, Dorian finds beauty and innocence. This is straight out of a despise and hate himself or to despise and hate the others. For a while he chose the second solution, until the isolation it engendered became unbearable, he then chose the first one, and this is romance novel or a syrupy greeting card. Next, though this is not long after they've met, Dorian is already when he attacked Lord Douglas's father for libel. starting to sound like Henry, especially when he delivers lines such as, "Ordinary women never appeal to one's imagination. They are limited to their century." Dorian's attitude toward women is becoming as Dorian's transformation. The fight between Dorian's original purity and Lord Henry's evil influence. Has met Sybil 3 weeks before - that is one week after having met Lord Henry. mean spirited as Henry's. Acknowledges the influence. Compares Lord Henry's influence to an exquisite poison and Is conscious of the dangerous character of such an influence. Announces his love through an aphorism which shows he is copying his friend. But this is also a very bad omen concerning Sybil because love outside marriage was terrible at the time in the Victorian society. Considered the worst And of course this chapter powerfully develops Wilde's themes of the conflict between appearance and dishonour. Worse than death. He does not think so seriously then because later he is shocked when L.ord Henry suggests he might already have had sex with Dorian still has some purity in him reality and between art and life. Sibyl is a particularly striking example of these themes because of how she then. Lord Henry’s work is not finished yet. Lord Henry immediately tries to destroy Dorian's great passion and then speaks of faithfulness. Whatever he says is destructive. Dorian is annoyed fuses the two sides of each theme. Sibyl is especially attractive to Dorian because she's an actress. She plays by good advice. He must know that he has already taken the evil road. To the point that D. has completely abandoned Basil. We can thus have an idea of the quality of D's feelings. No a part. Her life is art, and changing her appearance is a fundamental and daily part of her reality. For all faithfulness in friendship at all. He has abandoned Basil. We may fear he will do the same for other people, Sybil for example. Finally lord Henry is satisfied with his work: he thinks Dorian is that Dorian sounds exceptionally young when he's talking about her, his comments are also profound. If premature (not so much from our point of view, but this is the Victorian era). There is a lot in store for him. We can suppose with Lord Henry that he's going to live many experiences. We enter one accepts that actors connect with other times and characters through their art, then there really would Lord Henry’s stream of consciousness: he thinks about the soul, about passion. The dramatic intensity of the passage subsides. It is then that we have a new coup de théatre : the telegram. Very be something special about them. efficient narrative technique to finish a chapter like this because usually when we read a book, we mark a pause at the end of each chapter. But thus a suspense is created (how is L.ord Henry going react? Is Dorian really going to marry her?) and we have to read on.

1. In the preface (be sure to read this), Wilde writes that "there is no such thing as a moral or immoral book." In other words, art has no effect, other than

aesthetic, on individuals or society. Do you agree with Wilde's premise? Does this novel adhere to his statement? Sibyl Vane is exclaiming to her mother about how much in love she is with her Prince Charming, as she calls Dorian Gray, not knowing yet what his name is. Her mother warns her that she must keep her focus on acting since they owe Mr. Isaacs fifty pounds. Sibyl is impatient with her mother and tries to get her mother to remember when she was young and in love with Sibyl’s 2. What is the relationship between Basil and Dorian...from beginning to end? father. Her mother looks pained and Sibyl apologizes for bringing up a painful subject. 3. Talk about Lord Henry: what code or set of beliefs does he live by? How does he view conventional morality and in what ways does he challenge it? Her brother Jim comes in. It’s his last night on shore. He is booked as a sailor on a ship headed for Australia. When Sibyl leaves the Why, for instance, does he believe it is futile and wrong for the individual to resist temptation? room, he asks his mother about the gentleman he has heard has been coming to the theatre to see Sibyl every night. His mother tells him the man is wealthy and it might be a good thing for Sibyl. Jim is not convinced. This chapter is quite particular. The only one of this kind in the book. It is the only one which is not dedicated to either Dorian, Basil or Lord Henry. The main character here is Sybil, and this time she's not seen through When Sibyl comes back, she and Jim go for a walk in the park together. While there, Jim questions her about the man who has anybody's eyes, but we can get directly acquainted to her through an objective narrative. And Sybil, even though she's going to disappear from the story been calling on her. She only says how much she is in love with the man and how she is sure he’s trustworthy. Jim says that if he quite soon is an important character, the only important feminine character in the novel. comes back and finds that the man has hurt her, he’ll kill the man. They walk on and return home after a while. Besides, it is an important chapter because we are introduced to a new character who completes the image of the actress conveyed by Oscar Wilde in the book: Sybil's mother, and to another who will play an important part at the end of the story: Sybil's brother. Furthermore, we feel Alone again with his mother, Jim asks her if she was married to his father. She has been feeling like he has been on the verge of throughout the chapter the growth of the incoming danger threatening Sybil. Finally this chapter is also quite unique because it is the only one asking this question for weeks. She is relieved to get it out in the open. She says she was never married to the man. He was which concerns the lower class . The only one not set in the world of aristocrats. married, but loved her very much. He would have provided for her and her family, but died. Jim tells her to keep the gentleman away from Sibyl. She tells him that he need not worry because Sibyl has a mother, but she herself didn’t. He is touched by her sincerity and they embrace. Soon, though, he has to get ready to leave for his ship. Mrs. Vane thinks about his threat to kill Sibyl’s The contrasting settings, carefully constructed characters and reoccurring theme of dualism all help to portray a gulf between social classes in The Picture Prince Charming, but thinks nothing will ever come of it. of Dorian Gray. This is most obviously shown in the division of London, in a physical sense but also as a state of mind. This schism runs deep in the novel. John Hartigan suggests that “Wilde’s description of London clearly bears and element of social critic ism, as he speaks of ‘the sordid shame of the great This chapter takes the reader to an entirely different social scene. The world of the Vanes. It serves to humanise Sibyl for the city.’” The contrasts between the West End and the East End as depicted in the Picture of Dorian Gray are truly immense, highlighting working class reader by showing her in her roles as daughter and sister. She is innocent as Dorian told Lord Henry she was. She knows nothi ng of poverty and upper class opulence, implying Wilde’s dista ste for the gulf between social classes in the form of a social satire. The borderlines of the West the position which her social class puts her in relation to Dorian Gray. Her brother and he r mother do know. For her brother, she End can be found in Covent Garden market. As Dorian passes through this area, he is given “cherries form a local vendor”, as he is due according to his will be used and discarded by a rich man. For her mother, she might be lucky enough to get money out of the rich man before he lofty social status. Beyond this point lies the West End, a place of distinguished addresses such as “Grosvenor Square” and “Curz on Street”, full of people gets tired of her. The chapter closes with the revelation that James and Sibyl’s father was an aristocrat himself and that their like Lord Fermor, “whom the outside world called selfish because it derived no particular benefit from…” Sybil’s theatre then acts as a mark of the parents never married. beginning of the East End, with streets “like the black web of some sprawling spider.” This divide in settings is also reflec ted in Dorian: the West End is his physical form, pure and beautiful, whilst the East End mirrors Dorian’s corrupted soul. The stark contrasts in general setting help to portray a gulf between social classes in The Picture of Dorian Gray. Specific locations in the novel also highlight the differences between social classes in the Picture of This is the first chapter in which Wilde shifts his focus away from Dorian, Henry, and Basil. He now focuses on another group of Dorian Gray. The residence of Dorian is described in the opening of chapter 8: “…on a tray of old Sevres china, and drew back the olive -satin curtains, three: Sibyl, her mother, and her brother. The members of these two groups could not be more different, and Wilde uses the with their shimmering blue lining, that hung in front of 3 tall windows.” The grandeur of Dorian’s house helps to emphasise the decadent and lavish differences to foreshadow Sibyl's downfall. The members of Dorian's trio are all upper-class gentlemen—they have money and lifestyle that he and the rest of the West End inhabitants live. The Vane household juxtaposes this idyllic description of Dorian’s house in virtually every sense. The quotation “back turned to the shrill intrusive light…one armchair that their dingy little sitting room contained” shows the vast differences position, both of which buy them a great deal of freedom to act as they please. The Vane family members are poor and in debt. between the lives of the wealthy and the poor. The inclusion of the armchair is interesting, as throughout the novel we see armchairs used frequently to Their actions are restricted by their social and economic conditions, and so James is right to be concerned about the class conflict denote wealth. This then reveals something about the attitudes of the two classes’: the rich go to great length to show-off and portray their wealth, between Sibyl and her "Prince." whereas the poor attempt to hide from their depravity, again shown in “the shrill intrusive light.” An innocent pursuing a personal fantasy, Sibyl has been influenced during childhood by her mother's wildly theatrical sense of what life ought to be like, although it rarely lives up to her expectations. After nearly 20 years Mrs. Vane clings to the notion that her relationship with her upper -class, married lover was both romantic and honourable — and that only death prevented her lover The gulf between social classes in the Picture of Dorian Gray is also reflected in the characters, epitomised by the strikingly opposite Lord Henry Wotton from making financial provisions for her and the children. That Sibyl is con tent to know Dorian only as "Prince Charming" —a fairy and James Vane. Lord Henry embodies the upper class gentleman, a man of inherited status and wealth who chooses to reject philanthropy -a cause tale hero— demonstrates how far from reality their relationship is. This reliance on childlike imaginings supports the themes of some of the rich supported - and instead choose to focus on the pursuit of individualism and the ideals of new hedonism: “I don’t desire to change anything appearance versus reality and art versus life—and should serve as a warning to Sibyl (and the reader) about how badly things in England except the weather.” James Vane is the antithesis of this; James Vane was born into a lower class family, and in an attempt to escape the rot of will end. London becomes a sailor. Similar to Lord Henry, James seems to not believe in the idea of social mobility, and also seems to, somewhat begrudgingly; accept his place in the world’s hierarchy, remarking that only “swell people” walk in Hyde Park. Lord Henry’s life of opulence and luxury and James The introduction here of another key plot element—James Vane's promise to find and kill Prince Charming if he hurts Sibyl— Vane’s life of poverty and hardship help to establish the gulf between social classes in this novel. However, two characters attempt to cross the void provides an example of foreshadowing that will hang over the story for many chapters. between rich and poor, all be it only one is successful at achieving this. Mrs Vane is one such character. The mother of two illegitimate children, Sybil and James, Mrs Vane spent much of her life on the stage: “False theatrical gestures…second nature to a stage- player.” This lifestyle of escaping the constraints The absence of Dorian or Lord Henry from this chapter may make it seem like filler, a chance for the reader to catch a breath of social hierarchy has led Mrs Vane to believing that she can create a façade of importance and culture, making her seem upper class when in reality she after the whirlwind engagement announcement that ended the previous chapter. However, this short chapter serves an belongs to the lower classes. However, it is clear to see in the quotations “crooked, false jewelled fingers” and “thin bismuth -whitened hands” Wilde mocks im portant function in the novel; it introduces and describes characters and sets up events that will be developed later in the story. and belittles these attempts, as Mrs Vane is unable to pull -off the illusion as she lacks the power, money or resources to fully convince. Dorian Gray, however, is not constrained by any of these inhibiting factors. In the novel, Dorian acts as a flanuer, a man of social status with the freedom to go Sibyl is the ingénue, an innocent girl, and the reader would be hard pressed to find another character in the book as sweet or ‘slumming.’ Mrs Vane is unsuccessful in her attempts at achieving some form of social mobility, whereas Dorian is able to accomplish this. As one Marxist innocent or wholesome. She is no match for the jaded, sophisticated world of Lord Henry and Dorian. Her pure joy at being in commentator points out “Dorian’s inherited wealth gives him eternal leisure.” Wilde therefore makes the point that social mob ility, arguably the ultimate love provides poignant contrast to the manipulative intentions that Dorian calls "love." goal of the lower classes (according to the Marxist critic) is in fact only accessible to those of considerable wealth and status.

It is little wonder that James is enraged at the thought of any harm coming to his sister. He is the adventurer, off to see the world, but the reader has to suspect that all the anger about class distinction and all those threats about killing people might eventually The role of dualism is important to the creation of a gulf between the social classes in the Picture of Dorian Gray. This is at its greatest extent when Dorian come to something. Mrs. Vane is the fallen woman with a crusty exterior but a good heart. She was ill-treated by the wealthy, assumes the role of the transient observer of London. Dorian’s journey into the “cess-pit” that is the East End is portrayed as an apocalyptic nightmare. Strong allusions can be drawn with other texts of shared themes. In Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’, the “combustion down to bottomless perdition, thee to dwell privileged, married man who fathered her children. Because Sibyl has fallen in love with a gentleman just as her mother did, the in…penal fire” is clearly linked to Wilde’s description: “strange bottle-shaped kilns with their orange tan-like tongues of fire.” Similarly, Wilde’s description reader can't help but wonder if her romance will end as tragically as her mother's. echoes the ‘Hell’ in the ending of ‘Doctor Faustus.’ Through these references to other notable texts, Wilde creates a haunting setting that starkly contrasts with that of the West End: “Dorian Gray was sitting in the conservatory at Selby Royal talking to the pretty Duchess of Monmouth…” As discussed Mr. Isaacs, whom Wilde introduced in an earlier chapter, is the creditor to whom the Vane family is indebted. When Sibyl says previously, these contrasting settings create the Jekyll and Hyde- like internal division within Dorian. The West End is Dorian’s appearance, beautiful and that Isaacs is not a gentleman and that she hates the way that he talks to her, the reader needs no further explanation of his “unstained”, whereas the East End is Dorian’s reality, evil, corrupted, and decaying, thus bringing in another key theme in the novel, the difference character. Sibyl and her mother live in desperate circumstances, and Sibyl could easily fall hopelessly, blindly in love with a young between appearance and reality. Jessica Menz suggests that “the trope of degeneration figures his inner self’s decent through East London’s drug dens and alleys, while his social identity grows firmly ensconced in the realms of respectability.” The novel’s contrasting settings do help to portray a gulf between man as charming as her Prince. The only thing missing from this list of characters is the suitor — Dorian. Will he be the hero, a true social classes in Victorian society in the Picture of Dorian Gray, but one must not underestimate the significance of character, attitudes and duality in the gentleman who saves the family and carries off Sibyl to live happily ever after? Or will he be a cad? novel. Wilde uses these tools to comment on the state of class disparity that the gulf between social classes creates.

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Dorian enters, they sit down for dinner, and he tells them how the engagement came about. He saw Sibyl play Rosalind one night, and afterward he saw her and Lord Henry greets Basil Hallward as he arrives at the Bristol for dinner. He tells him the news they suddenly kissed; he told her he loved her, and she said she was unworthy to be his wife. Lord Henry says that the women are usually the ones to bring up about Dorian’s engagement to Sibyl Vane. Basil is surprised and can’t believe it’s true. He can’t marriage, but Dorian says: "I want to place her on a pedestal of gold, and to see the world worship the woman who is mine. What is marriage? An irrevocable vow. believe Dorian would do something as foolish as to marry an actress in light of his "birth, and You mock at it for that. Ah! don't mock. It is an irrevocable vow that I want to take." He says that being in love with Sibyl makes him forget all of Lord Henry's position, and wealth." Lord Henry acts nonchalant about the news and Basil is quite worried. theories. Lord Henry philosophises a bit more: he says that good is following one's own nature, rather than the nature of other people. Being moral has nothing to do with it; pleasure is the highest aim, not morality. Basil says that if one is immoral, one will suffer and be unhappy, but Lord Henry thinks that this is out of date. Finally Dorian arrives elated to tell the others of his news. Over dinner he tells them that he Dorian says that the greatest pleasure is to love someone. Even though Lord Henry is cynical in his views about women, Dorian likes him very much, and Lord Henry proposed to Sibyl on the previous evening after watching her as Rosalind. He kissed her and says that Dorian will always like him. The three of them leave for the theatre, and Basil thinks on the way that things have changed forever, that Dorian will never be what he once was to him. He feels much older as he gets to the theatre. told her he loved her and she told him she wasn’t good enough to be his wife. They are keeping This transitional chapter is one of the shortest in the book: It their engagement a secret from her mother. Dorian tells Lord Henry that she will save him from Lord Henry’s "wrong, fascinating, poisonous, delightful theories" about life, love, and pleasure. encapsulates what has happened already and anticipates what is to Lord Henry says they aren’t his theories but Nature’s. Basil Hallward begins to think the follow. When Basil Hallward is informed that Dorian will wed Sybil, a “little actress”, he replies as such: “But think of Dorian’s birth, and position, and wealth. It would be absurd for him to engagement will be a good thing for Dorian after all. marry so much beneath him.” Basil’s reply is an appeal to the reader’s logos as it was a The setting for the chapter is a small private dining room at the Bristol. social construct for individuals to marry another of the same social status. Basil’s response Lord Henry greets Basil as he enters and then immediately asks if he As they leave, Lord Henry tells Hallward to take a separate conveyance to the theatre since his to Dorian’s engagement is logical because Dorian and Sybil’s romance is parallel to has heard that Dorian is engaged to be married. Basil is stunned but is large enough only for him and Dorian. As he rides in the carriage behind Lord Henry’s, Basil Dorian’s mother and father’s relationship. Pointedly, Dorian’s mother was high class and asks to whom. Lord Henry responds with the unflattering explanation, Hallward feels a strong sense of loss, as if Dorian Gray will never again be to him all that he had rich (like Dorian) while Dorian’s father was low class and poor (like Sybil). Due to this "To some little actress or other." Basil is genuinely upset by the news of parallel, Basil’s argument is foreshadowing how society will not approve of their marriage been in the past. He realizes that life has come between them. He feels, when he arrives at the Dorian's engagement. At first, he is incredulous, stating that Dorian is and therefore decimate it – as was what had happened to Dorian’s parents. theatre, that he has grown years older. much too sensible to do such a foolish thing. Lord Henry, with a typically paradoxical aphorism, says, "Dorian is far too wise not to do Following this quote, Henry rebuttals by saying that Dorian would be a “wonderful This chapter plays a structural role in the plot, bringing the three men back together before foolish things now and then, dear Basil." He adds that Dorian is study” if Dorian were to take a wife and mistress, this suggests that Henry makes a their parting again to go their own ways. Basil seems out of the loop of Dorian’s affections engaged, not married; that the girl apparently is beautiful, which Lord spectacle of Dorian’s life as if Dorian is Henry’s personal object. Despite not caring that almost completely. This status is underlined as he is told to take his own conveyance to the Henry views as one of the highest virtues, and that he himself does not Dorian is getting married, Henry does hold value to Sybil’s life but only as a pawn in approve or disapprove of this situation or any other. Lord Henry theatre alone while Dorian rides with Lord Henry. The engagement to Sibyl seems to be Dorian’s life, as Dorian’s relationship with Sibyl is the first major casualty of the devotion Dorian’s last hope of regaining the innocence of youth which he has lost to Lord Henry’s explains that life is not for making such judgments. Every experience is to sensual pleasure inspired by Lord Henry in Dorian. This is agreeable for Lord Henry of some worth, he suggests, and Dorian may be more interesting even theories. because he believes that through this engagement Dorian will be making a spectacle of if he does marry — provided, of course, that he finds a good mistress in himself, thus contributing to hedonistic values and lifestyle. When Basil’s argument is six months or so. The problem with marriage is that it often makes countered by Henry who believes that Dorian would be “a wonderful study” if he were to people unselfish, according to Lord Henry, and unselfish people lose marry and take a mistress, reflects how Wilde is making an argument for and against The talk between Henry and Basil about Dorian's engagement further sharpens the distance and their individuality. The purpose of life is to know oneself. Marriage may aestheticism with Basil being against and Henry being for. In other words, Basil is in difference between the two friends. Though Basil is an artist, he is much more conventional and get in the way of that, but it does not have to. support of the societal norms displayed in the Victorian Era whilst Lord Henry is in straightforward in his response to the news than Henry. And Henry's response is not just original, it support of a more hedonistic lifestyle. inverts a number of commonly held beliefs, such as when he laments the fact that marriage makes When Dorian arrives, he is giddy with love. The previous night, Sibyl Valuing artistic beauty above all else allows Dorian to confuse his love for Sibyl’s acting people less selfish. One of the things that makes this novel so striking is that both men are right. As played Rosalind (in Shakespeare's As You Like It) and was mesmerising as she transported Dorian from the dingy London theatre into the with a love for Sibyl herself, thus making Dorian believe that it is “normal” to marry Sibyl; Basil argues, because Sibyl is quite a bit below Dorian (in class and money), it is a bad idea and however, it is – in reality – art that Dorian loves, not Sibyl. This in itself is foolish because it likely to fail. In contrast Henry argues that the experience of marrying —and probably discarding — world of the play. Backstage after the performance, the lovers unexpectedly kissed, and Sibyl, trembling, fell to her knees and kissed was Lord Henry who influenced Dorian to sway from social expectations in the first place Sibyl would make Dorian a fascinating study. The men seem to disagree, but both arguments are and it was Lord Henry who showed Dorian art. Once Dorian arrives, despite the influence true. Dorian's hands. They are engaged — and will marry even if Dorian must wait until he is of legal age in less than a year. Significantly, Henry has exerted on him, he seems very pragmatic about adhering to social expectations, which in society’s eyes is seen as wise rather than foolish, with the latter Dorian ends his recollection by stating, almost boasting, that he has Once Dorian arrives, despite the influence Henry has exerted on him, he seems very pragmatic embraced Rosalind and "kissed Juliet on the mouth," repeating his being what Henry believes to be true. In addition, Dorian’s high regards on artistic about adhering to social expectations. Dorian's assumption that he and Sibyl are engaged even identification of Sibyl with the characters that she plays. Basil is beauty is a way for him to escape reality, and when Sibyl became the real Sibyl and not though he never asked her to marry him, is, as Henry indicates, naive and romantic, but not overwhelmed. Lord Henry, on the other hand, behaves like a shrewd art, he lost all feelings of inf atuation because he could no longer escape “into” her, thus leading to an apparent theme of art being an ideal that isn’t aligned with reality. functional. lawyer and asks at what specific point the word "marriage" was mentioned. It is his contention that women usually introduce the term, The ending of Dorian and Sibyl’s relationship acts as the catalyst and turning point in In this chapter Wilde uses Henry and Basil to articulate the case for and against an aesthetic however subtly, when things get sufficiently cosy. In short, women Dorian’s life. Dorian, who was seemingly innocent prior to Lord Henry’s influence, philosophy. Henry makes a sophisticated philosophical argument, saying, "Belie ve me, no civilised propose to men even though the man may not realise it. In this case, completely embraces a hedonistic lifestyle, thus proving Basil’s quotation to be true – he man ever regrets a pleasure, and no uncivilized man ever knows what a pleasure is." There is a apparently he is right. Dorian is upset at the insinuation and asserts does not end up marrying “so much beneath him”. However, this is only as a result of longstanding tension between nature and culture, with one of the paired terms taking precedence that it was not a "business transaction." True, there had been no formal Sibyl’s incompetent acting, therefore, diservicing art in Dorian’s (Lord Henry’s) in some philosophies and the other in other schools. In this selection, by claiming this equation is not proposal. He told the girl that he loved her, and she responded that eyes. Basil’s quote comes true; however, it was not as a result of Dorian and Sibyl’s his but nature's, Henry erases this distinction and claims the upper hand in this debate. He goes on she was "not worthy to be my wife." To Sibyl, the situation was differing social stratifications but rather the result of Lord Henry’s influence on Dorian. to say that "the important thing" is "one's own life" and that the lives of others are of no concern. tantamount to a proposal to her. Dorian goes so fa r as to state that he Along with her death, Sibyl takes parts of Dorian’s beauty to the grave because his soul’s When Henry and Basil discuss the cost of living "merely for one's self," which Henry advocates, Basil regrets everything that Lord Henry has taught him. Certainly Lord beauty diminishes for the first time in his life – as seen in the portrait. Dorian’s soul is Henry's cynical, egocentric world is no place for Sibyl. In a statement of suggests that people have to pay not only financially but also "in other ways" such as "in remorse, in burdened with guilt after Sibyl’s death, but only for a brief period before Lord Henry and suffering, in ... well, in the consciousness of degradation." one of the major themes of the novel, Lord Henry submits that being in the Yellow Book push Dorian to an unfortunate lifestyle in ferocious proportions. harmony with oneself is a key to life, echoing the tenet of Aestheticism that calls for the individual to make of his own life a work of art. It is Basil is the physical manifestation of the Victorian status quo which leads him to believe The plot of the novel gives Basil's less self-centred argument the last word, and his speech time to leave for the theatre. Lord Henry and Dorian leave together, that Dorian will not marry “beneath him”. However, the aforementioned idea is a fallacy foreshadows Dorian's demise. Dorian's dedication to what seems like an ethereal rather than as they did at the end of Chapter 2; Basil follows them separately in because it was Lord Henry and his hedonistic influence on Dorian that breaks off the two realistic vision of Sibyl, in contrast to Henry's observances of women, supports the novel's theme of another carriage. The artist feels that Dorian will never be the same to lovers’ engagement. Lord Henry, is the physical manifestation of Hedonism and the art versus life. him again. Aestheticism, which causes Dorian to fall more in love with “art” than the artist – Sybil.

At the theatre, Dorian is surprised to find it crowded with people. He takes Lord Henry and Basil Hallward to his usual box and they discuss the crowd below. Chapter 7 is profound, cruel, and fantastical. Throughout history people have put forth theories about where art comes from. One theory is He tells them that Sibyl’s art is so fine that she spiritualizes the common people, transforming their ugliness into beauty. Basil tells him he now agrees that the fairly straightforward: art is a kind of escape from reality. People create art to escape their surroundings and create a better world. That's marriage will be a good thing for him. what Sibyl was doing with her acting until she met Dorian. Trapped in poverty and without much real hope for escape, she acted to briefly experience other realities. Wilde presents a tremendous example of situational irony, in which reality contradicts expectation, as Sibyl's When Sibyl appears on the stage, both men are entranced by her beauty, but when she starts to act, they are embarrassed for Dorian. Dorian doesn’t speak, tragedy is revealed. Falling in love with Dorian improves Sibyl's life, as she now experiences real emotion. Her love for Dorian, however, but he is horribly disappointed. Sibyl’s acting is horribly wooden. The people below hiss and catcall to the stage making fun of her poor acting. After the reveals the artificiality of her theatrical career and she is no longer able to act. This spells disaster by destroying Dorian's fascination with— second act, Lord Henry and Basil Hallward leave. Dorian tells them he will stay out the performance. He hides his face in anguish. and love for—her. This chapter's cruelty comes from Dorian's response. Wilde shows just how shallow Dorian is by the speed with which his love for Sibyl evaporates. He treats her no better than the rest of the audience who know her only as a performer. That means he really doesn't know her either. She's merely a performer to him and he has no real love for her as a person. Here Wilde creates dramatic irony, in When the play is over, he goes to the green room to find Sibyl. She’s waiting for him. She looks radiantly happy. She tells him she acted so badly because she which the audience has an awareness that the characters do not, since this situation runs parallel to how the world treats Dorian, loving him loves him. She says that before she loved him, the stage was real and alive for her. She never noticed the tawdriness of the stage set or the ugliness of her only for his beauty, not for his essence. In Dorian's case, however, the illusion remains unchallenged until the end of the novel. fellow actors. She had put everything into it because it was all of her life. When she realized tonight that she was acting horribly, she was struck by the The fantastical element that Wilde introduces here is, of course, at the dramatic heart of the novel: the portrait's ability to absorb Dorian's realization that it was because she had found a new reality. immoral actions and thus age in his place. This is the point where the novel shifts from being an intelligent but intellectual narrative to a kind of dark moral fantasy. That the painting reflects not just Dorian's aging, as his initial prayer might have suggested, but the ethical nature of When she finishes, Dorian tells her she disappointed him and embarrassed him horribly. He says she killed his love. Sibyl is shocked and horrified by his words. his actions suggests the universe has a complex moral nature. Dorian's reaction at seeing the physical change in his portrait shows he is ill She begs him to take them back, but he goes on. he tells her he loved her for her art and now she has nothing of her art and so he doesn’t love her any more. equipped to deal with the universe's absolute moral reality. Now she is nothing but "a third-rate actress with a pretty face." Sibyl throws herself at his feet begging him to be kind to her, but he walks away scornfully, thinking how ridiculous she looks. Dorian's narrative supersedes all others in the novel. From now on, it will be his story, not Lord Henry's. The novel becomes more dynamic because Dorian's character grows — changes — while Lord Henry's remains unchanged. The change in Dorian's character in this chapter is He walks through the poverty-stricken streets of London for a long time. Then he gets back to his room, recently redecorated since he learned to appreciate dramatic. Dorian begins the chapter as a dedicated lover. Then, in a few short pages, he becomes a disgusted critic, a heartless deserter, luxury from Lord Henry. He is undressing when he happens to glance at the portrait. He is taken aback to notice a change in it. Lines around the mouth have briefly a contrite sinner, and then finally a lover rededicated to Sibyl — not because he loves the woman, but because he fears hurting appeared. The face has a cruel expression. He turns on the lights and looks at it more carefully, but nothing changes the look of cruelty on the face. He himself and the portrait. Even though the chapter ends with Dorian intending to do "his duty" by being honourable and marrying Sibyl, his remembers what he said in Basil’s studio the day he saw it for the first time. He had wished to change places with it, staying young forever while it aged with honour is false because it is based on selfishness. His "honourable intentions" are simply a continuation of his soul's degradation. The number time and experience. He knows that the sin he committed against Sibyl that evening had caused him to age. He realizes that the portrait will always be an and degree of changes that Dorian goes through in this chapter, most of them negative changes, hint at the turn his nature will take in the emblem of his conscience from now on. He dresses quickly and hurries toward Sibyl’s house. As he hurries to her, a faint feeling of his love for her returns to rest of the book. him.

The climax of the novel occurs in this chapter. Dorian takes his friends to see Sibyl’s fine acting and is embarrassed by her dreadful acting. Even when she tells Chapter 7 also introduces an element that will reoccur throughout the story: the changing of the portrait. By the end of the chapter, the hi m she has lost her talent for acting because she loves him and thinks only of him, he doesn’t soften toward her. He lets her sob and he leaves her coldly. The reader understands that the portrait will symbolise the state of Dorian's soul and spirit. Wilde will use the portrait to help develop his consequences of this sin of the heart is that Dorian Gray ages. However, it is not he that ages, but his portrait. Here, Oscar Wilde plays with the notion that art characterization of Dorian for the rest of the book. Dorian's special relationship with his portrait continues the Faust theme. His wish about imitates life. When Dorian first saw his portrait, he wished for its timelessness. He wished he could change places with art, living the timelessness of art, and the portrait suggests a pact with the devil. Dorian's desire to escape the "poisonous theories" of Lord Henry indicates that he sees his mentor letting the portrait age and wither. In this climax chapter, that reversal seems to happen. Whether the reader is supposed to think of this as Dorian’s guilty as an evil, devil-like influence, but, like Faust, Dorian seems eager to benefit from the fruits of his pact, namely the eternal youth that the portrait offers him. conscience projected onto the portrait or a depiction of magic is unclear at this point. The reader has to wait to find out if any other character besides Dorian will see the change in the portrait.

Thre e distinct parts in this scene: 1) The theatre: Sibyl's bad acting. 2) Dorian's reaction: he rejects Sybil and wanders home through Covent Garden. 3) At home, he realises the portrait has changed. I. The scene at the theatre. A. The Jew and the house itself - The description of the Jew is particularly ignoble. We can loath Wilde for that. Everything in the theatre reeks of vulgarity. This enhances of course Lord Henry’s and Dorian’s sophistication and He thinks about why this could refinement. B. Sibyl's performance - Dorian praises Sibyl's acting in advance. This of course will make her mediocre performance all the more disappointing. She is indeed pretty, charming but she is going to show herself a terrible actress on this particular night. be, and remembers that day at The passages quoted are among the most famous and the most beautiful of the play, and their beauty also enhances the mediocrity of her performance. C. The three men's reaction – Lord Henry's reaction of course is to go away before the end of the play. Basil Basil's studio when he wished with his usual goodness tries to find excuses for the girl. And it is Basil, who is an artist, who has to tell Dorian "Love is a more wonderful thing than art". Dorian's reaction: he is shocked, does not try to excuse Sybil. Her bad acting is too obvious. But he gets angry at that the portrait would age Lord Henry's humorous way of concluding on the situation. He is not in a mood to appreciate his witticisms. He seems to be suffering. instead of him. Perhaps it has now become his conscience. He II. Dorian's rejection of Sybil - A. Why has Sybil acted so badly? Because Dorian is "more to (her) than all art can ever be". She has suddenly realised, the setting, the Romeo, the play itself were fake, and they were just illusions. They were vain (much like her feels pity for the painting, for it name). What the poor girl has not understood is that Dorian loved her for this very fakeness, this very vanity. Her explanation is not only an explanation, it is a declaration of passionate and, this time, mature love. Sybil has grown. Love has made a woman out of will become ugly with every sin the charming but childlike girl that she was. She doesn't want to play, to pretend anymore. B. Dorian's rejection - a) But nothing in this touches Dorian. On the contrary he realises he cannot love her anymore. He loved the actress in her and only the actress. She has that he commits. killed the actress, so now she is nothing to him. Absolutely nothing. This will explain his indifference, his absolute coldness: "You simply produce no effect. You gave shape and substance to the shadows of art.. You are nothing to me now (Without your art you are nothing” He is cruel: "I will never see you again." C. Sibyl's pleading: She's ready to do anything for him now. She crouches at his feet, she promises to act well again. She reminds him of their kiss, of the physical contact which ha s revealed to her the reality of their love (implying that for Oscar Wilde, real love is physical), she even remembers her brother' s threat, feels Dorian is in danger and is on the point of saying something to warn him, but thinks better of it. She cries. Dorian's final answer: his "exquisite disdain"; a complex He resolves not to sin: he will go oxymoron. D. Covent Garden - Dorian has been wandering through the night. He doesn't remember where he has been to until he comes to Covent Garden. This shows that despite his coldness towards Sybil, he is troubled, he is not himself. But if he has been back to Sibyl, ask her suffering it's not because of the loss of Sybil, but because of the loss of his beautiful love story. Certainly also because he has felt humiliated because of her in front of his dearest friend. Cov ent Garden was the name at that time of London's central market, and of its forgiveness, and have a opera and a curious place where in the little hours of the morning, two worlds met. The world of the aristocrats who were coming out of the opera, or finishing a night they had spe nt in not very respectable places in town, and the world of fruit and fish mongers, wonderful moral life with her. shop keepers, hard workers who began their day. It was full of life and colours. For Dorian the passage through Covent Garden is a passage through normality, through life that is beginning, so, it is "an anodyne for his pain”. But he is far from it, estranged from it to He draws a screen over the the point that he can't understand the generosity of a carter who offers him cherries. portrait and makes himself think about her in a loving way III. At home. The portrait has changed. - At home - It is dawn when Dorian arrives. A beautiful piece of writing. We are introduced for the first time to the luxury and the refinement of his home. But Dorian immediately sees something not quite normal in the A. again. portrait. He's not sure at first, then comes back to is and has the confirmation of his first impression. Dorian's reaction - He remembers the wish he had made in Basil's studio and realizes it had been a mad wish. He also realises all that it meant. He recognises the B. new expression of the portrait: cruelty, and of course questions himself as to his behaviour. But immediately finds excuses for himself. It was Sibyl's fault, not his. And he even thinks that "women (are) better suited to bear sorrow than men. “If such a horribly selfish tho ught comes to his mind, it is directly the result of Lord Henry’s work. Then he tries to deny the reality of what he has seen. It's not the portrait that has altered it's he who is going momentarily mad. Then he foresees the future. It's time to make a good resolution, not to sin anymore, to become good, not to listen to Lord Henry anymore. He even tries to believe in his love for Sybil again. CONCLUSION: This is a very important chapter because it is the narrative, the description of Dorian's first sin. The original sin. And it has been different from what we expected. Dorian has not dishonoured Sybil, has not had sex with her, because for Oscar Wilde the temptation of sex resides in men, not in women. The portrait has changed. We understand that the wish has come true, that this novel is a fantastic novel, that this story is a supernatural story. And we realise it only now, around the hundredth page. Finally the portrait is going now to play a role now. It has already altered Dorian's perception and memory of what has happened between him and Sybil. At this point in the story it could play the role of Dorian's conscience or on the contrary we feel that it could encourage him to go on sinning as long as proof is made that the young man himself will not alter, will remain young and handsome whatever he does. He immediately asks Dorian many questions about what he was doing last night, about Sibyl's, etc. Dorian, who is enjoying his wine, answers with a complete indifference that he was indeed at the opera. Basil is shocked. For Dorian this tragedy already belongs to the past. Basil exclaims: "You call yesterday the past?" Then later, after Dorian has explained that he doesn't "want to be at the mercy of [his] emotions" he declares: "Dorian, this is horrible, something has changed you completely!", “It is all Harry's influence, I see that." They quarrel in a way.

Dorian doesn’t wake up the next day until well past noon. He gets up and looks through his mail, finding and laying When Dorian's portrait transforms in response to how he treated Sibyl, the nature of the novel's universe changes. Chapter 8 provides a similar pivot, if aside a piece of mail hand delivered from Lord Henry that morning. He gets up and eats a light breakfast all the a quieter one. Chapter 7 ended with Dorian showing the first signs of learning from the painting. On his own he had not been able to see the while feeling as if he has been part of some kind of tragedy recently. As he sits at breakfast, he sees the screen that he hatefulness of his actions toward Sibyl, but the visual evidence of cruelty depicted in his portrait gives a glimpse of how his actions may have changed hurriedly put in front of his portrait the night before and realizes it was not a dream but is true. He tells his servant him. He becomes remorseful and determines not to sin again. that he is not accepting callers and he goes to the portrait and removes the screen. He hesitates to do so, but decides However, this chapter shows Dorian's emotions leaning in the opposite direction —toward pleasure, even if sinful. Just as his earliest changes had come he must. When he looks at the portrait he sees that it was not an illusion. The change remains. He looks at it with from talking with Henry, so does this one. horror. At other key moments in the novel, Dorian speaks with both Basil and Henry. This time he sees only Henry, who starts by being supportive and He realis es how unjust and cruel he had been to Sibyl the night before. He thinks the portrait will serve him as a sympathetic. His cynical advice regarding the inquest into Sibyl's death supports the novel's theme of reputation versus character, as he tells Dorian, conscience throughout life. He remains looking at the portrait for hours more. Finally, he gets paper and begins to "There will have to be an inquest, of course, and you must not be mixed up in it. Things like that make a man fashionable in Paris. But in London write a passionate letter to Sibyl apologising for what he had said to her and vowing eternal love. He reproaches people are so prejudiced. Here, one should never make one's debut with a scandal." himself in the letter so voluptuously that he feels absolved, like a person who has been to confession. He lays the letter Henry soon transitions to a less conventional role and guides Dorian to see Sibyl's death aesthetically, as he does. This is, in many ways, horrific. Dorian, to the side and then he hears Lord Henry calling to him through the door. though, accepts the guidance, and fully embraces Henry's life path of pleasure.

Lord Henry begs to be let in and Dorian decides he will let him. Lord Henry apologises for all that has happened. Amid these moments of philosophy and shifting character, there are also details foreshadowing later events in the novel. After Henry invites Dorian to Dorian tells him he was brutal with Sibyl the night before after the performance, but now he feels good and is not the opera, Dorian muses, "So I have murdered Sibyl Vane ... murdered her as surely as if I had cut her little throat with a knife." This romanticises his even sorry that it happened. Lord Henry says he had worried that Dorian would be tearing his hair in remorse. Dorian actions. He didn't murder her. She killed herself. says he is quite happy now that he knows what conscience is. He asks Henry not to sneer at it, and says that he wants to be good. He adds that he can’t stand the idea "of [his] soul being hideous." Lord Henry exclaims about this Although he sees Sibyl's suicide as a murder by proxy, it does foreshadow an actual murder: Dorian will kill Basil a few chapters later. Chapter 20 will "charming artistic basis for ethics." Dorian says he will marry Sibyl. It is then when Lord Henry realizes Dorian didn’t see another murder by proxy—though this time a decidedly surreal one—as Dorian kills himself by stabbing his portrait. read his letter. In it, he had told Dorian that Sibyl committed suicide the night before by swallowing some kind of Both of these later deaths reflect in some way on Dorian the artistic creation: Basil painted his portrait, and that portrait frees Dorian to indulge his poison. pleasures freely. Sibyl's death, too, is that sort of killing. In his mind Dorian creates Sibyl as the artistic embodiment of the heroines she portrays and abandons (symbolically kills) her when the reality of her everyday self is revealed. Lord Henry begins advising Dorian about how to avoid the scandal that such a story would attach to his name. He asks if anyone but Sibyl knew his name and if anyone saw him go behind stage to speak to her after her performance. In Chapter 8, Dorian struggles briefly with his conscience. Under Lord Henry's influence, it is not contest: By the end of the chapter, Dorian has Lord Henry urges Dorian not to let the episode get on his nerves. He invites him out to dinner and to the opera with his dedicated himself entirely to the pursuit of pleasure and sin. He throws away the last scraps of his conscience and becomes a completely selfish being. sister and some smart women. Dorian exclaims that he has murdered Sibyl Vane. He marvels that life is still as By the time he goes to the opera with Lord Henry, he doesn't even feel protective about the portrait, which up to this point was the one thing that he beautiful with birds singing and roses blooming. He adds that if he had read it in a book, he would have thought it still cared about. Lord Henry's sole concern is to protect Dorian's reputation and to urge him to get on with his life. He cares not a whit for the young movingly tragic. He recounts the exchange between he and Sibyl the night before, telling Henry of how cruel he was in Sybil and instead speaks superficially about fashion, women, and the convenience of Sibyl's death. He views the whole affair as a splendid artistic casting her aside. He ends by condemning her as selfish for killing herself. experience. His reaction is in line with the cynicism that the reader has observed in his character all along; Lord Henry's ability to make Sibyl's death a trivial matter in Dorian's mind demonstrates that his cynicism and his power to influence Dorian have reached new heights. Lord Henry tells him that a woman can only reform a man by boring him so completely that he loses all interest in life. He adds that if Dorian would have married Sibyl, he would have been miserable because he wouldn’t have loved her. The flippant, carefree attitudes that Dorian and Lord Henry display in this chapter caused many people to accuse Oscar Wilde of writing an immoral Dorian concedes that it probably would have been. He is amazed that he doesn’t feel the tragedy more than he does. book when The Picture of Dorian Gray was first published. However, the reader needs to distinguish between an author and his characters. Certainly He wonders if he’s heartless. He thinks of it as a wonderful ending to a wonderful play, a "tragedy in which [he] took a Lord Henry and Dorian often behave like scoundrels, but continuing the Faust theme, Lord Henry is demonic and Dorian blindly does his bidding. He great part, but by which [he] has not been wounded." Lord Henry likes to play on Dorian’s unconscious egotism, so he exclaims over the interest of Dorian’s sense of it. Dorian thinks he will now have to go into mourning, but Lord Henry knows exactly how to appeal to Dorian's weaknesses, of which there are plenty. Still, these two are both despicable fellows. The reader might admire tells him it is unnecessary since there is already enough mourning in life. He adds that Sibyl must have been different or envy parts of their lives, but at this point it is very difficult to like them. from all other women who are so trivial and predictable. When Dorian expresses remorse at having been cruel to her, This is an important chapter because it is the moment when Dorian learns about Sibyl's death and we see how he reacts to it, finally making up his mind to follow his Lord Henry assures him that women appreciate cruelty more than anything else. They are primitive. Men have emancipated them, but they have remained slaves and they love being dominated. He reminds Dorian that Sibyl was own impulsions in the discoveries of new pleasures and new sins. At the end of the chapter, Dorian has become totally evil. He will never again in the course of the novel be tempted by goodness, except at the very end. a great actress and that he can think of her suicide as an ending to a Jacobean tragedy. Part I. Dorian is alone, at home - He wakes up and slowly remembers what has happened to him the previous night, as well as his good resolution to write a letter to Dorian finally thanks Lord Henry for explaining himself to him. He revels in what a marvellous experience it has all Sybil. Letters have been brought to him by his valet. One is from Lord Henry but he refuses to read it because he determined not to listen to his bad advice anymore. It been for him. He wonders if life will give him anything more marvellous and Henry assures him that it will. He wonders is of course important that he should not open it since we will understand that the letter announces Sibyl's death. Then Dorian writes a letter to the young woman, a what will happen when he gets old and ugly. Henry tells him that then he will have to fight for his victories. Dorian passionate letter. He will never send it because he is interrupted by the arrival of Lord Henry. decides he will join Lord Henry at the opera after all. Lord Henry departs. Part II. The dialogue with Lord Henry - There is a rather long misunderstanding. Lord Henry has come to comfort Dorian about Sibyl's death (which for him is an unfortunate incident) whereas Dorian thinks he just wants to comfort him about Sibyl's bad performance. When finally, Dorian understands the truth, he is of course When he is alone, Dorian looks again at the portrait. He sees that it hasn’t changed since he last saw it. He thinks of poor Sibyl and revels in the romance of it all. He decides that he will embrace life and the portrait will bear the struck and shocked but immediately, Lord Henry will minimise the importance of the young woman's death by concentrating his attention on the problem of the burden of his shame. He is sad to think of how the beautiful portrait will be marred. He thinks for a minute about possible scandal and not on th e event itself . In fact Sybil has committed suicide just after Dorian left her and therefore he is directly responsible for her death. praying that the strange sympathy that exists between him and the picture would disappear, but he reali zes that no Then as Dorian is still in a state of shock he tries to show him that life should go on as usual and invites him to the theat re for the same evening. Dorian at last is able to one would give up the chance at being forever young. Then he decides that he will get pleasure out of watching the express himself and he immediately reali ses that he's not so shocked after all. Then another idea comes to his mind: “How extraordinarily dramatic life is!" This is all like changes. The portrait would be a magic mirror for him, revealing his soul to him. He pushes the screen back in front of a beautiful tragedy. It's even "wonderful" it and dresses for the opera. Then another idea: he thinks of the portrait again and realis es that now there is nothing left to protect him from sin, to stop the deterioration of the picture. Sybil was Chapter 8 reveals that Dorian will choose to stifle his moral sense of responsibility in favour of pleasure. Wilde chooses the only one who could have kept him on the path to salvation. But Lord Henry is going to drown his anxiety in his usual witty and charmingly immoral speeches, about marriage, about women, etc. He also convinces him that Sybil in fact had no reality that she was nothing more than the roles she played. Finally, Dorian comes to have Lord Henry go to Dorian the next morning when the news of Sibyl Vane’s death has been announced in the papers, rather than Basil Hallward. Lord Henry convinces Dorian that what has happened is not a tragedy at all, but to the most incredible conclusion that he has been very lucky that such a wonderful thing should have happened to him and he goes to the theatre. a farce. He accomplishes this persuasive aim by the use of misogynist aphorisms (anti-woman statements). He decides Throughout this scene, Dorian's feelings have been quite muddled, sometimes contradictory. He has passed from shock to a sort of aesthetic pleasure, then the thought by the end of the chapter that the strange magic of the portrait will be good for him. He will be able to ignore it as a of the portrait has brought a sort of remorse caused in fact by fear. But what has prevailed is this aesthetic pleasure? Sibyl's life has been sacrificed to the altar of art. conscience while enjoying his everlasting youth. Art needs no justification. Art exists just for art's sake.

The next morning after the opera, Dorian is visited by Basil Hallward. Basil In his preface to this novel, Wilde evaluates people who find "ugly meanings in beautiful things" and those who find "beautiful meanings in beautiful things." Chapter 9 fills assumes that he really didn’t go to the opera the night before and is shocked to in the rest of that spectrum, for in this chapter Dorian shows himself to be someone who can refuse to see the meaning and ugliness in an ugly thing (Sibyl's death). Basil is find out that he did so after all. He can’t believe that Dorian is so unfeeling when Sibyl isn’t even buried yet. Dorian tells him he doesn’t want to hear about rightly horrified at Dorian's response, which is cold and distant to the point of being inhuman. When Basil objects, Dorian explains further, trotting ou t a theory of self - it because it’s in the past. He thinks if he is a strong man, he should be able to mastery that is a distorted version of a spiritual perspective. Where a serene soul or enlightened person might be able to let a pain go more quickly than most people dominate his feelings and end them when he wants to end them. Basil blames through lack of egoistic attachment, Dorian is severing his attachment from the pain of Sibyl's death with a knife of pure ego. Dorian’s lack of feeling on Lord Henry. Dorian tells Basil that it was he who When Basil asks Dorian to pose for him again, Dorian's supposed self-mastery is exposed as false. He overreacts wildly and, when Basil asks to see the earlier portrait, he taught him to be vain. Basil is shocked to find out that Sibyl killed herself. becomes quite terrified. As Basil continues talking about the portrait Dorian turns white with extreme anger. These are not the responses of a man who has mastered Dorian tells him it is fitting that she did, more artistic. "Her death has all the himself or one who can put pain behind him. pathetic uselessness of martyrdom, all its wasted beauty." He tells Basil that he has suffered, that he was suffering terribly yesterday around five or six o’clock. The conversation between Basil and Dorian plays masterfully with the plot element of suspense. Wilde teases the reader by having Basil ask Dorian if he's noticed anything He says he no longer has these emotions and it would be nothing but empty "curious" about the painting. This ends up being a red herring, as what Basil's concerned about Dorian noticing might be embarrassing (Basil's attitude toward Dorian), but sentimentality to try to repeat the feelings that have passed. He asks Basil to help him see the art in it rather than to try to make him feel guilt over it. He it is not the metaphysical strangeness of the actual painting, transforming as it does with Dorian's every sin. Their conversation shifts from a potential exposure of Dorian's begs Basil not to leave him but to stop quarrelling with him. inner nature to an exposure of Basil's inner nature. In that it shows the period's anxiety regarding homosexual attraction.

Basil is moved by Dorian’s speech and decides Dorian might be passing through Wilde uses this chapter to continue his character development of both Basil and Dorian. Basil shows himself to be a decent, caring human being who is as concerned for Sibyl a momentary lapse of feeling and should be berated for it. He agrees not to and her mother as he is for Dorian. Unlike Lord Henry, he does not encourage Dorian to turn away from the girl's death or treat it like some entertaining fantasy. In a speak to Dorian again of Sibyl. Dorian asks him, however, to draw him a moment of heightened irony, Dorian accuses Basil of being "too much afraid of life." In fact, Dorian is afraid that Basil will see the portrait and thus learn of his secret pact. picture of Sibyl. Basil agrees to do so and urges Dorian to come sit for him again, saying he can’t get on with his painting without Dorian. Dorian starts and says he will never be able to sit for Basil again. Basil is shocked and then looks As for Dorian, he shows himself to be fully immersed in his new life of selfishness and manipulation. For example, when Dorian learns of Basil's strange admiration for him, an admiration that has obviously had a major impact on Basil, Dorian is simply pleased to be adored by Basil. As he wonders if he will ever feel that way toward someone, it around to see if he can see the portrait he gave Dorian. He is annoyed to find that it is hidden behind a screen and goes toward it. Dorian jumps up and becomes evident that he already does — while he respects Lord Henry, Dorian only adores himself. When he gets Basil to admit his secret without having to reveal his own, stands between him and the screen keeping him away from it. He makes Basil he feels pleasure at having manipulated the situation so completely to his own advantage. His decision at the end of the chapter to hide the painting reveals his promise never to look at it again and not to ever ask why. Basil is surprised but commitment to a life of vanity and self-gratification. agrees to do so, saying that Dorian’s friendship is more important to him than anything. He tells Dorian he plans to show the portrait in an exhibit. Dorian Wilde also shows the reader the tension that Dorian feels about keeping his pact a secret. Dorian becomes gripped with raging fear when he hears that Basil wants to see remembers the afternoon in Basil’s studio when Basil said he would never show the painting and to show it to others — he is so afraid that he actually breaks into a sweat. Dorian's fear points to an important theme in the book: A life devoted solely to it. He remembers Lord Henry telling him to ask Basil one day about why. He does so now. the pursuit of selfish pleasure will always be marred by self-conscious fear. Dorian has what he wants — eternal youth and a life filled with pleasure — but he can't fully enjoy his life for fear that his secret will be discovered. Dorian's fear in this chapter is the first sign that Dorian's new life will be a study in disappointment. Basil explains to him reluctantly that he was fascinated with him and dominated by his personality from the first moment he saw him. He painted Readers should note that this chapter contains several ironic allusions that become important later in the story. For example, Dorian makes a fleeting and flippant reference every kind of portrait of him, putting him in ancient Greek garb and in about Sibyl's brother; when Dorian mentions James, the reader is reminded of the brother's promise to kill anyone who harms Sybil. The repeated references to the brother Renaissance garb. One day he decided to paint Dorian as he was, and as he remind the reader of his presence and foreshadow his later re-emergence in the book. As the novel progresses, the reader also will see the irony in Dorian's statement that painted each stroke, he became fascinated with the idea that the portrait was he would turn to Basil in a time of trouble. revealing his idolatry of Dorian. He swore then hat he would never exhibit it. 4. In what way does Lord Henry affect Dorian's character? Why does Lord However, after he gave the portrait to Dorian, the feeling passed away from him. He realized that "art conceals the artist far more completely than if ever Henry choose Dorian as his disciple? And what impels Dorian to follow his The dramatic change which Dorian's personality has undergone is much reveals him." That was when he decided to exhibit the portrait as a centrepiece. guidance? What is it that Dorian fears? clearer in chapter nine. He even goes as far as to start quoting Lord Henry. Dorian takes a breath. He realizes he is safe for the present since Basil clearly He states that "If one doesn't talk about a thing, it has never happened. It is 5. Is Lord Henry's belief in the freedom of the individual truly evil? Or does doesn’t know the truth about the painting. Basil thinks Dorian sees what he saw simply expression, as Harry says, that gives reality to things." page 118. The Dorian misconstrue it? Does Lord Henry actually practice the ideas he in the portrait, his idolatry of Dorian. He tries to get Dorian to let him see the fact that this is the response of which Dorian gives when Basil is simply trying espouses? Does he understand the real life consequences his ideas would portrait, but Dorian still refuses. Basil leaves and Dorian thinks over what he to comfort him speaks volumes. It shows that he has a sort of detachment had said to him. He calls his servant, realizing that the portrait has to be put have, or does he exhibit a sort of naiveté? away where he won’t run the risk of guests trying to see it. from the whole situation. Dorian comes across as being cold and somewhat callous. He tries to justify his behaviour but his reasoning is severely flawed. 6. Lord Henry and Dorian claim to be artists in the way they live their lives. The fact that he was able to go to the Opera and have a good time shows Wilde structures the novel like a play. First, the three men go to the play Is this true, based on Wilde's definition of the artist, as expressed in the together and witness the destruction of Sibyl Vane’s acting talent. Next, Dorian that his innocent nature has completely seeped away. scorns her and she kills herself. The next morning, one of his admirers comes to preface? Is this true based on your own definition? him and convinces him to feel no guilt. The next morning after that, his other Chapter nine also shows that Dorian is not disillusioned about Lord Henry, admirer comes to him and is shocked that he feels no guilt, but is led to forgive that in fact he sees him quite clearly. Basil is berating him, saying that 7. Why does Sibyl commit suicide and what impact does her death have on him for it. Wilde continues to play the triangular relationship with symmetrical something has changed within him and that it is because of Lord Henry's Dorian? precision. influence. Dorian goes on to tell him that "Of course I am very fond of Harry. 8. Dorian is outwardly young and charming, and inwardly old and corrupt. The portrait is here taken to another level. Dorian hides it desperately, sure that But I know that you are better than he is. You are not stronger - you are too anyone who looks at it will see his shame. Basil Hallway, who himself once swore much afraid of life - but you are better." In this scene Dorian acknowledges He is decidedly inconsistent in his social interactions and intellectual that he would never exhibit the painting for fear that everyone would be able that Basil is the better person and that Lord Henry cannot be trusted. interests, while extremely consistent in appearance. Discuss the theme of to see his idolatry of Dorian Gray, now feels that art is after all abstract, nothing duplicity throughout the novel. However, it is also clear that Dorian has no intention to stop associating with but form and colour. Lord Henry.

Dorian is in his drawing room when his manservant Victor enters. He scrutinises Victor to see if Victor has looked behind the curtain at the portrait. He watches Victor in the mirror to see if he Throughout the first half of this chapter, Dorian is fraught with can see anything but can see nothing but "a placid mask of servility." He sends for the housekeeper. When she arrives, he asks her to give him the key to the old schoolroom. She wants to clean paranoia and fear that Victor will discover the secret of the portrait. it up before he goes up to it, but he insists he doesn’t need it cleaned. She mentions that it hasn’t been used for five years, since his grandfather died. Dorian winces at the mention of his grandfather, who was always mean to him. Continuing the theme that was established in the preceding chapter, Dorian isn't enjoying the life he has chosen — even though he craves When she leaves, he takes the cover off the couch and throws it over the portrait. He thinks of Basil and wonders if he shouldn’t have appealed to Basil to help him resist Lord Henry’s influence. it more than anything. Instead of a life of glorious exploration and He knows Basil loves him with more than just a physical love. However, he gives up on the thought of asking Basil for help, deciding that the future is inevitable and the past can always be passion, he spends his time scheming and worrying. annihilated. Dorian seals his commitment to a life of vanity and debauchery He receives the men from the frame maker’s shop. The frame maker himself, Mr. Hubbard, has come. He asks the two men to help him carry the portrait upstairs. He sends Victor away to Lord when he hides and locks the portrait in the attic schoolroom. He Henry’s so as to get him out of the way in order to hide the operation from him. They get the portrait upstairs with some trouble and he has them lean it against the wall and leave it. He hates rationalises that he might, in fact, become more virtuous and reverse the idea of leaving it in the dreaded room where he was always sent to be away from his grandfather who didn’t like to see him, but it’s the only room not in use in the house. He wonders the moral decay reflected in the picture, but even he seems to know what the picture will look like over time. He thinks with repulsion of how its image will show the signs of old age. that will never happen. He seems to be thoroughly infected with the

cynicism that Lord Henry has shown throughout the book; Dorian When he gets back downstairs to the library, Victor has returned from Lord Henry’s. Lord Henry had sent him a book and the paper. The paper is marked with a red pen on a passage about the inquest into Sibyl Vane’s death. He throws it away annoyed at Lord Henry for sending it and fearing that Victor saw the red mark. Then he picks up the book Lord Henry sent him. It is a has been a good student of his mentor. It is enough for Dorian that fascinating book from the first page. It is a plot-less novel, a psychological study of a young Parisian who spends all his life trying to realize all the passions and modes of thought of previous he would wither and age without the portrait. He cannot and will ages. It is written in the style of the French Symbolists. He finds it to be a poisonous book. He can’t put it down. It makes him late to dinner with Lord Henry. not destroy the picture or attempt to negate the Faustian contract, if only because of his obsession with youthful beauty. Here, Dorian Gray sinks into paranoia in regard to the portrait. He begins to suspect his manservant Victor of sneaking around the portrait. He wonders if Victor will even extort money from him for his secret knowledge of the portrait. The first ten chapters of the novel cover a time span of about a month after Dorian and Lord Henry meet. In that time, Lord Henry's At the end of the chapter, Lord Henry’s influence finds another inroad. He sends Dorian a book by a French Symbolist writer. Dorian finds it poisonous like Lord Henry’s ideas, but he is as influence increases, and Dorian changes significantly. As Basil points fascinated with it as he is with Lord Henry. At one point early in the chapter, Dorian wonders if he shouldn’t have confessed to Basil about the portrait and begged him to save him from the out, Dorian is not the innocent, well-meaning young man who first influence of Lord Henry. By the end of the chapter, it is clear that Dorian is far from Basil Hallward’s influence. posed for him. With Lord Henry's encouragement, Dorian has

become self-absorbed and cruel. At first, Dorian may not have been

aware of the seriousness of his wish to remain youthful while the It is possible that the unused schoolroom is the only empty room in Dorian's house. However, for purposes of understanding this novel, it is more useful to see the room symbolically. Dorian has portrait aged. By the time that he hides the portrait in the attic, shown himself completely unwilling to learn from experience. His own psychic schoolroom is unused, dusty, and locked away. It makes perfect symbolic sense to store the painting there, along however, he has every reason to know the consequences. He knows with all the lessons from childhood he never reviews. This symbol should also nudge readers to realize how little they know of Dorian's actual past. The only details Wilde provides are through that the pact will "breed horrors and yet will never die." Lord George Fermor, Henry's uncle, and they are details that make Dorian a more romantic figure, not less. The impulsiveness with which Dorian gave his heart to Sibyl may be seen as an inheritance from his mother: Margaret Devereux ran off with and married a penniless soldier—a romantic and impulsive gesture. Dorian's decision to hide the painting supports two of the novel's themes: appearance versus reality and art versus life. This indicates an embrace of the painting's power to hide his sin and aging In this chapter, Dorian seems resigned to his fate. As in the Faust and a refusal to use it to guide his character. If he can't see the lessons it gives him, he can't learn from the painting. Hiding the portrait away shows that for Dorian his soul belongs with his legends, the central character seems to feel beyond hope. According unused past. to the Faust legend, he could save himself if he would only repent and seek absolution. Dorian does consider turning to Basil, confessing, and seeking a more enlightened path. His ultimate A distinct turning point in the chapter is Henry's gift of a "yellow book." Dorian puts away his school books, and he takes up this yellow book. Wilde never tells readers exactly what this book is, or if it is a specific book, but it is a work of French literature. Some scholars have stopped there, but others take the argument further, arguing it is the 1884 novel À Rebours (Against decision, however, is not just based on despair. True to the Faust Nature or Against the Grain) by Joris-Karl Huysmans. This novel focused on the last member of an aristocratic house doing increasingly perverted things just to avoid boredom. legend, he truly craves the benefits of the bargain. Wilde read this novel, and it influenced his writing of The Picture of Dorian Gray. It then has a profound influence on Dorian in turn and foreshadows his own hedonistic life of pleasure seeking. In literature or in dreams, an upper room such as an attic is considered to symbolise an aspect of the psyche of which the everyday self is unaware. In the Gothic and fairy tale traditions, such Having chosen, Dorian immediately falls under the power of the a room usually harbours a secret involving violence or disgrace. (Jane Eyre draws on this tradition when the mad wife of Jane’s beloved Mr Rochester is revealed in her apartments at the top "yellow book" sent by Lord Henry. It is well-worn, and the reader of Thornfield House.) can assume that Lord Henry knows its contents and anticipates its effect on Dorian. Dorian is enthralled by the story and immediately The room in Dorian’s house had been 'specially built' by Lord Kelso for his grandson – evidently he saw Dorian himself as a shameful secret. The fact that the room has been untouched since adopts it as a blueprint for his life. Note that Wilde ironically chooses Kelso died suggests that Dorian resents this – but, ironically, he treats the ‘real’ Dorian on the canvas in the same way, banishing it from his sight. In Lippincott’s the character of the a book to provide the guidelines for Dorian's life of debauchery. housekeeper, Mrs Leaf, is more developed, as a comic figure whose relationship with Dorian is loving and maternal. In this edition her role is purely functional. This underlines the theme of the chapter: isolation. Wilde's devotion, even obsession, to his art is indicated by an incident Throughout, Dorian strips himself of human contact. He decides it is 'too late' to patch it up with Basil. He is even too rapt in thought to talk to the frame-maker, comically failing to notice regarding Chapter 10. Although Wilde affected the airs of a the transparent adoration of his assistant. Increasingly, Victor the servant becomes the object of near-paranoia: at the beginning of the chapter he is 'impassive', later he has 'treacherous dilettante, he was industrious and productive. After submitting The eyes' and by the end he is 'a spy'. Picture of Dorian Gray for proofreading, he went to France for a While the chapter offers a psychological basis for Dorian’s behaviour – a lonely and unwanted child may well become self-obsessed – the theme of isolation is also sharply relevant to a world much-deserved break. His editors received a startling telegram from faced with the ‘blackmailer’s charter’. Dorian would not be the only man in 1891 to be afraid of 'some servant who had read a letter, or overheard a conversation, or picked up a card with an Paris: "Stop all proofs. Wilde." The author returned in person to address'. change the name of one character. The picture framer in the tenth chapter originally was named "Ashton." Wilde had decided that Isolation is also an inevitable aspect of the Faustian bargain. An ageless being is cut off from people who grow old and die. Dorian’s response to the report of Sibyl’s inquest underlines this. He thinks of himself in the third person: 'What had Dorian Gray to do with Sibyl Vane’s death? … Dorian Gray had not killed her'. This inability to connect with the 'horribly real' echoes the "Ashton is a gentleman's name." He changed it to "Hubbard," which he felt was more fitting for a tradesman. growing isolation of Faustus in Marlowe’s play. And just as Mephistopheles the devil provides Faustus with entertainment, so Lord Henry sends Dorian a crucial book.

For years afterwards, Dorian Gray continues to feel the influence of the book Lord Henry gave him. He gets more copies of the book from The chapter serves several functions. First, it documents Henry's inconsistency. Although he claims all Paris and has them bound in different colours. He thinks of the book as containing the story of his life. He feels himself lucky to be different influence is bad, he works in a focused fashion to influence Dorian. In this case he sends him a "yellow book" from the novel’s hero in respect to aging. While the novel’s hero bemoans his loss of youthful beauty, Dorian Gray never loses his youth. He that is so well targeted it becomes a near obsession for Dorian. Second, the chapter documents Dorian's reads the passages over and over again revelling in his difference from the hero in this respect. rather odd nature as far as influence. On one hand he seems to reject social conventions, living life as he chooses. This can be seen in his conspicuous consumption and display. On the other hand he is so influenced People in his social circle often hear dreadful things about Dorian Gray, but when they look at him and see his fresh, young looks, they dismiss by this mysterious little book he has multiple copies of it. the rumours as impossible. Dorian is often gone from home for long periods of time and never tells anyone where he has gone. He always returns home and goes straight upstairs to see the portrait’s changes. He grows more and more in love with his own beauty. He spends much Third, this chapter illustrates Dorian's complex relationship with his portrait. If the "yellow book" inspires time in a sordid tavern near the docks and thinks with pity of the degradation he has brought on his soul. Most of the time, though, he him at all times, Basil's painting haunts him at all times. Any time he indulges himself with jewels or doesn’t think of his soul. He has "mad hungers that [grow] more ravenous as he [feeds] them." perfumes, he does so not just for his own pleasure but to keep his terror of the portrait at bay. At the same time, through his indulgences he is creating the very thing he fears (transformations in the portrait). In this He entertains once or twice a month with such lavish fare and such exquisite furnishings that he becomes the most popular of London’s young way Wilde provides here a perfect illustration of addiction or obsession. Dorian is creating the very face he men. He is admired by all the men who see him as a type of man who combines the real culture of a scholar with the grace of a citizen of the fears. Wilde also shows the reader how very different interests can serve the same function. On the surface world. He lives his life as if it were an art work. His style of dressing sets the standard of all the fashionable shops. there is little or no relationship among Catholicism, Darwinism, and, say, jewels. They seem like three distinct obsessions. By clustering them together Wilde shows how they all serve as escapes, and how all allow Dorian to indulge himself. Wilde makes it clear that Dorian can act this way only because of his class. He worships the senses in many different forms. He lives the new Hedonism that Lord Henry has told him of. He enjoys the service of the Catholic Church for its ritual and its pathos. Yet, he never embraces any creed or system of thought because he refuses to arrest his Only the wealthy can afford the sort of systematic self-indulgence shown here. The chapter develops the theme of character versus reputation as well. For all that Dorian's magic intellectual development. He studies new perfumes and experiments with them endlessly. He devotes himself for long periods to the study of painting keeps the results of his excesses from showing up on his face, he can't keep people from talking all kinds of musical forms from all over the world. He even studies the stories written about the music, the stories of magic and death. He about him. The bulk of Chapter 11 lists, page after page, the various pursuits of Dorian's adult life. In these takes of the study of jewels for a while, collecting rare and precious jewels from all over the world for the pleasure of looking at them and lists, Wilde shows the result of Dorian's chosen path. The reader sees the peculiar kind of hell that Dorian feeling them. He collects stories about jewels as part of animals and stories of jewels which caused death and destruction. For a time, he inhabits because of his pact; Wilde delivers a strong judgement against the dangers of decadence. The studies embroideries of all sorts and the stories that attach to them. He collects embroideries and tapestries from all over the world. He lengthy passages describing Dorian's study of perfumes, music, jewels, and embroideries border on being especially loves ecclesiastical vestments. The beautiful things he collects are part of his methods of forgetfulness. He wants to escape the fear tedious. Wilde was too good a writer to include these passages merely to show off his knowledge of these that sometimes seems to overwhelm him. subjects. These overly-detailed passages transport the reader into the world that Dorian has created for himself, one in which the passionate pursuit of pleasure has become a monotonous, vain, never-ending

After some years, he becomes unable to leave London for any purpose because he cannot bear to be away from the portrait for any length stream of meaningless and trivial debauchery. No matter how much Dorian indulges his passions, he is of time. Often when he’s out with friends, he breaks off and rushes home to see if the portrait is still where it should be and to ensure that no never satisfied. By the end of the chapter, the narrator states of Dorian, "There were moments when he one has tampered with the door. He develops a desperate fear that someone might steal the portrait and then everyone would know about looked on evil simply as a mode through which he could realise his conception of the beautiful." Dorian's him. life seems to be one of floating from one passion to the next, completely at his own whim. And yet, he remains tethered to the portrait and his fear that his secret will be discovered. He lives in a gilded cage, a Most people are fascinated with Dorian Gray, but some people are distrustful of him. He is almost banned from two clubs. He is ostracized by prisoner of his passions and his fears. some prominent men. People begin to tell curious stories about him hanging around with foreign sailors in run down pubs and interacting with thieves and coiners. People talk about his strange absences. He never takes notice of these looks people give him. Most of them see his In chapter 11, we encounter a peculiar first-person interjection from the narrator: "Is boyish smile and can’t imagine that the stories could be true. Yet the stories remain. Sometime people notice women, who at one time insincerity such a terrible thing? I think not." Does this voice, or this argument, remind you of any of the adored him, blanch when he walks in a room in shame or horror. To most people, the stories only increase his mysterious charm. According to characters in the novel? Discuss Wilde's narrative voice in three or four instances. How does it relate to the Lord Henry, society doesn’t care about morality in its aristocratic members, only good manners. different characters, does it seem to espouse similar views, or to sympathise with certain people more than others? Are we expected to trust the narrator on every occasion? What does this tell us about how the story Dorian Gray can’t imagine why people reduce human beings to a single, "simple, permanent, reliable essence." For Dorian, people enjoy is told? myriad lives and sensations; they change radically from time to time. Dorian likes to look at the portrait gallery of his country house. He wonders about his ancestors and how their blood co-mingled with his own. He looks at Lady Elizabeth Devereaux in her extraordinary beauty and realizes her legacy to him is in his beauty and in his love of all that is beautiful.

He also thinks of his ancestors as being in literature he has read. These characters have influenced him more even than his family members Lord Henry gives Dorian a copy of the yellow book as a gift. Although he never gives the title, Wilde have. The hero of the central novel of his life has certainly been his greatest influence. He also loves to think of all the evil heroes about whom describes the book as a French novel that charts the outrageous experiences of its pleasure-seeking he has read: Caligula, Filippo, Due of Milan, Pietro Barbi, the Borgia, and many more. He feels a "horrible fascination" with all of them. He protagonist (we can fairly assume that the book in question is Joris-Karl Huysman’s decadent knows he has been poisoned by the French Symbolist book. He thinks of evil as nothing more than a mode of experiencing the beautiful. nineteenth-century novel À Rebours, translated as “Against the Grain” or “Against Nature”). The book becomes like Holy Scripture to Dorian, who buys nearly a dozen copies and bases his life and Chapter 11 is a sort of "time passes" chapter. It covers several years in Dorian Gray’s life, summarising his series of aesthetic interests from fine actions on it. The book represents the profound and damaging influence that art can have over an embroidery to the collection of exquisite jewels, and hinting at his debaucheries. The final sentence of the chapter encapsulates the ethos of individual and serves as a warning to those who would surrender themselves so completely to such an

Dorian Gray’s pursuit of the beautiful: "There were moments when he looked on evil simply as a mode through which he could realize his influence. conception of the beautiful." It seems that in dismissing the deal of Sibyl Vane as nothing more than a playing out of the aesthetic (the beautiful) in life, as nothing to do with his own culpability, he has turned his back completely on the idea of goodness. Dorian’s pursuit of the beautiful in life becomes a pursuit of the aesthetics of evil. Yet, Dorian remains tied to the portrait to the extent that he can’t leave London The founding principles were that literature and art should be treated independently and given equal any more even for traveling. The portrait image grows old and ugly and he remains beautiful and innocent-looking. His greatest fear status, and Aubrey Beardsley, illustrator of Wilde’s Salomé was appointed art editor. Indeed, when Wilde was arrested in 1895, there were rumours he had been carrying a yellow-bound book. Though becomes the possibility that the portrait will be stolen. Dorian seems to believe that it is only the portrait’s degradation that allows him carte blanche to continue cutting himself off from moral constraints. this was actually Pierre Louÿs’s French novel Aphrodite, a confused crowd thought it was a copy of this magazine, and gathered to throw stones at the publisher’s offices.

It is the ninth of November, not long before Dorian Gray will turn 38 years old. He is walking home late one night when he sees Basil Hallward. This chapter blends some fairly casual plotting with some essential thematic developments. Given the social circles in which Henry, Basil, and Dorian move, He becomes suddenly afraid to have contact with his old friend whom he hasn’t seen in many months, but Basil sees him and stops him. Basil it is not impossible for Basil and Dorian to run into each other on the street. However, it is less likely for them to do it just before Basil conveniently leaves says he’s been waiting for him all evening and has just given up. He insists on coming back inside with Dorian because he says he has something the country, or, given how dense fog can be in London, on a foggy night. That fog is literal, but it is also symbolic, indicating how both men think they are important to tell him. in control of their lives but are in reality moving through a hazy world where neither sees as clearly as he thinks he does.

Inside, Dorian acts as though he’s bored and wants to go to bed. Basil insists on talking. He says he is going to Paris in one hour’s time and will be Dorian displays this lack of clarity when he rejects the issue of his reputation. Even someone with a magic portrait can be damaged by the persistent taking a studio there for six months. He tells Dorian that he is always having to defend Dorian’s name wherever he goes. He thinks Dorian must circulation of nasty stories, particularly when those stories are true. Basil displays this lack of clarity when he brings up the idea of seeing Dorian's soul. be a good person because he looks so beautiful. He says he knows sin tells on people’s faces after a while, so he has a great deal of trouble Though the concept that artists can see the soul is not uncommon in romanticism, few people think they can do it on demand. Both men seem to claim believing the stories. However, the evidence has piled up and is quite compelling. He names several young men who have lost very promising more control over their lives than they actually have. reputations after being extremely close to Dorian. He names several young women, including Lord Henry’s sister, who have lost their reputations. Lady Gwendolyn, Lord Henry’s sister, has suffered such a fall that she is not even allowed to see her own children any more. He mentions the stories of people who have seen Dorian spending time in "dreadful houses" and in "the foulest dens in London." He mentions the It is the night before Dorian’s thirty-eighth birthday. Coming home in the fog, he encounters Basil, who has just tried to visit him and given up waiting. sto ries of what happens at Dorian’s country house. Basil is planning to leave for Paris, but asks to stay for half an hour. He expresses concern at the rumours about Dorian that are rife in London society. He says that he has told a close friend whose wife’s name is linked with Dorian’s that Dorian is 'incapable' (p. 121) of such things, but points out that in order to know the truth he would have to see Dorian’s soul. Dorian tells him that he can, and invites him upstairs. Basil urges Dorian to have a good influence on people instead of a bad one. He tells Dorian that it is said that he corrupts everyone with whom he becomes intimate. He has even seen a letter shown to him by Lord Gloucester, one of his best friends, that his wife wrote to him on her death bed. It implicated Dorian Gray in her debasement. Basil sums up by saying that he doesn’t know that he even knows Dorian any more. He says Ever the playwright, Wilde divides this climactic action into two chapters in order to create a dramatic pause before the men ascend the staircase to view that he can’t say without seeing Dorian’s soul and only God can do that. At his last words, Dorian goes white with fear and repeats the words the portrait. Chapter 12 serves only to bring the two characters together and set up the critical events in Chapter 13. The large time leap and Dorian’s "To see my soul!" He laughs bitterly and tells Basil that he will see his soul that very night. He will let Basil look on the face of corruption. Basil is avoidance of Basil in the dark make clear the extreme changes that have come to Dorian Gray. His avoidance of Basil suggests guilt and shame. shocked and thinks Dorian is being blasphemous. He stands over Basil and tells him to finish what he has to say to him. Basil says Dorian must Meanwhile, Basil is still working, and moving on—his old masterpiece was the portrait of Dorian. Dorian’s avoidance of serious things shows his habitual give him a satisfactory answer to all the stories about him that very night. Dorian just tells him to come upstairs with him. He says he has written avoidance of reality and substance. Just as he himself is all surface, he wants to keep conversation at the level of the surface. The fact that Basil, who was a dairy of his life from day to day and that it never leaves the room in which it is written. so passionate towards Dorian is acting like a concerned father figure now, illuminates how his influence has changed from innocence and charm to something destructive. A possible turning point occurs in this chapter in which Dorian meets Basil Hallward after many years. He is now 38 years old and, as Basil tells him, has caused so many scandals and ruined so many young men and women’s reputations that Basil has begun to question his integrity. Basil, Dorian’s appearance, though physically unchanged, has finally given way. It does not seem to match the hideous reputation that has spread around the the artist, is sure that a man cannot sin as Dorian is reputed to have sinned and remain beautiful. For Basil, morality is visible on the surface of city. Though shallow measurements like reputation and the appearance of innocence have meant everything until now, the reality of the soul beneath the skin. Beautiful people must be pure people and ugly people must be immoral. Basil’s view of beauty and goodness accords with the leaks through. Dorian's sudden decision seems to indicate a need for release, or maybe a hope that what he sees in the portrait every day is worse than the assumptions behind the story of the novel. Here, Dorian will show him his portrait. The reader must wonder if Basil will be able to see the reality. He wants, suddenly, for someone to truly see him, not just the unchanging beautiful surface he must always wear. ugliness that Dorian sees in the portrait or if the changes in the portrait have only been a figment of Dorian’s guilt-ridden imagination.

The two men climb the stairs and Dorian lets Basil in the room upstairs. He lights the lamp and asks Basil again if he really wants an answer to The three key events in Chapter 13 build to a dramatic climax just as they might on the stage. The first event is the shocking unveiling of the portrait. his question. Basil does, so Dorian pulls the curtain from the portrait and shines the light on it, saying he is delighted to show Basil because Basil is Unlike Lord Henry — and now — Dorian, Basil is a relatively unassuming, decent man. He has come to see Dorian because he is genuinely concerned the only man in the world entitled to know all about him. Basil cries out in horror when he sees the portrait. He stares at it for a long time in about his young friend who has built quite a chilling reputation for himself in the past eighteen years. Basil wants to be told that the rumours about amazement, not believing at first that it is the same portrait he painted all those years ago. Dorian are wrong; his motivations for confronting Dorian are entirely selfless and honest. When he sees the painting, the sin it reveals leaves Basil shaken.

Dorian is leaning against the mantle shelf watching Basil’s reaction with something like triumph expressed on his face. Dorian tells him that years ago when he was a boy, Basil had painted this portrait of him, teaching him to be vain of his looks. Then he had introduced him to Lord Henry The second key event in Chapter 13 — Basil's asking Dorian to absolve his sins — is an essential ingredient in the Faust theme. Realizing who explained to him the wonder of youth. The portrait had completed the lesson in the beauty of youth. When he had seen it in the first what has taken place with the portrait and Dorian's life, and feeling some guilt for his own involvement, Basil pleads with Dorian to let go moment, he had prayed that he should change places with it, never changing and aging, but letting the picture do so. Basil remembers the of his pride and pray for absolution. His concern for Dorian's corrupted soul can be seen as the only truly good and pure act in the novel, prayer. He thinks, however, that it must be impossible. He tries to find some logical explanation for the degradation of the beauty of the and it provides a striking and tragic contrast to Dorian's response: "It is too late, Basil," and "Those words mean nothing to me now." portrait. He thinks perhaps the room was damp or that he had used some kind of poor quality paints. He says there was nothing evil or Typically, the central figure in the Faust legend indulges in despair, feeling that his sin is so great that he no longer can be saved. He cannot shameful in his ideal that he painted that day. This, instead, is the face of a satyr. Dorian says it is the face of his soul. be saved because the combination of pride and despair keep him from seeking forgiveness. Dorian's problem is essentially this, his unwillingness to ask for forgiveness. In addition, there is the question of whether Dorian even wants to change his life. He states that he Basil begins to believe it is true and then realizes what it means. It means that all that is said of Dorian is true and that his reputation isn’t even does not know whether he regrets the wish that evidently made the contract. At this point, the third important event of the chapter as bad as he is. He can hear Dorian sobbing as he begins to pray. He asks Dorian to join him in prayer. He says Dorian worshipped himself too occurs. Dorian seems to receive some sort of message from the image on the canvas and is driven to murder his old friend. Basil's death much and now they are both punished. Dorian tells him it’s too late. Basil insists that it isn’t. He begins to pray. Dorian looks at the picture and suddenly feels an overwhelming hatred for Basil. He sees a knife lying nearby and picks it up. He walks over and stands behind Basil and stabs conveniently removes the most immediate and serious threat to Dorian's way of life and his pact with the forces of evil. After the murder, he feels oddly calm and goes about the business of removing evidence and establishing an alibi. In the coolness of Dorian's actions after he him in the neck several times. When he is finished, he hears nothing but blood dripping. He goes to the door and locks it. He is horrified to look at Basil’s body. He goes to the window and sees a policeman outside and an old woman. He tries not to think about what has happen. He picks kills Basil, the reader sees that Dorian has spoken at least a few truthful words during his corrupt life — his admission that it is too late to up the lamp because he knows the servant will miss it from downstairs, and he goes downstairs, locking the door behind him. Everything is quiet save his soul. Dorian kills the only real friend he has, and with that, he kills the only chance he has to redeem his soul. in the house. He remembers that Basil was supposed to leave for Paris that night and had even sent his heavy things ahead of him. No one had seen him come back inside after he left his house earlier that evening. No one will begin to wonder about him for months to come. He puts Wilde's philosophical goals are very contemporary, like Dorian's pleasures. However, this scene calls on the power of an older tradition: Basil’s bag and coat in a hiding place, the same place where he hides his disguises. Then he puts on his own coat, goes outside, and knocks on the door. His servant opens the door and he asks him what time it is. Then he tells him to wake him at nine the next morning. The servant tells him Gothic literature. The room Basil enters might as well be something from some haunted castle given its desolation, decay, and scuttling Mr. Hallward came by and Dorian exclaims over having missed him. mice. Just as Gothic novels often contained hideous secrets, so does this mysterious locked room. At the same time though, this is a unique and specialized Gothic story. Most people would not realise the meaning of the secret that's revealed here, and it is essentially unheard of Inside his library again, he picks up the Blue Book and finds the name of Alan Campbell. He says this is the man he wants. The subject of the in the gothic tradition for someone to have to reveal a secret to the person who created it, as Dorian does to Basil. portrait kills the artist. Here, the fateful triangle among the three main characters of the novel is broken when Dorian Gray murders Basil Hallward. Basil, as much as the portrait, has served as Dorian’s conscience. Dorian has avoided Basil over the years of his explorations of the This chapter supports the themes of appearance versus reality and art versus life and employs the symbol of Dorian's portrait. It also marks aesthetics of evil. Here, Basil finally comes to him to confront him. The reader finds out all the specific charges against Dorian. He has ruined the a transition in Dorian's character development. This is the first time since the portrait began to change that Dorian has let anyone else see reputations of young men and women, some of whom have even committed suicide. He is ostracized by all the best families of London. Dorian the painting. Until this point Wilde was willing to essentially tease readers with the suggestion of how much Basil's painting had seems relieved to be able to share the horror of the portrait with Basil, but when Basil sees it, recognizing what it means about Dorian, he wants Dorian to change his ways and repent. Dorian cannot face this possibility and kills Basil instead. transformed. When Dorian reveals it, it is so horrific Basil screams at the sight. This communicates that Dorian's beautiful appearance is a mere façade for the degraded reality that the portrait reveals underneath. Although Dorian has been living as if no one else's opinion matters, it is clear Basil's reaction matters a lot. Dorian adamantly does not want to face his true nature—so much so that he kills Basil.

It is telling that Dorian takes refuge in reading Gautier while he's waiting for Campbell. Théophile Gautier was an influential 19th-century French

Dorian Gray wakes with a smile the next morning at nine o’clock, feeling well rested. He writer. Much of his work is considered romantic, but he was also quite influential in the symbolist and decadent movements. He had been a painter gradually recalls the events of the night before. He feels sorry for himself and loathing for and was an influential critic in several fields. Like Wilde, Gautier rejected the idea that art should teach moral lessons and the artist should focus on Basil. Then he realizes that Basil’s body remains upstairs in the room. He fears that if he thinks perfecting the form. Also like Wilde, he adapted supernatural concepts for his artistic purposes. too much on what happened he will go crazy. He gets up and spends a long time choosing his While there is no overt homosexual activity in the novel, this is one of the chapters where it is very strongly implied. There are other activities that two outfit and his rings. He has a leisurely breakfast and reads his mail, throwing away a letter men might have done together, like putting on a theatre production, but few if any legitimate activities that would let Dorian blackmail Campbell from a lover, remembering one of Lord Henry’s misogynist sayings about women, that they into helping him afterward. There are also few other things Wilde would have felt compelled to keep secret or only imply to the reader, as he does have an awful memory. He writes two letters and sends one to Mr. Alan Campbell by his here by having Dorian pass a note to Campbell and by not allowing the reader to see what is written on it. manservant.

Throughout the novel, Wilde only hints at the nature of Dorian's secret life, leaving the reader to wonder what sins Dorian commits. Wilde surely could He smokes a cigarette and sketches for a while, but every face he sketches looks like Basil’s. have been more specific about Dorian's secretive passions, but he deliberately keeps the issue vague so that readers must define sin for themselves. In He lies down on the sofa and tries to read Gautier’s Emaux et Camees. He enjoys the images this way, Wilde draws readers closer to the story. in the book of the beauties of Venice. It reminds him of his visit there. He was with Basil and he remembers Basil’s joy over the work of Tintoret. He tries to read again and then begins to In a similar way, Wilde doesn't say what secret Dorian holds over Campbell. Most likely, it is something that the scientist did years ago while under worry that Alan Campbell might be out of town. Dorian's influence. In any case, Dorian is fully aware that blackmailing Campbell into helping him is dreadful, but he doesn't hesitate for a moment to do so. In fact, he scolds Campbell for not wanting to help him at first, and he even seems to take pleasure in forcing Campbell to comply eventually. Five years ago, he and Alan had been great friends. Now they never speak. Alan always Dorian has become dominated by the evil of his secrets, and he in turn seeks to dominate and control those around him. At this point in the story, leaves the room when Dorian comes in at any party they both attend. Alan is a scientist, but Dorian shows that he has surpassed his mentor — Lord Henry — in his power to manipulate. The interlude concerning Gautier's poetry works within when he and Dorian were together, he was also in love with music. They were inseparable for the context of this novel. The poem is translated: a year and a half. Then they quarrelled and have not spoken since. Alan has given up music in favour of science. Dorian becomes hysterical with anxiety as he waits. Finally, the servant On a colourful scale, announces that Mr. Campbell has arrived.

Dorian loses all anxiety and plays the part of the gracious host. Alan Campbell is stiff with Her breast dripping with pearls, disapproval and hatred. He wants to know why Dorian has called him. Dorian tells him there The Venus of the Adriatic Draws her pink and white body out of the water. is a dead body in a room at the top of the stairs and he needs Campbell to dispose of it. Alan tells him to stop talking. He says he will not turn him in, but that he will not have anything to The domes, on the azure of the waves do with it. Dorian tells him he wants him to do it because of Alan’s knowledge of chemistry. He wants him to change the body into a handful of ashes. He at first says it was a suicide, but Following the pure contour of the phrase, then admits that he murdered the man upstairs. Dorian begs him to help and Alan refuses to Swell like rounded breasts listen. Finally, when he is sure he can’t convince him, Dorian writes something down and tells Lifted by a sigh of love. Alan to read it. Alan is shocked at what he reads. Dorian says if Alan won’t help him, he will send a letter to someone and ruin Alan’s reputation. He tells Alan he is terribly sorry for him The skiff lands and drops me off, for what he will have to do, but tries to console him by saying he does this sort of thing all the Casting its rope to the pillar, time for the pursuit of science so it shouldn’t be too horrible for him. In front of a pink façade On the marble of a staircase. Finally, Alan says he needs to get things from home. Dorian won’t let him leave. He makes him write down what he needs and sends his servant to get the equipment. Then when it The beautiful poem about Venice contrasts with the horror of Dorian's situation and briefly carries him away to a happier, more beautiful time and arrives, he sends his servant away for the day to get some orchids in another city. He and place. The recollection that Basil had been with him, however, startles Dorian back to reality. The idle pleasures that Dorian uses to amuse himself Alan carry the equipment upstairs. At the door, Dorian realizes he has left the portrait can't erase, or even distract him from, the evil that he has committed. Strangely, the passions that drove him to the mad act of murder no longer hold uncovered for the first time in years. He rushes over to it to cover it. He sees that on the any pleasure for him. hands, there is a red stain. He covers it and then leaves the room to Alan without looking at the body. Note that Dorian defends Lord Henry but is quite willing to blame Basil for the loss of his soul. While Basil created the portrait, he was never part of the pact and never tried to manipulate Dorian toward a life of self-serving debauchery and vanity. Dorian, of course, is not about to put the Long after seven o’clock that evening, Alan comes downstairs and says it is finished. He says responsibility where it belongs — on himself. In fact, by the end of the chapter, Dorian has emotionally and psychologically divorced himself from Basil he never wants to see Dorian again. Dorian thanks him sincerely, saying he saved him from entirely, referring to him as "the thing that had been sitting at the table." It appears that Dorian has begun to lose touch with even his self-centred ruin. When Campbell leaves, Dorian rushes upstairs and sees there is no trace of the body. version of reality. The psychology of Dorian Gray is perhaps best revealed in this chapter. He wakes up the morning after murdering one of his best friends feeling calm and pleasant. When he Like the other secondary characters in the novel, Alan Campbell is introduced and rather quickly ignored. His appearance, however, plays a vital role in establishing remembers what he did, he dreads seeing the body again. He doesn’t feel remorse. He sends the darkening mood of the novel. The macabre experiments that he is accustomed to conducting as a chemist provide him with the knowledge that Dorian finds so for what was probably an ex-lover and forces him on the threat of revealing their past necessary. Furthermore, the secrets that surround his personal life contribute to the air of mystery that surrounds Dorian. It is significant that the reader never learns relationship, to dispose of the body so that no trace shows. He has no fear of telling Campbell the details of the circumstances by which Dorian blackmails Campbell. Given Wilde’s increasingly indiscreet lifestyle and the increasingly hostile social attitudes of what he did because he knows he has power over the man. When he returns to the toward homosexuality that flourished at the end of the nineteenth century, the reader can assume that Campbell’s transgression is of a sexual nature. In 1885, the upstairs room to find no trace of Basil Hallward’s body remaining, he is relieved. It seems that British Parliament passed the Labouchere Amendment, which widened prohibitions against male homosexual acts to include not only sodomy (which was punishable the portrait takes on not only the look of a sinful man, but also the guilt of one. Dorian is by death until 1861) but also “gross indecency” (meaning oral sex), an offense that carried a two-year prison term. Oscar Wilde himself was eventually found guilty of perfectly ruthless. the latter offense. This new law was commonly known as the Blackmailer’s Charter. Thus, Alan Campbell, a seemingly inconsequential character, serves as an important indicator of the social prejudices and punishments in Wilde’s time.

That evening, Dorian Gray goes to a dinner party at Lady Narborough’s house. He looks perfectly dressed and perfectly at ease . The party is small and Dorian slept so well immediately after killing Basil that readers might think he lacks a conscience or is completely the guests boring. Dorian is relieved when he hears that Lord Henry will be coming. When Lord Henry arrives late, he carries on in his usual way with one at ease with his actions. This chapter shows how his actions affect him and how he's beset by anxiety and fear. aphorism after another much to Lady Narborough’s amusement. Dorian, for his part, cannot even eat. He is noticeably distracted. Lady Narborough What he has done gnaws at him so much that first he cannot eat and then is visibly upset. He follows this by asks him severa l times what is the matter and when the men are left alone after dinner for their cigars, Lord Henry questions him. Lord Henry asks him offering Henry clumsy alibis his friend had not asked for, and then finally, by putting a lot of time and effort into where he went the night before since he left the party early. Dorian first says he went home, then he says he went to the club, then he corrects himself getting drugs. The discussion between Lady Narborough and Henry offers a good example of how people see again and says he walked around until half past two when he got home and had to ask his servant to let him in. Dorian and the dramatic irony between his appearance and reality. Because he is so beautiful, people associate him with love. They assume any emotional upset on Dorian's part comes from romance. In fact his uneasiness The two men chat a little longer. Dorian is planning a party at his country house the next weekend and they discuss the guest list. Dorian is interested in a comes from killing someone (Basil). This gives Henry's comments about the wives of the criminal classes a Duchess and has invited her and her husband. Lord Henry warns him against her, saying she is too smart, and that women are best when they are weak particular edge: he thinks he's talking about other people, but he's talking about his beloved Dorian. Like many and ignorant. events in the novel, this underscores the theme of the tension between appearance and reality.

Dorian finally says he must leave. He goes home and opens the hiding place where he has put Basil Hallward’s coat and bag. He puts them on the fire Finally, though this is not a major theme for the novel it is worth noting here how many of the key plot points and waits until they are completely burned up. Then he sits and looks at a cabinet for a long time fascinated. Finally, he ge ts up and gets a Chinese box depend on wealth. Surely any poor person under stress would want to be able to escape. Few, however, have the out of it. He opens it and finds inside a green paste with a heavy odour. The reader can assume that the paste is an opiate of some kind. He hesitates money to hire a cab late at night to ride across London in search of opium. Fewer store drugs in an elaborate with a strange smile and then puts the box back and closes the cabinet. He gets dressed and leaves the hous e. He hails a cab telling the man the address. ebony "Florentine cabinet." As much space as Wilde gives Henry to articulate a philosophy of aestheticism, Wilde The cab driver almost refuses since it is too far, but Dorian promises him a huge tip and they drive off toward the river. continually complicates and undercuts this philosophy in a number of ways. In this chapter he undercuts it by showing that living the kind of life Henry champions costs a lot of money. This path is an option for only the Dorian seems, after all, not to have left his conscience upstairs in the room. He is nervous and distracted unable to focus on anything but what has wealthy. happened. He tries to enjoy himself at the dinner party, but he can’t even eat. If he has gone to the dinner party to allay future suspicion, he has ended up doing just the opposite.

In society, there has constantly been the question as to whether people can change or not. Author Oscar Wilde proves in his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, that one can. The question he poses to his readers is “What kind of transformation is shown by the protagonist Dorian Gray: good or bad?” It is possible to think that Dorian Gray has become a better person, not for others, but for himself since he lives in the pursuit of pleasure and always achieves it. However, as it is demonstrated by the portrait, the damnation of the lives of others can provoke damage to one’s conscience and soul. In the exposition of the novel Dorian Gray is portrayed as a opulent, handsome, innocent, and transparent minded person. As time progresses, he is altered into a gruesome and narcissistic human being due to the influence of Lord Basil Hallward confesses to worshipping Dorian Gray as Henry's pernicious philosophies. He started to change his morals when he met Lord Henry. He was planting seed of corruption and devious thoughts into Dorian's mind. At this point, he was becoming a completely different person. However, this transformation was not forced nor was it inevitable. Dorian could have easily said no to Lord Henry, he has the choice of picking weather or not he wants to keep his friendship. Furthermore, his transformation was not his muse and the impetus for all things good in his art. inevitable. It is not hard to fall into Lord Henry's trap that leads a path to ultimate destruction and Dorian is clearly one of the victims; but, Basil was able to avoid it and still hold onto his morals. This exemplifies that Dorian did have a choice in making the decision that will determine the type of life he will live. Dorian's actions have a chain reaction to others in society. He is using his charming looks to transform innocent lives and leading them to corruption, which is Unlike his friend, Lord Henry, ultimately preventing them from developing into idealistic human beings. Throughout the novel it is trying to depict the message that transformation is an inexorable process. This is exemplified in the novel when Lord Henry says "to Basil requires little from cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul. You are a wonderful creation. You know more than you think you know, just as you know less than you want to know". This evokes a plethora of emotions inside Dorian other than his physical of Dorian. He is eager to cure his soul by living a life filled with only materialistic pleasures, a life where he wouldn't have to endure any sorrow. Lord Henry's voice is alluring and promising that Dorian is desperately craving the presence and innocent knowledge as to how he can attain such a flawless life. Furthermore, he is curious on what the emotions that Lord Henry stirring up inside of him would feel like once he implemented them into actions. This marks the beginning of his nature. Lord Henry, on the influence on Dorian which leads to his transformation. other hand, takes an interest in influencing the Transformation is of course a major theme of Dorian Gray (along with debauchery, love-obsession, aestheticism, narcissism…among many more which feed into this central theme). Within the first ten chapters of the novel the reader development of Dorian's soul. senses a fundamental shift in Dorian. At the beginning, he radiates innocence and simplicity but after his fling with Sybil and his passionate break from her; he appears heartless and unnecessarily cruel. Dorian has a very romantic notion of what life should be and believes Sybil to be an embodiment of earthly beauty/passion but after she declares acting is over for her; he becomes disenchanted, his attraction abruptly ends in a fit of fury. This is when the metamorphosis of his character begins and a slight sneer appears on Basil’s portrait to mark his budding, cruel nature. It’s interesting to note just how impressionable Dorian is by Lord Henry and his own tendency toward narcissism and how these traits lend into his transformation. Basil’s constant compliments and praise along with Lord Henry’s corrupt advice lead Dorian to believe he’s this godly human being just for being young and beautiful; his actions are and should be excused In a sense, The Picture of because of his outward appearance. All of this, Dorian takes for truth and acts accordingly; prizing his appearance and nourishing his selfishness whilst on an eternal pleasure splurge until his eventual corruption and ruin. His Dorian Gray does allude transformation is overseen by an aesthetic verse ethical mentality. Dorian trades his innocence and “ethical” side to be consumed by aesthetics. to Oedipus Rex if Basil Hallward is understood as the Like a child who finds his image in a mirror, an individual comes to recognize ego only through the mirror reflection. Through the mirror images, one comes to gain a sense of self. According to Lacanian Mirror Stage theory, “the psychic father or creator of Dorian's process of achieving the subject is based on the harmonious relationship between the inner world of the individual and the other. It is through the self-image reflected in others that each individual integrates himself and grows the symbiotic relationship to his identification” (1997). In the novel, Dorian begins to recognize himself through the mirror portrait and other images. Then he is aware of himself as an independent one, trying to develop himself fully. However, under the influence of the picture. From this perspective, mirror images, Dorian misrecognizes himself and finally turns into a devil because he gets confused between “others” and “himself”. At the mirror stage, Dorian forms his self-image through the picture and actress Sybil. Unfortunately, one could suggest that the image he gets from reflection is an imaginary, visional and mistaken identification. When Dorian enters the period of Oedipus, by the intervention of the Name of the Father, he realizes the image he got before was mistaken and Dorian's murder of Basil was decides to tear down the illusion. During the process of Dorian’s transformation, the elements functions as mirror images are influential. The influential mirrors show respective influence in the process from Self-identification to self- similar to Oedipus's own destruction. Henry is of view that “All influence is immoral”, (Wilde, 1994) which is right to the point. The picture, which represents the artist’s desire, is the signifier of Dorian and the real Dorian is substituted. Dorian is moulded by the fated killing of his father. picture. The picture reflects the change of Dorian’s inner world and guides his behaviours, and gradually, even decides him. At last, Dorian cannot go back and he decides to destroy the portrait, and kill himself. Maybe death is the only However, this reading would way for Dorian to free himself from evil. And it is the only way for Dorian to shatter his self-misrecognition. Sybil represents a kind of maternal charm and beauty, which builds up an idol image of mother for Dorian. But when Dorian not be entirely correct as it realizes the differences between his imaginary figure and the real Sybil, he rejects her attraction and abandons her. Basil appreciates Dorian’s beauty and helps him aware of his beauty. His desire functions on Dorian through his picture. could also be suggested that Henry is an incompetent father and has no positive influence on Dorian. Henry guides Dorian through his talk about his own theories of aesthetic Hedonism. Dorian is addicted to glorious things and indulges in sensual pleasure. James, Dorian had two father after his death, like a real father, help Dorian break the relationship with others, and thus finish his final transformation. Under the influence of all the mirrors, Dorian starts to put theories he receives into practice and explore his inner figures, Lord Henry being the world. He learns to identify himself and becomes an independent individual, trying to shake off the influence from others. Unfortunately, he fails to be aware of the true self and has to terminate himself. His destruction is doomed since other he has been long on the way of immoral self-alienation. In a word, the effects of the different mirrors are decisive factors in the process of Dorian’s self-identification to self-destruction.

It is raining and cold as Dorian rides to the outskirts of the city. The ride is extraordinarily long. He hears over and over again It has been many years since Henry woke Dorian to his own beauty and spouted his witticism about curing the senses Lord Henry’s saying that one can cure the soul by means of the sense and can cure the sense by means of the soul. He heard Lord and the soul. For Dorian to remember that quip now—in a time of crisis and after he's just killed someone—shows how Henry say that on the first day he met him. He has repeated it often over the years. Tonight it is all he can think of to calm completely Henry has influenced Dorian. It also shows the shallowness of Henry's witticism, or at least Dorian's himself through the long drive. The roads get worse and worse. People chase the cab and have to be whipped away by the application of the quip. The idea that using drugs is a way to heal your soul, or the best thing to do after you've killed driver. Finally, they arrive and Dorian gets out. someone, is short sighted indeed. Wilde underscores this by the scene he reveals at the opium den. This is a disgusting place, full of people who have wasted their lives or are essentially dead. He goes into a building and passes through several dirty and poor rooms. He passes through a bar where a sailor is slumped over This chapter also shows the complexity of Wilde's novel, however. Although his point about drug use and degradation a table and two prostitutes are jeering at a crazy old man. He smells the odour of opium and feels relieved. However, when he seems completely conventional, this chapter also presents—and then thwarts—a classic scene of karmic justice. In a series goes into the opium den, he is unhappily surprised to see Adrian Darlington. Adrian tells him he has no friends anymore and of plot twists that seem more at home in myths or fairy tales, James Vane suddenly appears to confront the man who ruined his sister. This is so unlikely as to be impossible. Even if James is now a drunk or an opium addict, there were doesn’t need them as long as he has opium. Dorian doesn’t want to be in the same place with the young man about whom Basil Hallway had just spoken the night before. He buys Adrian a drink and is bothered by a prostitute. He tells her not to speak to multiple opium dens and bars in London at this time. For James to be in the same one Dorian visits, at the same time, would not be credible in a realistic novel. The coincidence is too great. However, Wilde pulls this off through his control of him and gives her money to leave him alone. He tells Adrian to call on him if he ever needs anything and then he leaves. As he is the narrative and specifically through the fantastic world he evokes. This is a world in which paintings age and people leaving, one of the prostitutes calls out to him "There goes the devil’s bargain." He curses her and she says, "Prince Charming is don't; in such a world "Prince Charming" may logically encounter his enemy. But Wilde doesn't stop his complications what you like to be called, ain’t it?" As she says this the sailor who has been asleep jumps up and runs after Dorian. there. For Dorian to escape justice through the magic of his ageless face negates any sense that vice is always punished in the end. Outside, Dorian is wishing he hadn’t run into Adrian Singleton and cursing fate. He hurries along when he is suddenly grabbed Despite Dorian's escape, this chapter does indicate that the end of the novel, and his campaign of vice, is near. More people from behind and shoved against the wall. A gun is shoved into his face. Dorian calls out and the man tells him to be quiet. The are learning of his secret, and there's a sense that the situation is unravelling. man tells him to make his peace with God before he dies. He says he is James Vane, brother of Sibyl Vane, who killed herself after Dorian ruined her. He plans to leave for India that night and will kill Dorian before he goes. Dorian suddenly thinks of a In some of the finest descriptive writing in the novel, Wilde finally allows the reader to see Dorian's secret world. The opening way out. He asks James when his sister died. James tells him it was eighteen years ago. Dorian tells James to look at his fac e paragraphs of the chapter set the scene for taking the reader into the hell that is Dorian's chosen life. under the light. James drags him to the street light and looks at him. He sees a fac e that is too young to have been a young lover eighteen years ago. He releases Dorian feelings shocked that he might have killed the wrong man. The opium den is a city of lost souls, a city that Dorian easily moves within. Appropriately, Dorian muses on his own salvation as he rides toward the den. True to the Faust legend, he is certain that he has no hope for atonement. He believes that After Dorian is gone, the prostitute comes out of the darkness and tells James he should have killed the man. She says he has forgiveness is not possible. The best he can hope for is the numb of opium. made a bargain with the devil to remain looking young. She says the same man had ruined her eighteen years ago and left her Most important in this chapter is that the reader sees Dorian suffering from a physical as well as a mental addiction. His hands to become a prostitute. He is nearly forty years old now. She swears she is telling the truth. He runs away from her but sees no tremble as he rides to the opium den, and the reader can only surmise that he is heading to the den to satisfy both a physica l trace of Dorian Gray. The resolution of the plot begins to form here, as Dorian happens to meet up with James Vane, Sibyl and a mental need. Although Dorian may not age, he has not escaped the personal prison created by his own desires. Even in Vane’s brother. It is the first time the reader has been taken directly to one of the places only hinted at before. The gossip about the opium den, he can't escape the paranoid feeling that Basil's eyes are watching him. Dorian's physical and mental addiction Dorian Gray is that he spends time in the most disreputable of places. Here, we see Dorian going to an opium den. Once he to opium is significant because it is the first sign the reader sees that although Dorian cannot be destroyed by nature, he can arrives, he is unhappily met by Adrian Singleton, the same young man about whom Basil Hallward had been questioning him. destroy himself. Basil had heard from Adrian’s father that Dorian ruined him and left him to his own devices. Here, only one day after Dorian killed Basil, he sees the evidence of what Basil said. Adrian Singleton is an opium addict, cut off from all his friends. it is cle ar that Wilde's descriptive style in this chapter is Gothic in its grotesque, macabre, and fantastic imagery and chilling d etail. He Dorian feels the weight of guilt about Adrian because he tells the younger man to call him for any help he needs and he leaves fashions a mood of desolation and despair. His similes, which appear seldom in other chapters, are very effective in relating the the place to find another. grimness of the world Dorian now occupies. He creates revealing similarities with the use of "like" and "as" — for example, the "moon hung low in the sky like a yellow skull," and the streets are "like the black web of some sprawling spider." Note that the The twist of fate that brings Dorian Gray and James Vane together at first seems much too contrived for the novel. A prostitute moon resembles a "yellow skull," an allusion to death that so pervades the novel in these late chapters. calls him Prince Charming, waking James out of his stupor to run after Dorian and threaten to kill him. However, after James releases Dorian, thinking him too young to have been his sister’s young lover eighteen years before, the prostitute who called him In no small way, the dangers of excess even threaten Dorian's Aestheticism. Instead of admiring beauty, he craves ugliness. He once detested ugliness because it made things too real, but now he pursues it as his one reality: "The coarse brawl, the the name tells James that Dorian has been coming to the place for eighteen years and that he is responsible for her present sorry loathsome den, the crude violence of disordered life, the very vileness of thief and outcast, were more vivid, in their intense state. Thus, Oscar Wilde makes the bizarre happenstance that James would connect Dorian Gray to his sister’s Prince Charming factuality of impression, than all the gracious shapes of art, the dreamy shadows of song." Wilde reveals the dangers of seem plausible. Aestheticism gone so wron g that it is the opposite of itself. At the same time, Wilde is not teaching or preaching. As he says in the preface to the novel, there is no such thing as a "moral" or "immoral" book. Books are simply written well or badly. In this

In 1895, the critic Ernest Newman, in a discussion of Wilde's contribution to literary thought, celebrated the chapter, Wilde writes very, very well. author's use of paradoxes, saying that "a paradox is a truth seen round a corner" (Drew xxv). Countless paradoxes appear in The Picture of Dorian Gray, most often in the words of Lord Henry Wotton. Identify and discuss several paradoxes in the novel. The opium dens, located in a remote and derelict section of London, represent the sordid state of Dorian’s mind. He flees to them at a crucial moment. After killing Basil, Dorian seeks to forget the awfulness of his crimes by losing consciousness in a drug -induced stupor. Although he has a canister of opium in his home, he leaves the safety of his neat and proper parlour to trave l to the dark dens that reflect the degradation of his soul. In the decadent world of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Lord Henry smokes ‘opium -tainted cigarettes’ – a fitting detail for a character whose intoxicating amorality seduces Dorian. Lord Henry proved to be the most dangerous influence upon the innocent and naïve Dorian Gray and after the murder of Basil Hallward, it is the memory of Henry’s advice that persuades Gray to seek solace in an opium den where he attempts to ‘buy oblivion’. Gray becomes increasingly desperate to reach this oblivion as the ‘hideous hunger for opium began to gnaw at him’, and despite the h orror of the opium den – ‘The twisted limbs, the gaping mouths, the staring lustreless eyes’ – he envies those who are experiencing such new, ‘strange heavens’ . Dorian becomes a symbol of what Wilde saw as Victorian hypocrisy. Moral duplicity and self-ind ulgence are evident in Dorian’s patronising the opium dens of London. Wilde conflates the images of the upper -class man and lower-class man in Dorian Gray, a gentleman slumming for strong entertainment in the poor parts of the city. He enjoyed ‘keenly the terrible pleasure of a double life’, a fact demonstrated by him attending a high -society party only twenty -four hours after committing a murder. Earlier Lord Henry had observed that: ‘Crime belongs exclusively to the lower orders. ... I should fancy that crime was to them what art is to us, simply a method of procuring extraordinary sensations’. This assessment implies that Dorian is two men, a refined aesthete and a coarse criminal. That authorial observation is a thematic link to the double life recounted in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), by Robert Louis Stevenson, a novella greatly admired by Oscar Wilde.

It is one week later and Dorian Gray is entertaining guests at his country estate, Selby In this chapter Wilde supports the theme of pleasure versus virtue. As part of his spirited exchange with the duchess, Henry says, "Romance lives by repetition, and repetition Royal. He is chatting with the Duchess of Monmouth when Lord Henry interrupts them. converts an appetite into an art ... Each time that one loves is the only time one has ever loved ... We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to Lord Henry has decided to begin calling everyone Gladys as a means to combat the reproduce that experience as often as possible." ugliness of names in the modern world. He engages the Duchess in a witty repartee about This makes all of life into a process of consciously managing experiences. Following the path Henry describes will lead to pleasant, but ultimately sterile, repetition. women and about values in general. The Duchess at one point mentions that Dorian’s colour is very poor. He seems not to be feeling well. Dorian tries but does not do well in Henry's statement applies directly to Dorian's life, and Dorian's life to it. When he loved Sibyl, Dorian was young, naive, even foolish. But his love for her was unlike any other keeping up with their conversation. Finally, he volunteers to go to the conservatory to get love in his life. In the time since, he's clearly been involved with many partners, but never with the intensity that he felt for Sibyl. And Henry's path is so self-centred it becomes her some orchids for her dress that evening. extreme narcissism. In fact Henry makes it sound as though the identity of the other person doesn't matter at all. It is one's own passion that defines romance. If that's the case, any partner is as good as any other. All dreams of soul mates, or even of mutual respect, dissolve. Only the lover's experience remains. As Dorian himself testifies, this philosophy When he is gone, Lord Henry tells the Duchess that she is flirting disgracefully with Dorian. results in pleasure but not happiness. And the world it creates is ultimately vulnerable: the sight of one face from the past that's associated with genuine wrongdoing (James She jokes with him in return. He teases her that she has a rival in Lady Narborough. She Vane) can make Dorian pass out. asks Lord Henry to describe women as a sex. He says women are "Sphinxes without secrets." Two other aspects of this chapter deserve notice. The first is that Dorian says he always agrees with Henry and that Henry is never wrong. This means that although Dorian She notices that Dorian is taking a long time and suggests going to find him when they appears to be living a life of his own creation, he is in some sense dancing to Henry's tune. For all of his experiences, he's never come up with a new idea of his own. All is hear a crash. They rush into the conservatory to find Dorian fainted away on the floor. They pleasure. carry him in to the sofa and he gradually comes awake. He asks Lord Henry if they are safe inside. Lord Henry tells him he just fainted and must stay in his room instead of coming The second noteworthy aspect of the chapter is that Dorian's "Prince Charming" title returns again to haunt him. Like the return of James Vane in the previous chapter and at down to dinner. Dorian insists he will come down to dinner. At dinner, he is wildly gay. the end of this one, this signals his magical deal with time is coming to an end. Dorian can appear to live outside of time, but he can't escape it. His past is catching up with him. Every once in a while, he feels a thrill of terror as he recalls the face of James Vane looking at him through the window of the conservatory. Wilde makes excellent use of contrast in the setting of these chapters. Life at Selby Royal could not be more different from the secret world of Dorian Gray. Wilde writes about James has apparently caught up with Dorian at his country estate. Dorian seems to have bright conversations, bright lights, and bright days. Such idyllic life adds to Dorian's discomfort when terror twice invades his country estate. Early on, he is seeking orchids but lost all ability to leave behind past sins with present enjoyments. He remains distracted and finds the face of James Vane. Just as he is recovering from the shock, a man is ominously killed by accident. Dorian decides to flee because, he realises, "Death walked there in the nervous in company. sunlight." He expects evil in the opium den, not in the fresh air of Selby Royal. Dorian's tragic fate haunts him wherever he goes. Before, Dorian felt that his situation was hopeless; now, he is beginning to learn what hopelessness really feels like.

An important theme, which is actually the theme that moves the plot forward, is negative influence. Lord Henry's main goal since he first Aestheticism is a strong motif and is tied in with the concept of the double life. A major theme is that aestheticism is merely an absurd abstract laid eyes on Dorian Gray was to change Gray's life and to make it fit Lord Henry's own whims. Lord Henry was able to read into Dorian's that only serves to disillusion rather than dignify the concept of beauty. Although Dorian is hedonistic, when Basil accuses him of making Lord moral weakness, and even went as far as to use Dorian's unhappy family history as fuel to set the perfect scenario of corruption that he had set out for the young man. He knew that it would work because he used every technique possible to get through straight to Dorian's Henry's sister's name a "by-word," Dorian replies "Take care, Basil. You go too far" suggesting Dorian still cares about his outward image and psyche. Ultimately, it was this negative influence what destroyed Dorian's body and soul. standing within society. Wilde highlights Dorian's pleasure of living a double life. Not only does Dorian enjoy this sensation in private, but he also feels "keenly the terrible pleasure of a double life" when attending a society gathering just 24 hours after committing a murder. Another salient theme is class and social differentiation. The aristocratic background of Dorian makes him more likely to listen to an equal, like Henry, rather than to follow the righteous path to good living proposed by his former best friend, the poor painter Basil. It is also class differentiation that seems to give Lord Henry the feeling of entitlement to control the lives of those around him. Certainly, he This Duplicity and indulgence is most evident in Dorian's visit to the opium dens of London. Wilde conflates the images of the upper class and transferred that same feeling onto Dorian who, instead of changing, basically destroyed everyone in his path. lower class by having the supposedly upright Dorian visit the impoverished districts of London. Lord Henry asserts that "crime belongs exclusively to the lower orders... I should fancy that crime was to them what art is to us, simply a method of procuring extraordinary sensations", which A final theme that could be considered is one very dear to Oscar Wlde: art imitating life, and life imitating art. This theme is very salient in Dorian's obsession with Sybil Vane in Chapter 3. Notice how his primary attraction for Sybil is the fact that she is an actress who plays all of suggests that Dorian is both the criminal and the aesthete combined in one man. This is perhaps linked to Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case Shakespeare's heroines. She is all the great heroines of the world in one. It is the idealised female that she represents when she acts, and of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, which Wilde admired. The division that was witnessed in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, although extreme, is evident in not the real woman, that fuels Dorian admiration. In the case of art imitating life, Dorian intends the opposite; he wants (like Henry) for life to be a trivial exploration where art dominates one's every actions no matter how serious they are. Under an aesthetic, Wildean, Dorian Gray, who attempts to contain the two divergent parts of his personality. This is a recurring theme in many Gothic novels. perspective life and its daily torments is nowhere as important and interesting as the excesses that can only be possible when applying an artistic approach to it. Therefore, these themes help mould and move the plot of the novel by applying the main ideals of Wilde's style: life imitating art, the eternal search for sensations, the unfair reality of social imbalance, and bad influences. Art as a Mirror This theme is exemplified by the titular portrait. Dorian Gray's image reflects his conscience and his true self, and serves as a mirror of his soul. This fact echoes Wilde's statement that "It is the spectator...that art really mirrors." However, this theme first appears earlier in Dorian Gray is a richly ambiguous story. Although many condemned it for offering a celebration of immorality and vice, others (including the preface, with Wilde's contention that "the nineteenth-century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass." Realism

Sherlock Holmes' creator, Arthur Conan Doyle) saw it as a powerfully moral tale in which sin is punished. Wilde encouraged his critics to is a genre of artistic expression that is said to have shown the 19th century its own reflection. The fear that Dorian expresses when viewing the concentrate on the book's artistic qualities, but many found it difficult to be so intellectually detached, particularly once Wilde's homosexuality became public knowledge in the Spring and Summer of 1895. Wilde was frequently identified with his creation, famously painting, and the emotions that he seeks to escape through sin, drug addiction, and even murder, might be considered an expression of his rage remarking that Dorian Gray 'contains much of me': Basil Hallward is 'what I think I am,' Lord Henry 'what the world thinks me,' and at laying eyes upon his true self. The idea of reflectivity also recalls a major mythical influence on the novel: the story of Narcissus. Dorian, like 'Dorian what I would like to be—in other ages, perhaps.' Narcissus, falls in love with his own image, and is ultimately destroyed by it. The novel's core is the tussle for Dorian's affections between Basil and Henry. Basil refuses to imagine that beauty and wickedness can co- exist in the same form, and insists that Dorian lead a virtuous life. Henry preaches a very different gospel, one in which 'the only way to Vanity as Original Sin Dorian's physical beauty is his most cherished attribute, and vanity is, as a consequence, his most crippling vice. Once get rid of a temptation is to yield to it'. For him, life is an intellectual exercise, in which experiences are to savour for their own sake, not for what one may learn from them. Putting the ideas of the Victorian writer and critic Walter Pater into a series of witty epigrams, Henry a sense of the preciousness of his own beauty has been instilled in him by Lord Henry, all of Dorian's actions, from his wish for undying youth at encourages Dorian to pursue new sensations, and to not to waste his time caring for others. Armed with his wealth, his beautiful voice, his the beginning of the novel to his desperate attempt to destroy the portrait at the end, are motivated by vanity. Even his attempts at altruism wit and intelligence, Henry easily wins out over Basil. Dorian becomes increasingly selfish and cruel, and the portrait ever more monstrous. are driven by a desire to improve the appearance of his soul. Throughout the novel, vanity haunts Dorian, seeming to damn his actions before Dorian Gray persistently questions the relationship between art and life. It also explores the tensions between a person's inner self (or he even commits them; vanity is his original sin. Dorian's fall from grace, then, is the consequence of his decision to embrace vanity - and indeed, selves) and the social conventions which force them into particular roles and attitudes. Finally, it conducts its philosophical debates in brilliantly stylised comic language which seems at odds with serious moral and ethical concerns and the overarching Gothic atmosphere of all new and pleasurable feelings - as a virtue, at the behest of Lord Henry, his corrupter. In the preface to the novel, Wilde invites us to ponder the story. the inescapability of vanity in our own relationship to art when he states that "it is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.

The next day, Dorian Gray remains in his house afraid to leave it for fear of being shot by James Vane. The second day brings its own fears This chapter underscores some key aspects of Dorian's character and provides several highly dramatic plot twists. as well, but on the third day, Dorian wakes up and feels that he has been imagining things. He tells himself that James Vane has sailed Referencing Dorian's character, Wilde shows readers that Dorian is falling apart. This is no longer a man in complete control away on his ship and will never find him in life. of his life. This is a man who cowers in his room, weeping. This is another of Wilde's complex renderings of the aesthetic movement. In theory Dorian should have been able to convert his encounter with James Vane into just another experience, After breakfast, he talks to the Duchess for an hour in the garden and then he drives across the part to join the shooting party. When he akin to dabbling in gem collecting or Roman Catholicism. In reality, events like having one's life threatened overwhelm this gets close, he sees Geoffrey Clouston, the Duchess’s brother. He joins Geoffrey for a stroll. Suddenly, a rabbit appears out of the bush and philosophy. Wilde casts a second spotlight on Dorian's character when he sees the death of the beater as a bad omen. This is Geoffrey aims for it. Dorian tells him not to shoot it, but Geoffrey shoots anyway. Instead of the rabbit falling, a man who was hidden by incredibly self-centred. When an individual views someone else's death as a sign that there might be trouble in one's own life, the bush falls. The two men think it was one of the beaters (the men hired to beat the bushes so the wildlife will run and the hunters will it is a signal of narcissism: everyone else is seen as a bit player or special effect. Here again though, Wild e illustrates the role be able to shoot at it). Geoffrey is annoyed at the man for getting in front of the gunfire. Lord Henry comes over and tells Dorian they of class in Dorian's world. When Sir Geoffrey shoots the beater, he isn't overcome with shame or horror at his actions. Instead should call off the shooting for the day to avoid appearing callous. Dorian is awfully upset by the shooting. Lord Henry consoles him, he says, "What an ass ...” and complains about the man spoiling his shooting. Dorian's failings, then, are less his own than the saying the man’s death is of no consequence, though it will cause Geoffrey some inconvenience. Dorian thinks of it as a bad o men. He failings of the rich and noble enlarged for easy viewing. thinks he will be shot. Lord Henry laughs his fears away, telling him there is no such thing as destiny. This is another instance in which the novel's plotting seems like something from a myth or fairy tale rather than a contemporary or realistic novel. This is the first time Dorian has been out of the house in days. There's an entire woods James They arrive at the house and Dorian is greeted by the gardener who has a note from the Duchess. He receives it and walks on. They discuss her. Lord Henry says the Duchess loves him. Dorian says he wishes he could love but that he’s too concentrated on himself to love can hide in. Dorian is extremely self -centred as a rule, and over the past few days he's been particularly focused on his own life and survival. So far Dorian's connection to nature has included smelling flowers, but he hasn't paid much attention to anyone else. He says he wants to take a cruise on his yacht where he will be safe. As they talk, the Duchess approaches them. She is animals. (No cats or dogs are mentioned.) In responding to the hare's grace, Dorian reaches beyond his ego for one rare time concerned bout her brother. Lord Henry says it would be much more interesting if he had murdered the man on purpose. He says he wishes he knew someone who had committed murder. Dorian blanches and they express concern for his health. He says he will go lie down in the book. He asks Clouston not to shoot the hare, but he does—and kills James too. It is as if Wilde is saying the path of to rest. Lo rd Henry and the Duchess continue their talk. He asks her if she is in love with Dorian. She avoids answering. He asks if her compassion and empathy is not for Dorian. Instead, fortunate accidents happen to preserve his life and freedom. husband will notice anything. She says her husband never notices and she wishes he would sometimes. Wilde exposes the egocentricity of class distinction through the death of what seems to be a lowly beater. Upstairs in his room, Dorian lies on his sofa almost in a faint. At five o’clock he calls for a servant and tells him to prepare his things for his First, Sir Geoffrey is annoyed that the "ass" got out in front of the guns. It ruins his shooting for the whole day. leave -taking. He writes a note to Lord Henry asking him to entertain his guests. Just as he is ready to leave, the head keeper is announced. He says the man who was shot was not one of the beaters, but seems to have been a sailor. No one knew the man. Dorian is Then Lord Henry comments, "It is rather awkward for Geoffrey, of course. It does not do to pepper beaters. It makes people think that one is a wild shot." Incredibly, Lord Henry is more concerned with his shooting wildly excited at the thought that it might be James Vane. He rushes out to go and see the body. When the cloth is lifted from the face, he cries out in joy because it is the face of James Vane. He rides home with tears of joy knowing he’s safe. partner's reputation than with a man's death.

Dorian Gray is naive enough at the end of this chapter to think that the death of James Vane means the end of his fears for his own life. Even Dorian seems to have little more compassion for the man than he has for the hare. He dislikes shooting The reader probably suspects by now that Dorian Gray’s fears will remain with him because his guilt over killing his friend Basil Hallward and killing, but his chief concern, as usual, is himself. He sees the death as a bad omen, a threat to himself. will not go away. Dorian Gray’s implacable facade has already cracked. It is only a matter of time until his career in the pursuit of pleasure at the expense of others is over. It seems that Oscar Wilde is an imminently moral writer after all. When Thornton comes to Dorian's room, the master immediately pulls his chequebook out of a drawer. It may be kind of him to want to pay the family of the dead man, but Dorian would not think of visiting them Traditionally, Faustian tales contain explicit depictions of the protagonist's pact with the devil, giving a or the corpse until he suspects that it might be James Vane. clearly defined source for his later woes. But the closest Wilde comes to identifying the reason for the portrait's metaphysical powers is in chapter 8, when Dorian wonders if there is somehow "some subtle affinity between the chemical atoms, that shaped themselves into form Dorian's ultimate relief is ironic. Even as he feels joy at seeing James Vane dead, he is far from safe. and colour on the canvas, and the soul that was within." Wilde seems content to leave the actual mechanism by which the portrait ages and withers instead of Dorian completely unexplained. How does this affect our overall impression of the novel? How would the work be different if it included, for instance, a scene in which Mephistopheles appears and has Dorian sign a contract ? Sibyl’s brother James, a sailor, lives in a state of reaction against falsehood, which to him is symbolised by the theatre. H e despises his mother’s posturing and avoids giving her too many opportunities for it, and he is determined to take his sister 'off the stage' despite her delight in acting. He pushes his mother into uncomfortable admissions about his paternity, a matter on which he has brooded for a long time. He asserts his perfectly reasonable right to the truth, but he is also 'enraged' by her emotional response and it seems that he has to hurt her before he can feel pity.

James’s mother had hoped that he might enter a profession. This may not be an unrealistic sentiment as he seems to have the necessary intelligence, and perhaps Mr Isaac’s money was destined to make it possible. The young man’s choice of a seafaring life is a clear one, based on his hatred of 'offices, and … clerks', which seems to spring from his strong sense of class oppression. The loathing James feels for Dorian as a ‘gentleman’ is instinctive – although his sense that Dorian wants to 'enslave' Sibyl has a base in reason. So, too, does his dislike of Dorian as a 'young dandy' – that is, as someone playing a role, as false in his way as Mrs Vane. However, jealousy forms a part of his hatred, and James never acknowledges this. Nor does he acknowledge that there is a melodramatic aspect to the threats he utters to 'track him down and kill him like a dog'.

James does his best to keep his word – just like a sailor-hero of popular drama. However, in melodrama, the young working-class male who stands up to the aristocrat exposes the latter’s lies and corruption before defeating him. James misses his chance by allowing Dorian’s youthful face to deceive him, and his essential decency leads him to tremble at the idea that he might have killed an innocent man. However, the way that he crumbles into deference with a 'Forgive me, sir' seems a long way from the young would-be avenger of eighteen years ago, and all the more ironic in that he is killed by one of the most worthless members of a class he so despises.

James Vane is the physical representation of revenge gone wrong, setting out to annihilate his sisters “killer,” and suffering the very fate that he wished upon Dorian; he is a critique of human instinct and the very emotions that we feel. James Vane is a character who appears very few times in the novel. However, James Vane is an essential character in the Picture of Dorian Gray because he can be seen as a critique of people in Wilde’s era, as well as people in the world today. James is first introduced when he promises to murder any man who might wrong his sister, and as we learn later in the novel, when Dorian’s corrupt life coincides with James’, he had been searching for Dorian or “prince charming” so that he may avenge his sister’s death and destroy Dorian. The simple act of revenge as we have learned from various other books such as The Scarlet Letter, is a poisonous concoction that harms everyone involved in it and everyone near it. James Vane’s overzealous desire to kill Dorian simply leads to his unfortunate death in a hunting accident. He is used as a critique of human nature and emotions because he exemplifies that amplitude of emotions and the serious repercussions of those that we fail to control. Revenge was the real accident, because some emotions are simply uncontrollable. James Vane is a little child in the sense that he is unable to control his emotions and does not possess what I call a moral filter; something in your head that separates the moral things from everything else, purifying ones acts and cleansing the soul. James Vane is like Lewis Black, preaching whatever intrudes his mind, and filtering nothing that comes out of it.

Lord Henry tells Dorian he doesn’t believe him when he says he is now going to be good. He says Dorian is already perfect and shouldn’t This chapter is extremely complicated for one so short. Throughout the section Henry argues for the pleasure side of the change at al. Dorian insists that he has done many terrible things and has decided to stop that and become a good person. He says he’s pleasure versus virtue theme. As is always the case in the novel, Henry is witty, striking, and informed. It would be easy to been staying in the country lately and has resolved to change. Lord Henry says anyone can be good in the country. Dorian says he has believe him, and pleasant to do so. However, Henry's words ultimately ring false; in light of the reader's knowledge of recently done a good thing. He wooed a young girl as beautiful as Sibyl Vane was and loved her. He has been going to see her several times Dorian in contrast with the characters' understandings, they provide an example of dramatic irony. The chapter provides a week all month. They were planning to run away together and suddenly he decided to leave her with her innocence. Lord Henry says the support for the theme of art versus life when Henry says, "Art has no influence upon action. It annihilates the desire to act. novelty of the emotion must have given Dorian as much pleasure as he used to get in stealing the innocence of girls. Dorian begs Henry not It is superbly sterile." Art may be sterile—Dorian produces nothing, does not marry, and has no children—but it is sterile to make jokes about his reform. Lord Henry asks him if he thinks this girl will now ever be able to be happy after she was loved by someone precisely because it has such a profound influence upon action. Basil's painting of Dorian functions as an externalized and as beautiful and graceful as he is. Now she will be forever dissatisfied with love. He wonders if the girl will even commit suicide. omniscient conscience. At the very least art immediately reveals what people have done. At the most it trumps reality, at least temporarily, changing the way biology and physics work around Dorian. Dorian begs Henry to stop making fun of him. He tells him he wants to be better than he has been in life. After a while, he brings up the subject of Basil’s disappearance. He asks Henry what people are saying about it and wonders if anyone thinks foul play was involved. In their own way Henry's arguments are as independent of time and traditional physical reality as Basil's picture of Dorian. Henry makes light of it. He imagines that Basil fell off a bus into the Seine and drowned. Dorian asks Henry what he would think if he said he had killed Basil. Henry laughs at the idea, saying Dorian is too delicate for something as gross as murder. Lord Henry says he hates the He was there for Dorian's interaction with Sibyl Vane. He knows the theatre played a major role in their love and that fact that Basil’s art had become so poor in the last years of his life. After Dorian stopped sitting for him, his art became trite. Sibyl's bad acting played an active role in breaking the spell she had on Dorian. He even left the performance because he could not stand the bad art he was experiencing. Therefore, Henry knows art has an active influence on emotion, Lord Henry begs Dorian to play Chopin for him and talk to him. Dorian begins playing and remembers a line from Hamlet that reminds psychology, and his own action. To believe otherwise is to engage in wilful fantasy. him of the portrait Basil painted of him: "Like the painting of a sorrow,/ A face without a heart." He repeats the line over again thinking Once again Henry proves himself not much of a friend to Dorian, as he punctures his desire to change. He also shows the ho w much it suits the portrait Basil painted of him. Lord Henry thinks of a line he heard when he passed by a preacher in the park last distance between them, and perhaps his own shallowness, by mentioning his divorce so briefly. It matters only as a marker Sunday: "What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" Dorian is shocked at the saying and wonders why for how public attention is spent. This shallowness is underscored by his rejection of Dorian's question about the possibility Henry would ask him this question. Henry laughs it off and moves on to another topic. that he killed Basil. Henry says, "All crime is vulgar, just as all vulgarity is crime." What he's missing is that Dorian is extremely vulgar. Dorian is also as shallow as Henry. When Henry mentions Allan Campbell's suicide, Dorian does not even Henry urges Dorian to stop being so serious. He tells him he looks better than he ever has and wonders what his secret is for warding off old react, even though he'd known the man intimate ly and left him broken. He just looks pretty. Wilde provides a damning age. He revels in the exquisite life Dorian has led and wishes he could change places with him. He tells Dorian his life has been a work of art. statement on the aesthetic movement, delivered in the most aesthetically pleasing fashion possible. Dorian stops playing and tells Lord Henry that if he knew what he had done in life, he would turn from him. In the Faust legend, the main character ultimately confronts the loss of his soul but is incapable of seeking redemption Lord Henry urges Dorian to come to the club with him. He wants to introduce him to Lord Poole, Bournemouth’s eldest son who has been through confession and absolution. He despairs and feels that he is beneath pardon or that there is no God or power strong imitating Dorian and wants to meet him terribly. He then suggests that Dorian come to his place the next day and meet Lady Baranksome enough to save him. In this sense, the Faust protagonist still suffers the sin of pride in that he sees his own case as so special who want s to consult him about some tapestry she is going to buy. He asks Dorian why he no longer sees the Duchess and guesses that the Duchess is too clever, one never liking being around clever women. Finally, Dorian leaves after promising to come back later. that it is beyond God's help. Despair is the one unpardonable sin because the sinner is incapable of asking to be pardoned. Traditionally, despair is symbolized by suicide.

D orian spends his last evening with his friend Lord Henry. He tells Lord Henry that he plans to reform himself and asks his fr iend not to speak to him any more with his characteristic sneer. This chapter serves to convey some important information to the reader and to show In the closing chapters of The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian's behaviour and attitude are consistent with this Faust Dorian in his submissive relation to Lord Henry one last time. The reader finds out that people are still talking about the disappearance of tradition. Dorian has matured from the naïve, vain youth in Basil's studio. He has grown into a man who was at first Basil Hallward, but no one suspects foul play. Since Basil was in the habit of never telling people where he was going when he went on trips, despicable but in the end is almost likable. Perhaps he is more pitiab le than likable. However, he cannot find salvation people assume he is doing the same now. The reader also finds out that Alan Campbell has committed suicide. Dorian’s one accomplice in because he is incapable of setting aside his pride, confessing, and asking for absolution. the death of Basil Hallward is now gone. He is completely safe from detection.

In Chapter 19, as the after-dinner scene opens at Lord Henry's, Dorian is bursting with pride because of a recent act of The second function of this chapter, to show Dorian continuing to be dominated by Lord Henry, is only fully revealed in the last chapter. decency. He has returned Hetty Merton to her country life after winning her devotion. Unfortunately, instead of seeing this Dorian tries to convince Lord Henry that he will now reform himself and be good. He gives the evidence of his change when he tells of his act as only one small step, Dorian expects instant reward. When he checks the portrait for some sign of his newfound recent flirtation of a country girl named Hetty. Just when she was ready to run away with him, he left her. Lord Henry tells him it is not a virtue, he finds only a look of cunning about the eyes and a wrinkle of hypocrisy in the mouth. There seems to be fresh reform, but just another kind of pleasure, the pleasure in renouncing pleasure. He says Doria n didn’t do it for the moral worth of it, but for blood on the hands. Instead of redeeming his soul, his act of supposed redemption has tarnished his soul even more his own ego. because the act was motivated by selfishness.

Wilde was condemned by his critics for writing an "immoral" book; he claimed it was a very moral work. What justification is What are the Gothic elements in the novel? there for either view? The Gothic novel was in vogue in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. According to M. H. Abrams, in A Glossary of Literary On publication, The Picture of Dorian Gray met with a storm of hostile reviews which condemned the book for its alleged immorality. The tone Terms (4th edition), the Gothic novel "develops a brooding atmosphere of gloom or terror, represents events that are uncanny, or macabre, or melodramatically violent, and often deals with aberrant psychological states" (p. 72). A typical of the reviews was often virulent. The critic for the Daily Chronicle wrote, "It is a tale spawned from the leprous literatur e of the French Decadents-a poisonous book, the atmosphere of which is heavy with the mephitic odours of moral and spiritual putrefaction." Others suggested Gothic novel is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Edgar Allan Poe's short stories belong to the same genre, and the term can be that the authorities should consider prosecuting Wilde for the content of the book. Wilde replied, in letters to literary magazines, that the novel more loosely applied to elements in such novels as Charles Dickens's Bleak House and Great Expectations. had a moral message that "all excess, as well as all renunciation, brings its own punishment." He points out that Dorian, "having led a life of Wilde clearly draws on elements of the Gothic novel in The Picture of Dorian Gray, a lurid tale that includes murder, horror mere sensation and pleasure, tries to kill conscience, and at that moment kills himself." Wilde also claimed that Basil worshiped physical beauty and the supernatural. It is the supernatural element that makes the plot work. There can be no rational explanation for how too much and instilled vanity into Dorian, and that Henry suffered because he sought merely to be a spectator of life. the picture changes to reflect the changing nature of Dorian's character, or his soul. It is mysterious and eerie, as is the fact Wilde is correct in the sense that Dorian does meet a bad end, and one could find passages where he is explicitly condemned, such as when he that although the novel stretches over a period of more than eighteen years, Dorian's appearance alters little during this leaves the opium den, "Callous, concentrated on evil, with stained mind and soul hungry for rebellion." But the novel is far from being a simple time. The ending of the novel is also supernatural, since the picture is magically restored and Dorian is suddenly transformed; moral parable that sin meets with punishment. There is a discrepancy between the moral framework and the overall tone of the novel. Wilde the corpse looks old, withered, wrinkled and loathsome. takes such relish in the luxurious sensual descriptions of Dorian's life that it can sound as if he approves of it. His heart is more in the varieties of The sudden eruption of violence and horror in the murder of Basil is another Gothic element, as are the continual hints at secret, unspeakable crimes. Wilde thus utilizes some of the elements of a popular literary form to tell his story. In fact, an sensation that he gives to his protagonist than in his moral condemnation of him. There is perhaps a parallel here with Milton's Paradise Lost. Many readers feel that the hero of the epic is not Christ but Satan, because Milton seems to put so much more energy and life into his devil than earlier Gothic novel, Melmoth the Wanderer (1820), by Charles Maturin (who was a distant relative of Wilde) features a in his God. The poet William Blake once famously said of Milton that he was "of the devil's party without knowing it." Perhaps it might be said protagonist who makes a pact with the devil and is allowed to live for 150 years without aging. At the end of the novel he that Wilde was of Dorian's party-and only succeeded in partially disguising the fact. suddenly ages and dies, just as Dorian Gray does.

The night is beautiful. Dorian walks home from Lord Henry feeling good about himself. He passes some y young men Chapter 20 brings the entire surreal tale to a close. Wilde had been wrapping up the various loose plot threads in the previous chapters. In this who whisper his name. He no longer feels the thrill he used to feel when he is spoken of with such reverence by young one he brings the various themes to a full resolution. If there is an imbalance between appearance and reality, this chapter says, it is temporary. men. He wonders if Lord Henry is right, that he can never change. He wishes he had never prayed that the portrait Reality will always break through to win in the end. The clash between art and life is more complicated. Dorian's actual sins do catch up with bear the burden of his age. He knows that his downfall has come because he has never had to live with the him in the end. However, the magical powers the portrait gave him are a major factor allowing him to sin the way he did. If Dorian looked the consequences of his actions. way his portrait does at the end of the novel, men and women would not have fallen in love with him, people would have believed all of the dark rumours about him, and so on. Art enabled his loathsome life, even as it hid it. He gets home and looks in a mirror. He feels sickened by the idea that youth spoiled his soul. He throws down the mirror smashing it on the floor. He tries not to think of the past. Nothing can change it. He knows Alan Campbell Throughout the novel Dorian had enjoyed using a mirror to inspect his face for (absent) signs of change. When he did not find any, he was died without telling anyone of Dorian’s secret. He doesn’t even feel too badly about the death of Basil. He doesn’t reassured. In this chapter, though, he breaks a mirror, symbolizing the end of his extended self-contemplation. As soon as he is no longer content forgive Basil for painting the portrait that ruined his life. He just wants to live a new life. He thinks of Hetty Merton and he wonders if the portrait upstairs has changed because of his good deed toward her. He gets the lamp and to look at his own beauty, his death is sure to follow quickly, as indeed it does. rushes up the stairs, hopeful that the portrait will have already begun to change back to beauty. When he gets there, he is horrified to see that the portrait looks even worse. Now the image has an arrogant sneer on its face. More This last chapter adds another layer to Wilde's complex consideration of art in this novel. Dorian has repeatedly shown himself to be blood has appeared on its hands and even on its feet. Dorian wonders what he should do. He wonders if he will have extremely shallow and self-centred. He misses the impact of many of his actions. In Basil's portrait, though, he can immediately see a single to confess the murder before he will be free of the guilt of it. He doesn’t want to confess because he doesn’t want to line of hypocrisy after his decision to not seduce Hetty Merton. This indicates that great art can lift even the shallowest of people to new be put in jail. He wonders if the murder will follow him all his life. Finally he decides to destroy the portrait. He finds insight. Dorian's reaction, though, damns him further. In his preface to the novel, Wilde wrote, "Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful the knife he used to kill Basil. He rushes to the portrait and stabs at it. things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault." This, in the end, describes Dorian. At last Wilde leaves it to the reader to determine whether Dorian in fact stuck the dagger into his own heart, or, whether, in slashing his portrait, he rendered a magical and Downstairs on the street below, two men are passing by when they hear a loud scream. They rush for a policeman mortal wound. who knocks on the door, but no one comes. The men ask the policeman whose house it is. When they hear it is Dorian Gray’s, they sneer and walk away. Inside, the servants rush up to the room from whence the sound came. They try the door but it’s locked. Two of them go around by way of the roof to get in through the window. When they get Dorian cannot redeem his soul because he is still primarily interested in himself. He dismisses the deaths of Basil and Alan Campbell. The inside, they find Dorian Gray stabbed in the heart and above him a glorious portrait of him hanging on the wall. The first, he decides, was inevitable; the second made his own choice. In neither case does Dorian accept his own responsibility. Still, he is torn man stabbed on the floor is wrinkled and ugly. They don’t even recognise him until they see the rings on his fingers. because he realizes that the "soul is a terrible reality." He thinks that a person should pray for punishment, but he fails to understand that The novel ends with the conflation of the art and the subject. Dorian stabs the portrait, trying to destroy it, and the the only way of absolving immoral responsibility is to pray for forgiveness. In the novel's powerful final paragraphs, Dorian, in effect, effect is that he kills himself. The mystery of the novel is kept intact. The reader never knows if the portrait magically commits suicide. He despises the figure in the portrait, but that is who he has become. When he slashes at the painting with the knife, transformed itself, or if it was a figment of Dorian’s--and later, Basil’s imagination. When people who are not at all appropriately the same knife that killed Basil, Dorian kills himself. The horrible cry, which awakens the servants and startles the men on attached to the portrait see it in the end, they see nothing more than the beautiful portrait of Dorian Gray as young the street, carries with it the agony of eighteen years of horror. man.

In Chapter 20 of The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian is presented to us as a figure torn between reforming and alleviating himself from the sin and corruption he has perpetuated on others, and pursuing his exclamatory yearning for his “unsullied splendour of eternal youth”

to return. Above all, the death of Dorian can only be interpreted by asserting his relationship to his portrait; the “fatal picture”, in which Wilde’s diction suggests it serves as a brutal reminder for his deteriorating soul and his true self, or as simply a symbol of a greater societal force on Dorian. Hence, only with this can one judge whether Dorian truly died by murder, suicide or by accident.

At the beginning of the chapter, Wilde uses pathetic fallacy to convey the “lovely night” which could coincide with Dorian’s inherent feeling of contentment and his ego-centricity and narcissism in regards to his relief that he is safe. This, is mirrored in previous parts of the novel, such as after James Vane’s death, where Wilde bathetically recalls how Dorian’s “eyes filled with tears, for he knew he was safe”. The pleasing, opulent aristocratic setting of the “lovely night” echoes the synaesthesia previously used in Lord Henry’s lavishing “apricot- coloured” habitat, does mirror Dorian’s narcissism, but to a greater extent, the setting is oxymoronic against the sense of unease and underlying ennui in Dorian. As influenced by Lord Henry’s Hedonistic aphorisms and the “poisonous“ imagery epitomising the influence of the Yellow Book advocating a “complex, multiform creature”, he seeks to “search for new sensations” (an allusion to Pater’s Rennaissance). However, Wilde’s deliberate repetitious use of the past perfect tense and free indirect discourse in “He had often”, “she had believed” suggests Dorian’s remorse and apathy towards pursuing pleasure. This is seen in his interaction with the girl whom he had “lured to love him” but told her he was “poor” and “wicked” implying how Dorian is on one hand atoning for perhaps a similar situation with Sybil by not corrupting the girl, as the imagery of the “thrush” echoes the “caged song-bird” that Dorian had been responsible for the suicide of. This perhaps underlies Dorian’s guilt and longing to change, further seen in the alliterative aphorism “There was purification in punishment” suggesting how Dorian wishes that each of his sins would’ve resulted in punishment. On the other hand, one could argue that his declare to the girl represents his desperation to start “A new life!”, thus implying Dorian is torn but is more inclined to ignore rather than face the consequences of his actions that will inevitability lead him to his death. Furthermore, Dorian’s relationship with the portrait is paramount in regards to whether his death is murder, suicide or accident. Jonah Siegel argues, “Dorian’s death is less a sign of moral failure, than an indication of the failure of his historicism.” Indeed, one can argue it is to a greater degree that Dorian’s growing loathing for his portrait to crush it into “silver splinters” represents the failure of his historicism. This arguable externalisation of Dorian’s conscience could mirror the Victorian society’s crushing judgement on Wilde himself, for being a homosexual, and the hypocrisy prevalent in the 19th century that built itself on a façade of moral rectitude and piety with the “silver splinters” acting as the foundation of its vice, corruption and poverty. The sibilant image here could symbolise how Dorian fails to realise that he can never go back to how he was, and the “silver splinters” can never be rebuilt. However, I think Dorian’s death is completely a sign of moral failure. His stabbing of the portrait was never meant to act as a divine retribution for his crimes, as he never knows that in doing what he does, it will destroy him. Thus, Dorian’s death is a sign of moral failure, as he dies through trying to save himself, implying his narcissism that essentially led to the forming of his Faustian pact with his portrait, led him to his inexorable death. It can be argued that Dorian’s death is caused by Dorian’s disjunction between his inner and outer lives, and to what extent Dorian truly died or not. Andrew Smith exclaims, “Dorian’s death represents the inability to be authentic…and the failure to be artificial”. On one hand, Dorian fails to be “authentic” in the sense that, if the code of the vicarious flaneur like Lord Henry celebrates individualism (declaratively encapsulated in “the aim of live is self- development”), Dorian falters because he fails to establish and live by his own moral code. Furthermore, it can be seen that Dorian fails to be artificial, as he ceases to represent Art, remaining young and beautiful whilst his painting exhibits his corruption. However, I disagree to an extent with Smith’s paradoxical criticism. In ‘The Decay of Lying’, Wilde stated, “Life imitates Art…life in fact tis the mirror, and Art the reality”. Therefore, even though Dorian’s sin accrued in the portrait is not displayed through his appearance, such as Basil’s death and Sybil’s suicide, it remains exhibited through the portrait as the reality, and Dorian’s decisions and actions mirror this. This idea of Art acting as the reality mirroring life, was seen in Walter Sickett’s paintings conveying the cruelty of life as beauty, seen in his portrait allegedly identifying Jack the Ripper.

Finally, it is disputable whether in Chapter 20, Dorian actually dies. It can be argued that when Dorian exclaims: “His beauty had been to him but a mask”, the caveat “to him” suggesting an uncertainty, reiterating his torn nature at this portrait. It can be argued thereby the original Dorian without a mask was before he met Lord Henry and fell under his influence, encapsulated in the asyndetic “poisonous, fascinating, delightful theories” which is replete with oxymorons. Therefore in a sense Dorian’s beauty could act as a mask for his already dying soul, therefore he was never really himself when he died, merely playing just an aping of Lord Henry ’s, “an echo of someone else’s music”. In contrast, Wilde himself stated, “Give a man a mask, and he’ll tell the truth” implying Dorian’s beauty was the truth and was reality, so it was his true self that died. Discuss the ending: what does it mean? Do you find any of these characters believable? Why or why not? (If not, do you think Wilde might Dorian's scandalous behaviour shocks his peers, yet he remains welcome in social circles? Why? What is Wilde suggesting about "polite" London society? have purposely drawn them as such?) Dorian desires to reform his life after the death of James Vane. Why doesn't he succeed? If you know the story of Faust, what parallels do you find in Wilde's novel?