Dorian Gray Destroys the Picture of Dorian Gray: "What did it mean?"

We've discussed a range of overlapping symbolic or metaphorical "meanings" that Basil's painting of Dorian Gray takes on in this novel--it represents his conscience, or the corruption of his soul, or the toll of his sins, or his dark secret, or the dark underside to his perennial good looks. So then what does it "mean" when, at the conclusion of Wilde's tale, Dorian Gray attempts to destroy the painting by stabbing it with the same knife he used to murder Basil Hallward? What is he trying to achieve, as far as you can tell? How do we interpret the outcome? And how might this outcome offer a moral resolution to the story? Is this the moment when Dorian finally faces consequences for his amoral and hedonistic lifestyle? Or has he already faced these consequences? Or does he ever face any significant consequences at all?

The dramatic conclusion of the story appears on the final two pages of chapter 20 (pp. 212-13 in the Penguin edition). Please take five minutes now to contemplate in your notebook the significance of this beguiling ending to the story. What kind of "moral lesson" does Oscar Wilde seem to be drawing from the story of Dorian Gray? Can we read this "moral" as a commentary on the philosophy of aestheticism and hedonism, as promoted by Lord Henry throughout the novel?

The Picture of Dorian Gray: "What did it mean?"

In chapter VII of The Picture of Dorian Gray, soon after Dorian has returned at dawn from the theater where Sibyl Vane has just bombed as Juliet, and where Dorian has broken off all relations with her in a particularly harsh and cruel manner ("You used to stir my imagination. Now you don't even stir my curiosity" [85]), he suddenly notices that the portrait has changed: "his eye fell upon the portrait Basil Hallward had painted of him. He started back as if in surprise. The he went on into his own room, looking somewhat puzzled. After he had taken the buttonhole out of his coat, he seemed to hesitate. Finally he came back, went over to the picture, and examined it. In the dim arrested light that struggled through the cream-coloured silk blinds, the face appeared to him to be a little changed. The expression looked different. One would have said that there was a touch of cruelty in the mouth. It was certainly strange" (87). He opens the blinds, and in the early-morning light, "the strange expression that he had noticed in the face of the portrait seemed to linger there, to be more intensified even. The quivering, ardent sunlight showed him the lines of cruelty round the mouth as clearly as if he had been looking into a mirror after he had done some dreadful thing" (87-88). He then compares the portrait to his actual reflection in a mirror: "No line like that warped his red lips. What did it mean?" (88).

Indeed, this supernatural morphing of Basil's "masterpiece" seems to "mean something" to the reader of this novel, and Dorian immediately makes the connection to the "mad wish" he had spoken when the painting was first finished, "that he himself might remain young, and the portrait grow old; that his own beauty might be untarnished, and the face on the canvas bear the burden of his passions and his sins" (88). Wilde is clearly using the painting--and its mysterious transformation--as a means of symbolizing or signifying something about Dorian Gray's character. So, What does it mean? At this point in your reading of the novel, how do you interpret its central symbol? What does the painting seem to represent? What analogies in the "real world" does its transformation suggest to you? How do you see Dorian as affected by the transformation of the portrait in subsequent chapters?

Please take five minutes now and reflect on the possible meanings of this central symbol in your notebook, and be prepared to share your ideas with the class. 

Manifesto!

For your first writing exercise of the second semester, you're going to have the opportunity to create your own manifesto, either as a solo composition or in collaboration as a group of two or three. Use Wilde's "Preface" to The Picture of Dorian Gray as one model: Wilde's provocative and paradoxical aphorisms can be seen as a "manifesto of aestheticism," and this model was taken up and pursued with a passion by a number of modern artists and writers (see Marinetti, Pound, Loy, and Lewis). You or your group should identify yourselves as the vanguard of a "movement," although it doesn't have to be built upon an especially serious or dire set of issues. For authenticity, you might add an "-ist" to your group's name: if you want to hail the superiority of the cashew over every other variety of nut, for example, you might confront readers with "The Cashewist Manifesto." 

Your manifesto should draw directly on the examples of modernist manifestos we've read for today's class (and Wilde's "Preface") as models of the form. Imitate the style of their sentences, the format of their assertions, and even the typeface and arrangement of words (see Lewis's Vorticist Manifesto or the reproduction of Loy's Feminist Manifesto). It should include a minimum of 10 distinct assertions or aphorisms or statements of provocation. Note how all of these manifestos share a desire to break decisively with the past--they are all "revolutionary" in some form, and the affirmation of the movement is always framed in terms of a rejection of a stilted or outdated or obsolete past. All manifestos in this sense could be described as "futurist": they all share the posture of hailing an imminent future at the expense of the exhausted past. Think of what issue or set of issues you would like to sound off on, in such a forceful and decisive voice.

If you collaborate, all members of the group should sign the manifesto, and all members should contribute assertions and aphorisms. You can edit the final draft together, to produce the strongest, most uncompromising, authoritative assertions you can create. Please have fun with this assignment. The final draft is due (via Canvas) by the end of the day Friday, January 17, and you will have the opportunity to share your work with the class. I look forward to seeing what you come up with!

Midyear Feedback

Incredibly, we are now at the midpoint of the 2024-25 school year, and as we turn to face an invigorating third quarter in Language and Literature 2, your feedback and commentary on your experiences in the course so far can be very useful to me. Please take a few minutes now to respond to a brief survey:

SIXTH PERIOD

EIGHTH PERIOD

THANK YOU!

Notebook prompt: Kambili's Coming-of-Age

Consider the portrait of Kambili as the novel draws to a close in the final section, "A Different Silence: The Present." Do you see Purple Hibiscus as a coming-of-age narrative? How does Adichie depict Kambili at the end of her story? What significant coming-of-age developments do you see in her character? How does her coming-of-age compare to Jaja's, as we see him in this final scene?

Please take 5 minutes to contemplate these questions in your Notebook before our class discussion on Tuesday, November 19.

Highlife Music in 1980s Nigeria

Just as music plays a significant role in Gansworth's characterization of Lewis and his complicated friendship with George, which is largely grounded in a shared love of the Beatles and Wings and Queen, music is a part of Adichie's characterization of Kambili and her ambivalent relationship to 1980s Nigerian secular culture. Singing is as much a defining characteristic of Aunty Ifeoma's house as laughter, but in Kambili's house, there is very little song or music. They never play the fancy stereo they have, and when Ifeoma's kids insist that they put something on, the best thing Obiora can find is "an Irish church choir singing 'O Come All Ye Faithful." In the car, we're told that they listen to cassettes of "Ave Maria," a well-known piece of sacred music composed by Franz Schubert in 1825. Both of these selections, not surprisingly, place Papa Eugene's musical tastes squarely in the British-colonial camp--and Papa's musical tastes set the standard for what is acceptable listening in their household.

When Kambili and Jaja start to interact more with Ifeoma's family, they are introduced to a new kind of music. The first time they go driving in Ifeoma's car, Kambili refers in passing to the "high life music from the car radio" (83). "High life" (or "highlife") refers to the most popular form of music in Nigeria in the 1980s: the genre originated in the early twentieth century in Ghana and became hugely popular in Nigeria in the 1960s. Highlife music combines African melodies and rhythms with European instrumentation, driven by rhythmic guitar and horns. By the early 1980s, when the novel is set, it has become a proudly African form of music, often reflecting the influence of Black American funk music and American Black Power pan-African consciousness. As Amaka says to Kambili, "I listen mostly to indigenous musicians. They're culturally conscious; they have something real to say. Fela and Osadebe and Onyeka are my favorites" (118).

All three of these musicians--Onyeka Onwenu, Fela Kuti, and Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe--have had long and productive careers that are worth digging into in their own right. There are a number of highlife mixes available on YouTube, put together by devoted fans of the genre. Fela Kuti is the most widely known and internationally influential of the group, and there are a number of clips of his band Africa 70 performing live all over the world: for a high-quality recording of a live performance by Fela Kuti and Africa 70 on German television in 1978 (less than a year after the Nigerian army raided Fela's "Kalakuta Republic" compound and killed his mother, in response to his inflammatory single "Zombie" [1977]), see here.

Notebook prompt: Kambili's Dream

After spending the day with Aunty Ifeoma, Papa-Nnukwu, and her cousins, Kambili has a dream: “I dreamed that I was laughing, but it did not sound like my laughter, although I was not sure what my laughter sounded like. It was cackling and throaty and enthusiastic, like Aunty Ifeoma’s” (88). 

How do you interpret this dream? How does it reflect Kambili’s recent experiences? What does laughter represent, and why is it important?

Take 5 minutes now to contemplate this passage in your Notebook.