Dorian Gray Chpts 1 and 2

“Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion” (Wilde 7).

Basil Hallward does not want his painting of Dorian Gray to be shown to the public for it will reveal too much about himself. The quote above beautifully explains why Dorian Gray’s portrait has so much meaning. The portrait has nothing to do with Dorian Gray, but more about Basil and his life: “We live in an age when men treat art as if it were meant to be a form of autobiography”(13).

“I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for the good intellects”(10).

Lord Henry and Dorian Gray seem to emphasize the importance of youth thus far in the novel. Lord Henry seems to have made a lasting impression on Dorian Gray because Gray has become very fond of him. Gray refuses to be a sitter without the company of Lord Henry and because of this Basil is not very happy. Lord Henry influenced Gray and this is evident when Gray says, “when one loses one’s good looks, whatever they may be, one loses everything […] youth is the only thing worth having” (28-29).
“But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins” (5).

Monotonous
–adjective
1. lacking in variety; tediously unvarying: the monotonous flat scenery.
2. characterizing a sound continuing on one note.
3. having very little inflection; limited to a narrow pitch range.


"The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their way through the long unmown grass, or circling with monotonous insistence round the dusty gilt horns of the straggling woodbine, seemed to make the stillness more oppressive" (1).


Languor
–noun
1. lack of energy or vitality; sluggishness.
2. lack of spirit or interest; listlessness; stagnation.
3. physical weakness or faintness.
4. emotional softness or tenderness.

"looking at him with his dreamy, languorous eyes"(22).