Dorian Gray Ch. 15&16

"If you want any corroborative evidence on the subject you can ask him"(186).
corroborative- to make certain, confirm

"Certainly with hideous iteration the bitten lips of Dorian Gray"(190).
iteration- the act of repeating; repetition


"She is very clever, too clever for a woman. She lacks the indefinable charm of weakness. It is the feet of clay that make the gold of image precious. Her feet are very pretty, but they are not feet of clay-- white porcelain feet, if you like. They have been through the fire, and what fire does not destroy it hardens. She has had experiences"(186).

This quote shows Lord Henry's (which also means Dorian's) view of women. Lord Henry completely dominated Dorian's mind, and here we see that Lord Henry also seeks to dominate women. He previously described his view of women to Dorian by explaining to him, "My dear boy, no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals"(51). Like Dorian, Lord Henry wants a mind who he can dominate. He does not want a clever woman with life experience like Lady Narborough. She is not weak enough to be molded into whatever Lord Henry wants. She has gone though hard times in life, she is still a women and considered beautiful; however, she has experienced life more than many other women. She has a guard up, and cannot be pushed around, she knows too much about life. Lord Henry does not want to be involved with minds who he cannot dominate.



"He knew in what strange heavens they were suffering, and what dull hells were teaching them the secret of some new joy. They were better off than he was. He was prisoned in thought. Memory, like a horrible malady, was eating his soul away. From time to time he seemed to see the eyes of Basil Hallward looking at him. Yet he felt he could not stay. The presence of Adrian Singleton troubled him. He wanted to be where no one would know who he was. He wanted to escape from himself"(193).

Dorian plainly cannot deal with his sinful ways. It is becoming harder and harder to continually push his evil thoughts and actions out of his mind. To numb his memory, Dorian decides to turn to opium. He feels he has no other option toward fulfilling his goal of completely eliminating his sins from his mind. Dorian feels "prisoned"(193), by his memory. The memories of the actions are truly eating away at Dorian's soul. He relies on the portrait to take responsibility for his sins; therefore, he does not try to reconcile them. He tries to run from his sins, and finds that even though the portrait bears responsibility, he cannot escape them. His sins will always be on his mind if he does not seek forgiveness. If Dorian never tries to be redeemed for his sins, he will never be able to accept them and move on. We have seen a similar correlation to this in "The Crucible" in Abigail Williams. Abigail continually sins and does not seek forgiveness. In the end she becomes a prostitute and goes to hell. You cannot escape sins without atoning for them first.