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How Does Lord Henry Change In The Picture Of Dorian Gray

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Lord Henry serves as an artist and mastermind in the novel, manipulating Dorian in order to experience the life he preaches without punishment. From the start, Lord Henry is portrayed with a mysterious demur, making the reader unsure of his intentions and persona. It is only with further development in the novel, do Lord Henry’s true colors emerge. Lord Henry is a character who knows what he wants and who he is, and not easily swayed by the influence of others, unlike the other character in the novel, specifically Dorian Gray. With a quick wit and controversial philosophies, Lord Henry quickly makes a name for himself in the beginning of the novel. On the exterior, Lord Henry lives a life that calls for excessive indulgence in luxury and …show more content…

The marriage and death of Sybil Vane is the first indication of success of Lord Henry’s work and Dorian’s transformation. Dorian’s falling in love highlights Dorian’s new perspective and desire for pleasure and the often unreachable. To Dorian, Sybil was a muse and a lover. She is everything that he hopes to be. Dorian’s idea “to place her on a pedestal of gold and to see the world worship” (ch.6) depicts how Sybil is more of an object that he admires, rather a person who he loves. Sybil’s ability to separate herself from the reality and transform into whom ever she desired, was subconsciously longed for by Dorian. The captivating play put on by Sybil demonstrates to Dorian that there is potential to transform one’s self. It is Dorian’s chase to become a fictional-like character, that made him fall in love with an actress. When Sybil could no longer posses the skill to transform into another character, Dorian losses interest because she was not able to fulfill the role of the muse she initially was sought out to be. The resulting suicide of Sybil Vane, is an extremely tragic incident within the novel. Lord Henry’s ability, however, to convince Dorian that is it an insignificant and natural occurrence highlights the true dominance that Lord Henry has over Dorian. Dorian has successfully become a product of Lord Henry’s scheme. Sybil is truly an innocence character who never committed a sin that was worthy of suicide. Her innocence and vulnerability was no match for Dorian’s newly tainted mind, let alone Lord

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2. The bulk of Chapter 11 lists, page after page, the various pursuits of Dorian's adult life. In these lists, Wilde shows the result of Dorian's chosen path. The reader sees the peculiar kind of hell that Dorian inhabits because of his pact; Wilde delivers a strong judgement against the dangers of decadence. The lengthy passages describing Dorian's study of perfumes, music, jewels, and embroideries border on being tedious.

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He was incredibly cruel towards Sibyl Vane and caused her to commit suicide. Due to Lord Henry’s influence he does not blame himself, yet he blames Sibyl for acting poorly. As the cruel actions continue Dorian gets deeper and deeper into the lifestyle of Lord Henry, to the point where he shrugs off a loved one's death as it is nothing. Sibyl’s purely innocent personality contrasted with Dorian’s cruel and hedonistic life which shows just how Dorian is developing as a

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Lord Henry even gave particular offense for female of the species, he said to Dorian Gray that ‘women are a decorative sex, no woman is a genius and women represent the triumph of matter over mind’. But, Dorian ignores Lord Henry’s advice and even invited him and Basil Hallward to watch Sibyl Vane’s act. This part was my favorite because Dorian Gray did not care what other people thought and truly believed himself that Sibyl Vane was a women that suites him and he was confident in his decision. The way of Oscar Wilde wrote this book was interesting because of good plot and twisted ending that made me hard to predict which is great. I loved it when this story touched about beauty and consequences if we did wrong, that was when Dorian Gray tried to kill the portrait, reflected as his soul made him killed himself.

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Lord Henry’s painting showed Dorian the reality of life and all the sins he had committed. With the picture, Dorian destroyed it plus his own life because he could not bear the fact that his beauty was going to fade. In addition, Henry influences Dorian by manipulating him because; he carries on with his idea of remaining youthful. This is evident when he says, "To get back to my youth, I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable" (Liebman 300). Lord Henry had everything to do with Dorian’s obsession of wanting to remain young especially with the picture and his philosophy.

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Another theme illustrated through Wilde’s use of motifs and symbols is the theme of superficiality. The theme of superficiality can be understood as a sense of the superficial view of outer beauty that is shown in the work. It relates to the concept of remaining young, which is an important factor of what is shown in the novel. This is an important part of the novel because outer beauty plays a bigger role for Dorian, than inner beauty does. In the beginning of the novel, Lord Henry and Dorian have a conversation that focuses on the topic of youth and Dorian 's outer beauty – Lord Henry mentions the fact that Dorian has a beautiful face, and later during this conversation, Lord Henry states that: “youth is the only thing worth having…”

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Wilde writes about it being “perfectly charming”. The chapter then is corrupted by Lord Henry's influence on page 17. This structure of chapter continues through the first 10 chapters and then shifts to fill a more gothic idea. The setting becomes more ominous with the environment having blinding “fog” (Wilde 147) and the “cold rain”(Wilde 184). As corruption is about to take over Dorian's life he becomes blinded by the “lovely night” and environment again.

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Not one blossom of his loveliness would ever fade. Not one pulse of his life would ever weaken. Like the gods of the Greeks, he would be strong, and fleet, and joyous.” (Wilde 98). Through this scene, Wilde makes it clear to the reader how corrupt Dorian’s world perspective is.

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