The Picture of Dorian Gray
Written by Oscar Wilde
Originally published in 1890
~170 pages
Rate 4/5
It's been a few years since I read a book from the 1800s.
I can't say that I enjoyed The Picture of Dorian Gray the whole time I was reading it. There was a few chapters in the book that I got bored with, namely when Dorian is talking about a book he feels poisoned him. Every other scene in the book was interesting. Overall, the book made me contemplate how we view beauty and women.
Regarding beauty, the whole book was about how looks can kill (pun-intended)! As a society we have deemed beauty to be far more superior than brains even though both can fade away as we age. We are so consumed with looking beautiful and gaining attraction rather than learning who we are. Nothing has changed since the 1800s in that regard.
Regarding women, Dorian and Henry had many conversations about their thoughts on women. In one conversation they state "no woman is a genius," in another conversation they say, "The one charm of the past is that it is the past. But women never know when the curtain has fallen." "women appreciate cruelty, downright cruelty, more than anything else. They have wonderfully primitive instincts. We have emancipated them, but they remain slaves looking for their masters, all the same. They love being dominated." The amount of generalization about when in this book was obnoxious, but it was a different time back then and the characters in this book are predominantly male. Also, the Dorian isn't made to be a hero so him saying these things kind of makes sense. However, one of their friends is a women and they seem to care about her thoughts.
The Duchess shares her thoughts about men on several occasions instance, "If we women did not love you for your defects, where would you all be? Not one of you would ever be married. You would be a set of unfortunate bachelors. Not, however, that that would alter you much. Nowadays all the married men live like bachelors, and all the bachelors like married men." Another quote from the Duchess that stuck out to me was when she said, "Women rule the world. I assure you we can’t bear mediocrities. We women, as some one says, love with our ears, just as you men love with your eyes, if you ever love at all.” Everything she says about women is compared to men and everything that the men say about women is compared to a woman's performance and their treatment towards women.
From a feminist perspective, I think The Picture of Dorian Gray is rotten. I think the book did a good job at portraying how cruel Dorian was towards women among other things and occasionally some men got called out about how cruel they were being towards women, but overall the portrayal of the women in this book was bad. For that reason and the long boring part of the book I gave The Picture of Dorian Gray 4 out of 5 stars.
Quotes:
"It is a sad thing to think of, but there is no doubt that genius lasts longer than beauty. That accounts for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate ourselves. In the wild struggle for existence, we want to have something that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and facts, in the silly hope of keeping our place."
"Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing."
"A burnt child loves the fire.”
“I am not even singed. My wings are untouched.”
“You use them for everything, except flight.”
"As for being poisoned by a book, there is no such thing as that. Art has no influence upon action. It annihilates the desire to act. It is superbly sterile. The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame."