PoDG Ch. 9-10

1) "'Don't talk about horrid subjects. If one doesn't talk about a thing, it has never happened. It is simply expression, as Harry says, that gives reality to things'" (Wilde 111).

Dorian is such an airhead! He is an absolute idiot. The woman he loved just died, and here he is wanting to talk to Basil about his recent paintings. How can you get over something like that so quickly? Dorian is far too capricious. Everything in life to him does not matter, at least nothing material. He only cares about the abstract and the beautiful. It does not matter to him that Sibyl died, only that her acting had been good for a while. Sibyl was the only thing keeping Dorian innocent, somewhat. Now that she is gone, Henry has consumed him. He always speaks of Henry and of Henry's ideas. Once more, Dorian is the puppet dangling from Henry's fingers, no matter how much he thinks otherwise. He quotes him constantly, and Henry's beliefs have become Dorian's. He is helpless to change anything, he is simply putty in Henry's hands. It is actually pretty frustrating to read, because Dorian is so oblivious to it all. He is being dominated by a foul man who only cares to lead him astray, and he thinks that man is God on earth. It is utterly frustrating.

2.) "Yet he could not help feeling infinite pity for the painter who had just made this strange confession to him, and wondered if he himself would ever be so dominated by the personality of a friend" (119).

Is Dorian really so dumb? He wonders what it would be like to be dominated so by the personality of a friend. Meanwhile, Henry dominates Dorian's entire life. Henry teaches Dorian what to say, what to do, what to think. He is looking down on Basil's behavior in a somewhat condescending manner, but at the same time, Dorian is the same way with Henry. Dorian is pitying Basil, who just poured explained his deepest secret to his greatest muse, a feat that was probably very difficult for Basil to say. Not only that, but Basil's admiration of Dorian was not even explained fully: "'It was a confession. Now that I have made it, something seems to have gone out of me. Perhaps one should never put one's worship into words'" (119). One should not put their worship into words because words can never fully describe the true feelings someone may have. They may describe them to a great extent, but words can never truly capture the essence of what one feels. So, Basil did all this for Dorian, and Dorian is simply sitting there, wondering about what it would be like to admire someone so and separating Basil's situation from his own. Dorian has no intelligence, only beauty. With intelligence, someone would be able t realize what was going on around him. All Dorian has is a beautiful face, but nothing going on behind it but vanity and narcissism.