Second Reading Response

For my second reading response, I would like to take a look at the darker side of Dorian Gray that we first see rear its ugly head on page 76. After seeing the girl he claims to "love" act badly in the play he has come to know her for acting beautiful in, he then loses his love for her. Dorian becomes heartless and insults the girl as she tries her best to show her devotion to him, he is demeaning and ruthless and unlike the self that he has been portrayed as thus far. We get to see a glimpse of his true character and it makes me like him a lot less. He obviously doesn't care to get to know people and is more focused on the outward beauty which skewers his perception of how the person really is, whether bad or good, and she is seemingly on the good see. He himself possess this trait, pertaining to the bad side, outwardly he is beautiful and it makes people trust him but inwardly he is mean and malicious, he cannot do anything wrong yet he is so ruthless to people who do. I'm looking forward to seeing what other ugly things he does.

First Reading Response

I want now to pause and reflect on the start of my novel. At the beginning I found the novel was a little hard to wrap myself around, you know when you want so bad to read a book but you just cannot retain the information, that was me for the first few chapters (good news, I did very much get into it, after the beginning), I think because I had expected it to be different than it was.  The first page is an elaborate description of the scenery, which, to its avail, painted a vivid picture of the surroundings , but I didn't find it gripping enough to be drawn in straight away, although I am a tad biased as I cannot relate to the time period as well as I would like to (hopefully in the near future). One thing that I did like was the complex personalities of the three men, Dorian Gray, Basil Hallward, and Harry Henry. Dorian seems to be, at first a perfect specimen, to hold beauty beyond comparison, to be so alluring and captivating that he garners the attention of both Hallward and Henry. Basil seems to be more closed off than the two others, an artist, who is meticulous when working, "who puts all his personality into his art so he has none left for himself" as Harry describes him. Henry seems to be an open book, with his opinions laid out on the table for everyone to see, you get the feeling that he is full of himself but you like him all the more for it. I am hoping that the characters inner aspects be shown by the end of the books.

Welcome post

Hello, readers and contributors of my blog, welcome. Over the next couple of weeks I will be reporting on information, my progress and analytical thoughts on the book which I have chosen to study; The Picture Of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. So far it has been an intruiging read, one which I have thoroughly enjoyed. My hope is that by the end of my writings I will have, to the very best of my abilities, been able to fully and interestingly answer the question my blog begs, "What about this novel garners it the prestigious title of being considered a work of classic literature?"