1. Chapter 2
Gothic fiction does not offer a finely-drawn demarcation between reality and its opposite; rather, the relationship between the two is often described in a suitably antagonistic way to make readers question their own assumptions about the relative values of each category. (Angela Wright)
What do you understand about this quotation? How has it emerged in what we have discussed about TPODG already?

2. In pairs, work through these questions on Chapter 2 and be ready to feed back.
How is Dorian Gray presented? Why do you think Wilde uses free indirect discourse to describe him through Lord Henry’s eyes (17).
Wilde said that ‘bad people stir one’s imagination’. How does Lord Henry reflect this view?
How is society presented?
How can we tell that this is a privileged lifestyle, characterised by excess?
How are youth and beauty presented? Are we encouraged to condone or condemn this view?

3. Narcissism On your iPads, quickly look up the story of Narcissus.
In John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Eve is struck by her own beauty when she gazes at her reflection:
As I bent down to look, just opposite, A Shape within the watry gleam appeard  Bending to look on me, I started back, It started back, but pleas'd I soon returnd, Pleas'd it returnd as soon with answering looks Of sympathie and love; there I had fixt Mine eyes till now, and pin'd with vain desire, Had not a voice thus warnd me, What thou seest, What there thou seest fair Creature is thy self,
Now look at p.24 of TPODG and look at Dorian’s response to his painting. What might Wilde be trying to suggest about Dorian at this point by alluding to Narcissus and Eve?

4. Horror
In Gothic fiction, terror is set in opposition to horror – while terror is uplifting, horror is said to ‘freeze’ and make you recoil. It is usually generated with direct contact with mortality – death is presented as the absolute limit i.e. no belief in the afterlife.
Look at Dorian’s response to the idea of aging (25) How and why does this use the imagery of horror?
The difference between Terror and Horror is the difference between awful apprehension and sickening realisation: between the smell and of death and stumbling against a corpse.
(Devendra Varma)
I’ll try to terrify you first, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll horrify you, and if I can’t make it there, I’ll try to gross you out. I’m not proud.
(Stephen King)
Terror and horror are so far opposite that the first expands the soul, and awakens the faculties to a higher degree of life; the other contracts, freezes and nearly annihilates them. (Ann Radcliffe)

5. Faustian pact
Remind yourself of what you learnt of the Faust legend last week.
What is the significance of these quotations from Chapter 2 and how do they link to this idea?
‘If it were only the other way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that—for that—I would give everything! [...] I would give my soul for that!’ (25)
‘Why did you paint it? It will mock me some day—mock me horribly!’ (26)
‘[...] flinging himself on the divan, he buried his face in the cushions, as though he was praying’ (26)

6. Art and Reality
TASK: complete the worksheet.

7. Paintings and ancestry
‘Paintings often play a sinister role in Gothic fiction. The first Gothic novel, Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764) includes a figure stepping from a painting and into reality while Melmoth the Wanderer (1820), written by Oscar Wilde’s great-uncle Charles Maturin, describes the haunting gaze of a portrait as it follows the viewer around a room. The picture hidden in Dorian’s attic may be the most disturbing portrait in Wilde’s book, but it is not the only canvas in the novel which provides a pointer to Dorian’s behaviour. At one point Dorian walks through the picture-gallery of his country home, looking at the portraits of his ancestors: ‘those whose blood flowed in his veins’. The saturnine and sensuous faces stare back at him, causing Dorian to reflect whether ‘some strange poisonous germ crept from body to body till it had reached his own?’ (ch. 11). This poses the question as to whether Dorian is free to determine his own actions, and is thus entirely responsible for his behaviour, or whether his actions are dictated by his genetic inheritance – an inheritance, as the faces of his ancestors indicate, ‘of sin and shame’. The eminent mental pathologist Henry Maudsley wrote in his book Pathology of Mind (1895): ‘Beneath every face are the latent faces of ancestors, beneath every character their characters’. This idea already seems present in much Gothic fiction, including Wilde’s novel.’ (Greg Buzwell:

8. Homework
Write a critical appreciation of this passage, making links to TPODG and Gothic conventions to highlight your understanding of the genre.
Make sure you explore the language, form and structure in detail as part of your answer, as well as considering the Gothic context.

9. Plenary
Find one quotation which you feel summarizes the essence of Chapter 2.