It was really interesting and enlightening to look at other people’s common place book entries. It brought other perspectives and focuses into my learning and made me think about parts of the book I hadn’t thought of previously. The three people I commented on all focused on different aspects of the novel from the author to the content to the themes behind the novel. They can all be tied together though because Wilde took themes and feelings from his own…
“The final revelation is that Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of Art” (254) “The name is therefore consistent with the frequent comparisons of Dorian Gray to figures in Greek mythology and with his resemblance to the kind of idealized male figure represented in Greek art” (261) “The natural preservation of Dorian’s perfection by art, and the unnatural reversal of roles of art and life, constitute the idea that gives the novel its momentum” (265)…
Quotation: “But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June… 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 anything!” (66) Comment: This marks the beginning of Dorian Gray’s struggle with the concepts of aging and beauty. Before Lord Henry discussed the idea with him he…
“adaptations of Hyde demonstrate the ways in which monstrosity can be repurposed for good and how it becomes necessary to combat true evil” “they encourage readers and audiences to rethink what makes one a hero or a monster, and they ultimately argue for monstrosity to be a requisite of a modern day hero” “degeneration theorists suggested that the degenerate figure is one who is unhealthy, abnormal, and deformed and who can pass such traits to offspring” “the monster figure is,…
“I gave a view holloa, took to my heels, collared my gentleman, and brought him back to where there was already quite a group about the screaming child. He was perfectly cool and made no resistance, but gave me on look, so ugly that it brought out the sweat on me like running” (35) “Mr. Hyde was pale and dwarfish, he gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation, he had a displeasing smile, he had borne himself to…
Quotation: “Right in the midst there lay the body of a man sorely contorted and still twitching. They drew near on tiptoe, turned it on its back and beheld the face of Edward Hyde. He was dressed in clothes far too large for him, clothes of the doctor’s bigness; the cords of his face still moved with a semblance of life, but life was quite gone; and by the crushed phial in the hand and the strong smell of kernels…
St. Luke’s Hospital was a mental illness hospital in London that was established in 1750 for the treatment of poor people diagnosed with lunacy. The hospital was closed and reopened multiple times under different names until finally becoming the psychological department of Middlesex Hospital. The artifact I found most interesting is a collection of pages containing the rules and orders to be observed by the resident officers and servants with amendments. The pages appear folded and wrinkled in some places…
Quotation: “‘I repeat: I freely consent to go with you as your fellow-missionary; but not as your wife: I cannot marry you and become a part of you.’ ‘A part of me you must become,’ he answered steadily; ‘otherwise the whole bargain is void. How can I, a man not yet thirty, take out with me to India a girl of nineteen, unless she be married to me? How can we be for ever together – sometimes in solitudes, sometimes…
“We shall get you off cannily Dick: and it will be better, bot for your sake, and for that poor creature in yonder. I have striven long to avoid exposure, and I should not like it to come at last” (295) “But I had fastened the door — I had the key in my pocket: I should have been a careless shepherd if I had left a lamb — my pet lamb — so near a wolf’s-den, unguarded: you were…
Quotation: “‘The glamour of inexperience is over your eyes,’ he answered; ‘and you see it through a charmed medium: you cannot discern that the gilding is slime and the silk draperies cobwebs; that the marble is sordid slate, and the polished wood mere refuse chips and scaly bark. Now here (he pointed to the leafy enclosure we had entered) all is real, sweet, and pure’” (pg 297). Comment: Mr. Rochester is discussing his view of Thornfield with Jane and trying…
