Sybil Vane's Symbolic Role in "The Portrait of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde

Dorian Gray shows his moral ambiguity by breaking up with Sibyl Vane over her terrible performance. After Sibyl’s performs badly, Dorian becomes increasingly furious with Sibyl saying to her, “You have killed my love” (63) and "You simply produce no effect” (63). It was Dorian’s cold hearted behavior that causes Sibyl to take her own life, cementing Dorian’s horrible actions forever. It is the first time Dorian acts on his own impulses without Lord Henry’s direct influence, evidence of a change in Dorian’s personal values. Conversely, as Dorian began to think about his actions, he realizes “how unjust, how cruel, he had been to Sibyl Vane.” (70) and that “it was not too late to make reparation for that” (70). Dorian’s moral ambiguity is prevalent in the guilt he feels for abusing Sibyl’s feelings. He realizes briefly what he did was dreadful, proving he still has a slight glimmer of good intentions left in him . Morally, Dorian switches his stance on his feelings for Sibyl, revealing his intentions to be good, though his actions are twisted.

The first major event of the novel is Dorian’s relationship with Sybil Vane, as it marks Dorian’s first practical experience with Lord Henry’s instruction. Although Dorian superficially embraces and attempts to follow the Hedonistic ideals,

He admits to Lord Henry that he goes nightly to her plays but does not truly love Sibyl, he loves the feeling of pleasure he gets from his obsession. He idolized her and calls her sacred but does not value her as a person. When asked by Harry, “When is she Sibyl Vane?” Dorian replies, “Never” (Wilde,54). This is the beginnings of Dorian’s ability to place his own pleasure above others and Dorian has immediately lost himself in this pleasure. “What there was in it of purely sensuous instinct of boyhood had been transformed by the workings of the imagination, changed into something that seemed to the lad himself dangerous. It was the passions about whose origin we deceived ourselves that tyrannized most strongly over us” (Wilde,58). The danger of Dorian’s blind obsession is shown with Sibyl’s suicide. His obsession led to the death of one person as well as the first signs of his own worsening soul. After this experience pleasure is no longer a form of love for Dorian, but rather a detachment from reality. While talking with Basil over breakfast Dorian shows he does not place the same value in emotions as he had done before. “A man who is the master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure. I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them” (Wilde,105). In contrast to the emotional obsession with Sibyl, Dorian next becomes obsessed with his portrait and a book. Both are means to

Dorian Gray's life is dictated by his physical appeal. His beauty lies within his youth. Dorian's perception of beauty allows him to love. He is

Basil Hallward and Henry Wotten are quite the opposite of each other—Basil is unwaveringly conventional in his values while Henry instead enjoys entertaining the idea of radical and inappropriate ways of thinking (on page 4, he claims that “the one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary,” to which Basil responds that he “hate[s] the way [Henry] talks about his married life). Because of their profoundly contrasting ideas, they are not so much foils for each other as they are for Dorian Gray. It is by these two men that one measures Dorian’s place on the scale of morality.

Dorian begins exploring new experiences and avenues of entertainment. In doing so he discovers Sibyl Vane who is the lead actress in a disreputable theater. Dorian is captivated by both her physical beauty and the beauty present in her acting. He appears night after night to watch her performances. He finally approaches her backstage after a play, and after a very short and superficial acquaintance, decides to marry her. This decision shows that Dorian has truly decided to embrace new hedonism, as do his subsequent decisions in regards to her. He informs Lord Henry and Basil of his engagement and takes them to the theater to see her perform, wanting his friends to be as captivated by her as he has been. He is appalled and embarrassed when Sibyl’s

In this novel, beauty and youth reign over everything. In Victorian period, The Picture of Dorian Gray was characterized as scandalous and immoral. Typical idealistic image of behavior and modesty inherent to old time Victorian England was discredited in the novel. The Picture of Dorian Gray contained radical ideals for the period of time it was written. Dorian represents all what was disgraceful and forbidden condemned in Victorian

The Picture of Dorian Grey as a novel in the Victorian Era was shocking to readers of the time due to the open nature of topics like: sexuality, greed and corruption. A Freudian perspective of the characters: Basil, Lord Henry and Dorian can be seen as the Id, Ego and Super Ego. Basil is the Super Ego, he conforms to a certain extent and tries to make Dorian lead a moral life when it comes to desperate times of the loss of the 'real Dorian'; Lord Henry can be seen as the Id, the immoral character who tries to convince Dorian to submit to his natural urges and passions; Dorian is the Ego, one who in the beginning is in between the two and has a power struggle within as to how he should act as a character in the novel. In answering this question and exploring the conflicts shown in the novel one must look at the gender, identity and sexuality.

In analyzing Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, concepts such as influence and the origin of evil in Dorian Gray play an exceptionally valuable role in understanding the motives of the characters. Although some critics argue characters such as Lord Kelso significantly influence Dorian’s corruption, Lord Henry Wotton’s toxic personality undeniably impacts Dorian the most. Throughout the course of the novel, Lord Henry remains the ultimate source of evil and uses deception and persuasion to poison Dorian from a naïve boy to a destructive monster.

The motivation for the duality of self in The Portrait of Dorian Gray is the image of Dorian. The said image in the painting becomes influential to his transformation. The portrait molds Dorian as each character influences his self-identification and destruction. The role of Lord Henry, for instance, is to establish negative connections to the self-image Dorian gains from the portrait. Inspired by Lord Henry’s theories of hedonism and sensual pleasure Dorian begins to misrecognize his identity and alienates himself from society through sin. The idea of self is a false illusion, however, and Dorian starts to live a life inspired by sensual pleasure. It is not until the deaths of the siblings James and Sybil Vane that Dorian realizes the falsity of his beliefs and attempts to destroy the illusion he created.

In chapter 20 of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, Dorian reflects on his past crimes and wonders whether he will ever change and retrieve his innocence again. Throughout the final chapter of the novel, the elements of Gothic novel that Wilde explores conveys the idea of the pursuit of individualism. Dorian’s wild, racing emotions clearly show how much he is driven by his readiness to fulfill his desires under any circumstance. Through this, the use of specific words and punctuation markings highlight Dorian’s personal yearning of removing himself from his past.

As Dorian is confronting his first true love for a woman, Lord Henry sees this as an opportunity to imply more of his corrupt philosophy. It is here where he finds great enjoyment in enlightening Dorian. First, He downplays the intelligence of a woman, stating that they are “a decorative sex” (Wilde 47). Lord Henry plays on with his analysis saying: “As long as a woman can look then years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied”. This illuminates a juxtaposition and recurring theme of good versus evil: Lord Henry symbolizes the evil of humanity, whereas Sybil represents the good of humans.

Firstly, Wilde expresses hedonistic desire leading to punishment through the use of literary devices; namely symbolism and imagery. When Gray regarded Sibyl with pity and “his chiseled lips curled in exquisite disdain” (Wilde 101). Through imagery, Wilde conveys Gray’s character of cruelty wrought out by selfish desire. After that, what followed was the suicide of his lover. This reveals that living selfishly produces consequences through others. Another example can be found when Wilde uses symbolism through the picture to reveal reality of emotions. As Dorian got up to check his painting, it was “unmistakably [...] altered” (Wilde 108). The painting reflected the reality of Dorian Gray’s inner beliefs. The change in the picture is a loss of selflessness. Furthermore, his selfish desires are reflected through the picture and the change in the portrait is the consequence for doing hedonistic actions. Therefore through symbolism and

     Dorian¡¦s rejection of Sibyl came upon one night that Sibyl has lost her magic. A night that her acting lost the power to attract and charm the audiences. ¡§Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are¡¨ (64). That night, ¡§she spoke the words as though they conveyed no meaning to her¡Kshe was absolutely self-contained. It was simply bad art. She was a complete failure¡¨ (93). Sibyl has become herself! She

Dorian Gray falls in love with a young girl named Sibyl Vane, who he describes as being “hardly seventeen years of age, with a little flower-like face, a small Greek head with plaited coils of dark brown hair, [and] eyes that were violet wells of passion.” (46) He does not continue on to describe her personality, just more about her features, her voice, and her acting. He gets to a point at the end of his description where he proclaims, “She is everything to me in life.” (47) Everything to Dorian must have been nothing because Sibyl plays her role well. Whatever it may be that has caused her to be flighty and naive, be it poverty, immaturity, or ignorance, that was who she was.