The Picture of Dorian Gray #8

1.)“The more he knew, the more he desired to know. He had mad hungers that grew more ravenous as he fed them” (132).

Everyone wants to know more, but why do they want to learn more? Most people want to learn more so they can educate others. The more educated people there are in the world, the less ignorant people there are, making the world a better place. Therefore, the more you know, the more successful you will be. Dorian had alternate motives. He had a desire for knowledge because the more he knew, the more he could get away with. Dorian would engage in every pleasure to serve this insatiable appetite. He would never be satisfied with what he had; if he got something, he wanted more of it. Once he committed a sin, he would continue to sin.

2.)“He always has an extraordinary faculty of becoming absolutely absorbed for the moment in whatever he took up- he was almost saddened by the reflection of the ruin that Time brought on beautiful and wonderful things. He at any rate had escaped that” (141).

Nothing can stay beautiful forever, except for Dorian. Change can be good or bad, but it cannot be prevented. It is unavoidable; we do not know when something wonderful will come or when something wonderful will disappear. Instead of wishing beauty will never go away, we must be grateful while it lasts. Dorian can never appreciate his life or his beauty because he never sees a change; he always looks the same. Even if his beauty lasts forever, his life will not. The lesson from the book Lord Henry gave him was, “to teach man to concentrate himself upon the moments of a life that is itself but a moment” (134). As many times as Dorian read this book, he missed the main message. Dorian was “absolutely absorbed for the moment in whatever he took up.” If life is just a moment Dorian was never able to appreciate it because he was too busy with other things. His life would be over before he knew it and he would never be able to enjoy it.

Vocab. Words:

1.)Reverie: a state of dreamy meditation or fanciful musing; a daydream
“this art being, one might fancy, especially the art of those whose minds have been troubled with the malady of reverie” (134) .

2.)Asceticism: rigorous self-denial; extreme abstinence; austerity
“Of the asceticism that deadens the senses, as of the vulgar profligacy that dulls them, it was to know nothing” (134).