Dorian Gray Youth Quotes

Yes, the lad was premature. He was gathering his harvest while it was yet spring. The pulse and passion of youth were in him, but he was becoming self-conscious. It was delightful to watch him. With his beautiful face, and his beautiful soul, he was a thing to wonder at. It was no matter how it all ended, or was destined to end. He was like one of those gracious figures in a pageant or a play, whose joys seem to be remote from one, but whose sorrows stir one’s sense of beauty, and whose wounds are like red roses.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 4. After Dorian leaves his home, Lord Henry reflects on how fascinating a psychological study Dorian has become for him, even with his sudden love affair with Sibyl. Henry pays close attention to the young man’s striking physical beauty, which some believe hints at male worship and a subtext of homosexual attraction. But for Henry, Dorian is more of a scientific experiment in his ongoing manipulation to mold the boy into his own image. He finds it amusing to compare Dorian to a piece of art, a figure in a pageant or play, as the master manipulator feeds him his lines. Selfishly Henry confesses that he doesn’t really care about how it all ends, including the "sorrows" and wounds "like red roses" it will bring. This foreshadows that the toxic relationship with Lord Henry will bring about his protege’s destruction. The passage uses both metaphor and simile in its description of Dorian ("gathering his harvest while it was yet spring" and "wounds are like red roses").

But you, Dorian, with your pure, bright, innocent face, and your marvellous, untroubled youth – I can’t believe anything against you. And yet I see you very seldom, and you never come down to the studio now, and when I am away from you, and I hear all these hideous things that people are whispering about you, I don’t know what to say. Why is it, Dorian, that a man like the Duke of Berwick leaves the room of a club when you enter it? Why is it that so many gentlemen in London will neither go to your house or invite you to theirs?…Why is your friendship so fatal to young men? There was that wretched boy in the Guards who committed suicide. You were his great friend. There was Sir Henry Ashton, who had to leave England with a tarnished name. You and he were inseparable. What about Adrian Singleton and his dreadful end? What about Lord Kent’s only son and his career? I met his father yesterday in St. James’s Street. He seemed broken with shame and sorrow. What about the young Duke of Perth? What sort of life has he got now? What gentleman would associate with him?…You have filled them with a madness for pleasure. They have gone down into the depths. You led them there. Yes: you led them there, and yet you can smile, as you are smiling now.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 12. Basil finds it difficult to believe the rumors about Dorian’s disreputable behavior because he looks so pure and innocent and youthful. But he confronts his friend about the hidious things being whispered about him. He speaks of a boy Dorian was great friends with who committed suicide, another man he was close to who had to leave England with a tarnished name, a young Duke that no gentleman would now associate with. In his search for hedonistic pleasure, Dorian stands accused of ruining many reputations and destroying lives, including his young friend Adrian Singleton whom he introduced to opium addiction. Basil accuses Dorian of filling these men with "a madness for pleasure" and leading them "down into the depths." Although Wilde does not explicitedly describe any practice of homosexuality associated with Dorian, he strongly hints that Dorian had relationships with many young male aristocrats. Wilde, who went to jail for his homosexuality, said that his character Dorian was "what I would like to be – in other ages, perhaps."
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