"'I loved you because you were marvelous, because you had genius and intellect, because you realized the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the shadows of art'" (91).
I knew it! It was obvious that Dorian was not in love with Sibyl for the right reasons. Whenever he highly of her in admiration, he would speak about her on stage. Not once did he mention how she was in reality. On the other hand, Sibyl was madly in love with Dorian. When Sibyl failed to act up to par that night, Dorian failed to see why he loved her beyond her acting, ultimately dismissing her. This is another demonstration of Dorian's superficiality and his obsession with appearance. Previously he stated that he would give his soul just to remain handsome for the rest of his life and hear Dorian lashes out at Sibyl, because her compelling appearance on stage has vanished.
"'She [Sibyl] explained it all to me ... I thought her shallow'" (103).
It is unfortunate that Sibyl took her life because of this man, however a tragedy was imminent considering their situation. This statement seems absurd, because if anything Dorian was the one being shallow, he broke up with Sibyl, because she failed to be as artistic as she had always been. However, one must look at this from the point of view of Dorian. It has become evident that art is of great significance to Dorian (Basil's portrait, Sibyl's performances), therefore he rids himself free of reality and ultimately lives in an artistic world. As a result, Sibyl's horrible performance devastated him and that is the reason for his crude reaction.
No comments:
Post a Comment