Transcription
[Music]
In Chapter 9 of The Picture of Dorian Gray, Basil visits Dorian. The next morning, while he's having breakfast, he's full of sympathy over Sybil's death and doesn't believe what he was told the night before about Dorian going to the opera after Sybil died. "No way," Dorian do something so thoughtless and selfish.
But Dorian casually tells Basil he did go to the opera and that Sybil's death belongs to the past. Basil is stunned by this attitude and wishes for the Dorian he originally painted. Dorian tells him it is too late for that. Basil is again stunned to learn that Sibyl killed herself. Dorian responds with a long speech about the proper attitude, one Henry taught him, towards suffering people. They should become spectators in their own lives. Dorian won't be involved in the inquest because Sibyl never knew his real name.
Basil wants to see his painting of Dorian, but Dorian, panicking, begs him not to look. In fact, he says that if Basil looks at the portrait, Dorian will never speak to him again. Basil agrees not to look, but says he wants to exhibit the painting. Dorian asks him not to.
In response, Basil asks if Dorian has noticed anything unusual about the painting. Dorian's reaction shows that he has noticed something, just not with Basil's fears. Basil explains that before the portrait, he'd sketched Dorian as various historic and mythical characters. When he painted Dorian as he really is, Basil believes he put much of his feelings about Dorian onto the canvas. He is now concerned that too much of his affection may be evident in the portrait.
Basil ends up agreeing with Dorian that the portrait will not be exhibited. Dorian's pleased, but can't imagine ever being influenced by someone else's personality the way Basil has admitted he was. But he refuses to ever pose for Basil again, insisting they must now just be friends.
In his preface to the novel, Wilde evaluates people who find ugly meanings in beautiful things and those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things. Chapter nine fills in the rest of that spectrum, for in this chapter, Dorian shows himself to be someone who can refuse to see the meaning in ugliness in an ugly thing, namely Sybil's death.
Dorian explains a theory of self-mastery that is a distorted version of a spiritual perspective where a serene soul or enlightened person might be able to let pain go more quickly than most people through lack of egoistic attachment. Dorian is severing his attachment from the pain of Sybil's death with a blade of pure ego.
When Basil asked Dorian if he's noticed anything curious about the painting, Basil is referring to concern about Dorian noticing what might be embarrassing to him. Basil's attitude is clearly one of attraction toward Dorian, but Dorian is focused on the metaphysical strangeness of the actual painting transforming itself with Dorian's every sin. Their conversation shifts from a potential exposure of Dorian's internal nature to an exposure of Basil's internal nature, in that it shows the period's anxiety regarding homosexuality.