Research Questions - Group 1 - Dorian Gray from The Portrait of Dorian Gray

 

1. As a man of the world, you recognized the paraphernalia in Mr. Gray’s home as those used in opium injections. How prevalent was opium use in this era? Did it have the social stigma that drug use has today?

2. Is Mr. Gray sincere that Middlemarch offended his sense of aesthetics? What is he talking about? What is ‘art for art’s sake’?

3. Was there a reaction against Middlemarch by late-Victorian male authors? Why? How does the adventure romance genre differ from classics like Middlemarch?

4. Mr. Gray may be a respectable man on the surface, but you’ve heard the rumours that he leads another life at night in the seedier portions of London. Were double-lives common in this era? What kind of activities did these “respectable men” partake in?

5. What is this boredom or ennui that Mr. Gray speaks of? Is he unusual in this feeling or it is widespread?

6. Dorian appears astonished that he, a member of the upper class, is accused of being a criminal. Was criminality more often associated with someone of a certain class?