4120 ENGL MidTerm
Oliver Twist:
-item of mortality: less than a person; born to die; just another number in the system;
poor law debate; name given at random;
-found him a pale, thin child, somewhat diminutive in stature, and decidedly small in
circumference. But nature or inheritance had implanted a good sturdy spirit in Olivers breast: it
had had plenty of room to expand, thanks to the spare diet of the establishment: inheritance
his mother had given him his pureness and made him uncorruptable;
-So they established the rule, that all poor people should have the alternative (for they
would compel nobody, not they) of being starved by a gradual process in the house, or by a quick
one out of it.They made a great many wise and humane regulations; instead of
compelling a man to support his family as they had theretofore done, took his family away from
him, and made him a bachelor: Dickens shows sarcasm toward the poor laws and the effects on
the poor
-It is the custom on stage in all good murderous melodramas to present the tragic and
comic scenes in as regular alternation as the layers of red and white in a side of streaky, wellcured bacon: this shows the issue of digression; transitions from funny to tragic; streaks of life;
-the hideous old man seemed like some loathsome reptile, engendered in the slime an
darkness though which he moved, crawling forth by night in search of some rich offal for a
meal.: description of Fagin The Jew; he is portrayed like a reptile; question of anti-Semitism
and the convenient villain; feeding on Christian babies
-It is my living, and the cold, wet, dirty streets are my home; and youre the wretch that
drove me to them long ago, and thatll keep me there day and night, day and night till I die:
realization that Nancy is a prostitute; poor laws; prostitution; the fallen woman and her inability
to get back up; she is not helpless, she just wants Bill to change with her
-It is a simple question of identity, you will observe, said that doctor: trying to decide if
Oliver is the thief; trying to make them doubt that he is; ironic because the book is about
mistaken identity
-The many who growledthe kind of legs which in some costume always look in an
unfinished and incomplete state without a set of fetters to garnish them: Sikes is immediately
recognizable as a criminal;
-crime, like death, is not confined to the old and withered alone. The youngest and
fairest are often its chosen victims: this is ironic because he is saying dont judge a book by its
cover, but the whole book is doing that
-But if the spirits of the Dead ever come back to earth to visit spots hallowed by love
ay, though it is a church, she was weak and erring: sarcasm and sympathy for Agnes
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde:
-He is not easy to describe. There is something wrong with his appearanceI never saw
a man I so disliked, and yet I scarce know whyhe gives a strong feeling of deformity, though I
couldnt specify the point.: first description of Hyde; he looks deformed, but in no particular
way; people see his evil nature and assume deformity; he is disturbing and people default to
deformity; primitive
-where is friend lay asleep, dreaming and smiling in his dreams, and then the door to that
room would be opened, the curtains of the bed plucked apartthere would stand by his side a
figure to whom power was given, and even at that dead hour, he must rise and do its bidding:
slavery; Jekyll is a slave to Hyde, according to Utterson; blackmail; undertone of homosexuality
-And still the figure had no face: Uttersons dream does not show Hyde with a face; he
cant figure him out or read him;
-If he could but once set eyes on himhe might see a reason for his friends pleasure or
bondage: Utterson is still trying to figure out why Jekyll has set his will to Hyde; wants to see
him and figure it out; blackmail; tone of homosexuality
-the hand lying half shut on the bed clothes was lean, corded, knuckly, of a dusty
pallor and shaded thickly with a swart growth of hair. It was the hand of Edward Hyde. :hand
paints him as primitive and hairy
-It turns me cold to think of this creature stealing like a thief to Harrys bedside: again
worrying about his friend with homosexual undertone
-It was on this side that my new power tempted me until I fell in slavery.: enslaved by
his evil side
-man is not truly one, but twoman will be ultiamely known by a mere polity of
multifarious, incongruous, and independent denizens: repression of evil; there is a society of
evil selves within; perhaps there is no true authentic self;
The Picture of Dorian Gray:
-To reveal art and conceal the artist is arts aim; There is no such thing as a moral or an
immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all; All art is quite useless:
-there is a separation of art and the artist;
-art is separate from morality and reality;
-it serves no actual purpose in reality
-Why is your friendship so fatal to young men?: Basil is telling Dorian about all of the
rumors; everyone he has been friends with has become disgraced; sexual sins, if not homosexual;
the men have fallen from grace, but he hasnt; he has remained untarnished (appearance)
-Sin is a thing that writes itself across a mans face. It cannot be concealed.: Basil
doesnt believe that rumors about Dorian because it doesnt show them on his face; he remains
beautiful; goes back to the idea of a legible person (Hyde, Oliver, Fagin)
-The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the
painter; it is rather the painter who reveals himself; The reason I will not exhibit this picture is
that I am afraid that I have shown it is in the secret of my own soul: the painter shows himself,
not the sitter; he cant show Dorians picture because it will reveal a secret about him;
-Notion of influence: Lord Harry says that influence is immoral; that the goal of the
person should be to develop oneself and realize ones nature perfectly; then he influences Dorian
very carefully because he says that they seemed to have come really from himself: being
influenced but doesnt feel like it; says he plays him on a violin; To project ones soul into some
gracious form, and let it tarry there for a momentthere was a real joy in it: Harry is enjoying
influencing Dorian; he started off as a completely blank, empty, and impressionable form; even
the pose in the picture is influenced by Harry; You never sat better
-Basil talks about why he has such an interest in Dorian; his personality has suggested to
me an entirely new manner in art, an entirely new mode of style; I see and think things
differently. Quote: almost a homosexual passion; confesses his feelings by talking about the
Greeks; he paints Dorians exterior, his interior
-Dorian shows Basil the portrait and how it has changed; he doesnt recognize it because
he has become old and withered; then he sees his signature and believes it was his fault;
-She is never Sibyl Vane. She is all the great heroines of the world in one. She is more
than an individual.: Dorian likes Sybil more for her acting than herself; he likes the characters
she plays, not herself; likes that she is never herself; she decides to embrace reality and stop
actingthis kills her because she wanted reality; You made me understand what reality is. You
made me understand what love really is; he says she is shallow and stupid for throwing away
his love for her lack of reality; backwards meaning of shallow too (shallow for having an
identity)
-It was such love as XXX could have known. Yes, Basil could have saved him. But it
was too late now. That past could always be annihilated. Regret, denial, or forgetfulness could do
that. But the future was inevitable. There were passions in him that would find their terrible
outlet, dreams that would make the shadow of their real evil: describes Basils confession; also
his answers at his trial; those people were homosexual