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In an effort to visualize Wilde’s novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, I created a digital literary map for the following scene, at the beginning of Chapter 10:
The red circle depicts the precise point where Dorian Gray runs into Basil Hallward. The address of Dorian’s home is not mentioned, but we can assume that, because Dorian and Basil reach Dorian’s home seconds after meeting at the corner of Grosvenor and South Audley, Dorian’s residence is in close proximity to that point.
This scene is particularly significant because it is Dorian’s birthday. Though he inevitably continues to age in years, his physical youth and beauty has been preserved, so that he still appears to be twenty. At this point, his portrait has begun to age and deteriorate. Basil, however, does not take notice of Dorian’s unnaturally youthful appearance.
In the screen-cap, we can see that London’s Grosvenor Square now seems to be a high-end neighborhood, dominated by spas, five-star hotels, galleries and designer clothing stores. Curious about the significance of Grosvenor Square in Wilde’s time, I made a quick Google search, and learned that the locale is mentioned in two other works by Wilde.
From the 1892 play, Lady Windermere’s Fan:
Unsurprisingly, The Picture of Dorian Gray - written by Wilde, who is famous for his advocacy for the Aesthetic Movement – is rich with references to high-end art, culture and aesthetic tastes. The characters, all of whom are wealthy, occupy themselves with the pleasures of ornate things, such as paintings, embroideries, jewelry and tapestries. Of course, as shown through Dorian – who is “wonderfully handsome” (72) – physical beauty is also expressed as valuable, even transcendent.
Like people and objects, places change as time progresses; sometimes for the worse. As the physical beauty of youth is perceptible to deteriorating with age, the beauty of places (such as Grosvenor Square) are equally as vulnerable. They are always endangered by the people inhabiting them or passing through them. (This is suggested in the excerpt from The Importance of Being Earnest, in which Lady Bracknell worries that educating the poor would lead to an overthrow of the ruling class, who inhabited Grosvenor Square.)
The frequent mention of beautiful places in the novel could be viewed as another reflection of how the beauty in people and places is impermanent, but the beauty preserved in art is everlasting.
It was on the seventh of November, the eve of [Dorian’s] own thirty-second birthday, as he often remembered afterwards.Using Google Maps, I searched the location “Grosvenor Square and South Audley Street, London” and screen-capped the results:
He was walking home about eleven o’clock from Lord Henry’s, where he had been dining, and was wrapped in heavy furs, as the night was cold and foggy. At the corner of Grosvenor Square and South Audley Street a man passed him in the mist, walking very fast, and with the collar of his grey ulster turned up. He had a bag in his hand. He recognized him. It was Basil Hallward. A strange sense of fear, for which he could not account, came over him. He made no sign of recognition, and went on slowly, in the direction of his own house.
But Hallward had seen him. Dorian heard him first stopping, and then hurrying after him. In a few moments his hand was on his arm.
“Dorian! What an extraordinary piece of luck! I have been waiting for you since nine o’clock in your library. Finally I took pity on your tired servant, and told him to go to bed, as he let me out. I am off to Paris by the midnight train, and I wanted particularly to see you before I left. I thought it was you, or rather your fur coat, as you passed me. But I wasn’t quite sure. Didn’t you recognise me?”
“In this fog, my dear Basil? Why, I can’t even recognise Grosvenor Square. I believe my house is somewhere about here, but I don’t feel at all certain about it. I am sorry you are going away, as I have not seen you in ages. But I suppose you will be back soon?”
“No: I am going to be out of England for six months. I intend to take a studio in Paris, and shut myself up, till I have finished a great picture I have in my head. However, it wasn’t about myself I wanted to talk. Here we are at your door. Let me come in for a moment. I have something to say to you.” (179 – 180).
The red circle depicts the precise point where Dorian Gray runs into Basil Hallward. The address of Dorian’s home is not mentioned, but we can assume that, because Dorian and Basil reach Dorian’s home seconds after meeting at the corner of Grosvenor and South Audley, Dorian’s residence is in close proximity to that point.
This scene is particularly significant because it is Dorian’s birthday. Though he inevitably continues to age in years, his physical youth and beauty has been preserved, so that he still appears to be twenty. At this point, his portrait has begun to age and deteriorate. Basil, however, does not take notice of Dorian’s unnaturally youthful appearance.
In the screen-cap, we can see that London’s Grosvenor Square now seems to be a high-end neighborhood, dominated by spas, five-star hotels, galleries and designer clothing stores. Curious about the significance of Grosvenor Square in Wilde’s time, I made a quick Google search, and learned that the locale is mentioned in two other works by Wilde.
From the 1892 play, Lady Windermere’s Fan:
Agatha, you say the most silly things possible. I think on the whole that Grosvenor Square would be a more healthy place to reside in. There are lots of vulgar people live in Grosvenor Square, but at any rate there are no horrid kangaroos crawling about.From the 1895 play, The Importance of Being Earnest:
I am pleased to hear it. I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square. What is your income?Looking at the above passages about Grosvenor Square from Wilde’s other works, and considering Dorian’s social status, we can assume that Grosvenor Square had been a fashionable neighborhood in the late 1800’s. Wilde himself probably frequented the area. Maybe he even lived there.
Unsurprisingly, The Picture of Dorian Gray - written by Wilde, who is famous for his advocacy for the Aesthetic Movement – is rich with references to high-end art, culture and aesthetic tastes. The characters, all of whom are wealthy, occupy themselves with the pleasures of ornate things, such as paintings, embroideries, jewelry and tapestries. Of course, as shown through Dorian – who is “wonderfully handsome” (72) – physical beauty is also expressed as valuable, even transcendent.
Like people and objects, places change as time progresses; sometimes for the worse. As the physical beauty of youth is perceptible to deteriorating with age, the beauty of places (such as Grosvenor Square) are equally as vulnerable. They are always endangered by the people inhabiting them or passing through them. (This is suggested in the excerpt from The Importance of Being Earnest, in which Lady Bracknell worries that educating the poor would lead to an overthrow of the ruling class, who inhabited Grosvenor Square.)
The frequent mention of beautiful places in the novel could be viewed as another reflection of how the beauty in people and places is impermanent, but the beauty preserved in art is everlasting.
Works Cited
Wilde, Oscar. Lady Windermere’s Fan. London, 1892. Project Gutenberg. Web. 11 Feb. 2015.
Wilde, Oscar. The Importance of Being Earnest. London, 1895. Project Gutenberg. Web. 11 Feb. 2015.
Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. London: Belknap Press, 2011. Print.
