As the group delves into chapter four of The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde, we focus on certain important aspects of the relationships between Sibyl Vane and Dorian Gray, as well as Lord Henry and Dorian Gray, and the connections to the places they visit, William Morris and the novel’s overall theme of misunderstood and superficial traits of certain members of society. The cover of the e-book is on the “HOME” tab of the e- book website (http://doriangraych4-g6golden.weebly.com/). The background shows a progression of a man, Dorian Gray, from a handsome young man into a man with deteriorated beauty, and finally into what some would call a disgusting monster. Victorian art largely consisted of portraits and to have them repeat on the cover brought that to light. The colors used were in a sense “Victorian” because they were dark warm colors in addition to a lot of black and gray. The headline font was chosen because often books were written by pen in cursive, and since the e-book would have been impossible in those times, authenticating the font to a type of handwriting seemed appropriate. The font of the menu is in block-like letters, all printed books had fonts that looked similar. Last, but not least, the group member’s names are written in a modern font to bring light to the fact that we, students of today, are analyzing an old Victorian novel.
We also included multiple pictures on the homepage to help readers gather an idea of what the chapter and novel are about. The pictures on this page are one of contrast. We see that Dorian's face is dark and has a malice in it while the other has a look of horrified surprise. The next picture show the true corruption that Dorian will go through in this book. By showing how the picture will corrupt we can also see how Dorian will corrupt. The final picture reminds us of the beginning and where the story started. We have the three original friend’s posing for a picture together.
Through the annotations on the tabs “CH.4 ANNOTATIONS,” viewers of the webpage will be able to understand the actions that morphed Dorian from the handsome man inside and out to the ugly man in the last photo. The annotations themselves contain a combination of images, personal opinions, analysis, and background history on Oscar Wilde and the Victorian era. We chose to include those certain images to help the reader be able to visualize the characters and see how others depicted them. The images mostly come from the screenshots of the various films made of The Picture of Dorian Gray. For the page annotations, we found the darker tones to exemplify the idea of Dorian losing his purity and turning into a much different character during this chapter. The pictures on the page of annotations show the conflict in his life. The first one shows his innocence and his love, but the second shows the horror of seeing what Dorian had done though the picture. The final picture shows what could have been. It shows the life Dorian could have led had he stayed innocent and not corrupted. These annotations again show the corruption that is going on in Dorian’s life. Though the annotations run on one webpage only in the e-book with the help of the Genius website, in the actual book the text covers pages 42 through 53 sporadically in the written copy of the book.
One of the overlying themes of our annotations is that of Lord Henry’s influence on Dorian. The pages annotated mostly involve discussion between the two and show how Harry is a negative influence upon the once innocent Dorian. Michael Patrick Gillespie has an interesting analysis of Dorian and Lord Henry’s relationship. On page 401 he mentions how Lord Henry is fascinated with Dorian, particularly within the context to when Dorian tells Lord Henry about Sibyl and how he has fallen in love with her. Gillespie believes that Dorian and Lord Henry’s relationship is less of a friendship and more of a hobby that Lord Henry decided to take on. This persists throughout the rest of the story as Dorian becomes corrupted because of Harry’s influence. Lord Henry seems completely dis-concerned and even encourages Dorian’s malicious behavior. This is further proof that Lord Henry seems to not care much about Dorian’s well being, but he is more interested in being amused by Dorian’s life stories.
Link to webpage: www.doriangraych4-g6golden.weebly.com
Rough draft samples:
We also included multiple pictures on the homepage to help readers gather an idea of what the chapter and novel are about. The pictures on this page are one of contrast. We see that Dorian's face is dark and has a malice in it while the other has a look of horrified surprise. The next picture show the true corruption that Dorian will go through in this book. By showing how the picture will corrupt we can also see how Dorian will corrupt. The final picture reminds us of the beginning and where the story started. We have the three original friend’s posing for a picture together.
Through the annotations on the tabs “CH.4 ANNOTATIONS,” viewers of the webpage will be able to understand the actions that morphed Dorian from the handsome man inside and out to the ugly man in the last photo. The annotations themselves contain a combination of images, personal opinions, analysis, and background history on Oscar Wilde and the Victorian era. We chose to include those certain images to help the reader be able to visualize the characters and see how others depicted them. The images mostly come from the screenshots of the various films made of The Picture of Dorian Gray. For the page annotations, we found the darker tones to exemplify the idea of Dorian losing his purity and turning into a much different character during this chapter. The pictures on the page of annotations show the conflict in his life. The first one shows his innocence and his love, but the second shows the horror of seeing what Dorian had done though the picture. The final picture shows what could have been. It shows the life Dorian could have led had he stayed innocent and not corrupted. These annotations again show the corruption that is going on in Dorian’s life. Though the annotations run on one webpage only in the e-book with the help of the Genius website, in the actual book the text covers pages 42 through 53 sporadically in the written copy of the book.
One of the overlying themes of our annotations is that of Lord Henry’s influence on Dorian. The pages annotated mostly involve discussion between the two and show how Harry is a negative influence upon the once innocent Dorian. Michael Patrick Gillespie has an interesting analysis of Dorian and Lord Henry’s relationship. On page 401 he mentions how Lord Henry is fascinated with Dorian, particularly within the context to when Dorian tells Lord Henry about Sibyl and how he has fallen in love with her. Gillespie believes that Dorian and Lord Henry’s relationship is less of a friendship and more of a hobby that Lord Henry decided to take on. This persists throughout the rest of the story as Dorian becomes corrupted because of Harry’s influence. Lord Henry seems completely dis-concerned and even encourages Dorian’s malicious behavior. This is further proof that Lord Henry seems to not care much about Dorian’s well being, but he is more interested in being amused by Dorian’s life stories.
Link to webpage: www.doriangraych4-g6golden.weebly.com
Rough draft samples: