A Companion to the city: The Environment of the City...or the Urbanization of Nature

For my presentation, I had to read a chapter from A companion to the City and after reading it, I couldn’t help but think about Garret’s Romantic Natures class last spring. We spent an entire quarter looking at the different conceptions of nature in literature. When the quarter first started, I thought I had a pretty good idea of nature. I thought that nature is the natural environment that surrounds us, right? But, maybe it’s not. We talked about how for some individuals, nature is something that is outside of our socially constructed environment—something outside of the city, but where would that be? Is there a part of the natural environment that has not been influenced by society? I’m not so sure. I used to think of nature as being far removed from my city life. And, in all honesty, I never really gave it much thought. But, now I think the relationship between nature and society is much more complex.  

Will admit though that the more we discussed the different notions of nature, the less I knew what it was. I used to think that the trees and the plans located outside my window were apart of nature, but now I’m not so sure. I don’t even know if they belong there (apparently their roots are negatively impacting our pipe lines). The hiking trails behind my building seemed to lead to the natural environment, but then again, as I walk through the hills, I see public trash bins everywhere and man-made trails that are supposed to direct me toward a “nature” walk…before this class I never questioned the trails or the plants in my surrounding area, but now I do. If I’m asked to describe what nature looks like, I wouldn’t be able give a clear answer. What I enjoyed about this chapter is that it continues the discussion about nature and its relationship with society, specifically its relationship with the city. It automatically takes for granted that the natural environment and the city are interconnected in more ways than we might have imagined. The chapter examines the importance of paying attention to the ways in which nature and the city intersect with one another and it looks at how this intersection can then affect different societal issues. So, I guess the question is not necessarily where does nature end and society beings, but rather to consider “how to construct a city that is sensitive to these myriad connections and turn the city into one of the pivotal arenas where class, gender, and ethnic issues combine with ecological and environmental questions” (Swyngedouw Kaika 577).

Thinking About Nature's Metropolis, The Pit

Cronon’s “Nature’s Metropolis” had a hard time getting me to care about anything it was saying, until I started to remember some of Norris’ “The Pit.” I read the novel about a year ago, so please forgive any inaccuracies. But “the pit,” in the novel refers to the commercial exchange site, essentially the “floor” of something like the Wall Street Exchange. The novel’s protagonist eventually goes mad with the fever of financial speculation. What makes the Chicago pit interesting (or at least not another Charlie Sheen movie), is the nature of the market at the time. Exchanges, at least in my limited understanding of them, trade mostly in capital. In “The Pit” the suits trade actual physical quantities of grain (or was it corn?). In manipulating the market price they hold back large quantities, so their capital holdings can actually be directly wiped out by weather. It was like a game of Hot Potato, but with grain, or was it corn? Some sort of starch, either way the guy left holding the goods was the loser. Even a good season could wipe a banker out as the market drove the value of his little pantry into the single digits. Suddenly (well, three-quarters in) Cronon actually helps out with understanding the rules of the game back in Norris’ wheat pit. The interconnectedness of various “hinterlands” and marketplaces created considerable competition for the product: A good day for farmers. The metropolis “promoted the communities in its hinterland as much as they promoted it.” But really, competition between different marketplaces was the source of the economic booms. Enter Cronon’s description of central-place-theory: Cities, as market-centers, became rivals. Frankly, this all very dry, and almost matter-of-fact, but it would be useful for a second look at Norris’ book. During my first read the choice of location, Chicago, seemed almost incidental. It’s a little easier to understand now in terms of its centrality to the capitalist frontiers, the sort of commercial tentacles creeping out over the continent. The city there writing its abstract, mathematical formulas of value over basic sources of sustinence. In that way it ties back to Mumford’s talk on the paleotechnic dominance of medieval systems, how the influx of capital ruined the old ways, and how the cities acted as centers of exploitation. I think I need to revisit Mumford as well. It would be also interesting to take a course on the American city of the nineteenth century. So much of the power of Norris’ and Cronon’s visions of Chicago derives from the vast material wealth of the newly-tapped resources of the American continent, as well as the limitations in transportation technology that kept those resources just close enough to speculate on, but far enough out of reach to immediately plunder. In my own mental map of the American city, there is always that endless mass of wilderness surrounding, which is almost comforting, and this contrasts distinctly to the trapped feeling I get when Dickens takes me to London, as if I can not unknow that I am on an island, and that this misery is inescapable as Alcatraz.

Response to Sister Carrie

I apologize for the fragmented post that is mainly reader response, but that’s all I have right now. I enjoyed the excerpt from Dreiser’s Sister Carrie and found a few moments to be relatable despite a tremendous gap in our historical time frame…and despite the fact that I am not a naïve country girl who moved to find work in Chicago and then became a mistress.  More like a semi-naïve Colorado girl who moved to L.A. for who knows what and became an English grad student. I’m happy with how my narrative has worked out so far, but I’m not sure I can say the same for Carrie.

One of the first moments that I found interesting was the moment the narrator states “When a girl leaves home at eighteen, she does one of two things. Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she rapidly assumes the cosmopolitan standard of virtue.” What I find interesting about this statement is the way it reflects a societal concern over women in public, and in particular, women working in the city, and also how this fear has not changed as much as I would hope. This narrative of the woman who loses her virtue in the city is still pervasive in certain populations (*ahem* my extended family in Texas). My parents’ move to Colorado was fairly heartbreaking for my entire extended Texas family, but when my brother and I both moved to L.A., many members of the family were devastated. Much of the concern did not regard my brother’s move (he moved to pursue a bright career in film) but instead was focused around the “wild child” of the family and her irrational decision to just pick up and move to Sin City. My mother kindly reminded them that Sin City was in fact Las Vegas, and no, my move was not any of their business.  Even now I think there remains a fear of women in the city and how the city corrupts the virtue of good wholesome girls. *sigh*

          Another moment that I found particularly interesting was the moment when Carrie becomes acutely aware of her clothing and the clothing of the people on the train. The narrator informs the reader “this line the individual at her elbow now marked for Carrie. She became conscious of an inequality. Her own plain blue dress, with its black cotton tape trimmings, now seemed to her shabby. She felt the worn state of her shoes.” Carrie becoming aware of her clothing reminded me of the Simmel article about the need to manifest individuality in the city and how the increase of brief interactions with the masses, and the decrease of deep and intimate relationships can cause a desire to project individuality through outward appearance (forgive the crude summary. I realize Simmel is much more eloquent).

           I am also interested in the way the gaze functions in this small excerpt. There’s something very intrusive about the stranger’s gaze. Douet tells Carrie “Remember, I’ll be looking till you find your sister.” He doesn’t tell her, “I’ll be looking after you” or something a bit more socially normal. He says, “I will be looking.” I am obviously trying to make some sort of connection with the flanuer and the objectifying male gaze but I can’t articulate some coherent line of thought yet.

There you have it. 

Thoughts on Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Gray, what a complex novel. It truly embodies the artist as portrayed by Wilde. It is a once a novel that on the surface is ludicrous bordering on comical, with all its epigrams and melodrama. On the other hand it can be read as a “symbol” and wild warns “those who read the symbol do so at their peril.” In fact the preface sums up the themes of the novel in a way. The novel is the “surface “and “symbol” referred to in the preface and the materials used for its emplotment are vice and virtue. Its hard to tell form reading the novel alone whether or not Wilde was intentionally using the unconscious and the conscious theme, and whether that can be placed into dialogue with Freud and Lacan. I would have to look that up, though it would contradict Wilde’s idea of art for art’s sake alone. I get the impression that his art was to be valued and interpreted without his biographical information being involved.

            Another point of interest that I have yet to fully understand is the constant imagery of flowers and plants. One reason is that they create an unreal surrounding, as professor Garret explained that it was not possible for certain flowers to bloom in the same season.  The symbolism behind them is interesting; I would like to study it more closely, like why does he refer to herbaceous plants in some scenes and aromatic ones in others? Is there a Romantic aspect to the Garden, when it seems to restore his humanity after Sibyl’s death? Does that romantic contrast exist in the novel between the garden and the city as a corruptor? The other thing I wonder about is Basil’s name and the possible symbolism there, not to mention Sibyl. Moreover was Wilde intending to make these associations and does it matter? That is the beauty of Wilde’s writing, he is very much Lord Henry sparking our curiosity and stepping back to let figure out whatever meanings we wish to find in his art. Curiosity it a major driving force for Dorian Gray, the curiosity of life and the fear of realism. Always wanting to live vicariously but never truly. It is escapism at its best. The real is subverted and made unreal through romanticism and the unreal is relished as reality.

            I couldn’t help but think of the Flanneur and the Man of the Crowd while reading this novel. After being introduced to Harry Dorian seems to thrive on the crowd. He seeks it out more and more and his expression becomes more and more like that of the man of the crowd. Even the mirror like quality of the portrait is like the man looking through the glass or at himself. The other part about this intertextuality is that Dorian is an observer; he looks and extracts information but does not wish to reciprocate that exchange of information. He conceals the portrait at all costs. He is also more obviously the Flanneur then any other character in any other novel we have read this quarter. His gaze is another thing that must be studied in more depth, because he has two if we include the changing gaze of the portrait.

Sister Carrie and Echos of the Past

I have to say I really enjoyed the excerpts from Dreiser's Sister Carrie, and I have to say that I would have liked to read it if we had more time! (As a side note I found a free electronic copy so I know what I'll be doing during the break). Anyway, back to the book. It is interesting to see so many of the conventions of "city" novels being used in an American context. We are presented with the usual coming of age tale right off the bat. I always enjoy experiencing the first impression of a big city through the eyes of a character, it allows us to see what we often take for granted. Her train ride exposes her to so many sights and emotions, feelings that I am reminded of when I rode the Metro into CSULA for the first time. I guess that is what is enchanting about coming of age novels, they are able to refresh what has become common everyday practices for us. Anyway, we see Carrie's fear of the city, it's overwhelming nature that is simultaneously frightening and intoxicating. Sister Carrie reminded me so much of the Romantic plot found in Mary Barton. We are presented with a young girl that is enticed by the luxuries that a smooth talking young man can offer. Drouet IS young Mr. Carson, down to the casual attitude toward young women and his flaunting of money. Of course we cannot have a young Mr. Carson without the fatherly captain of industry, Mr. Hurstwood (Carson Sr.) These men are driven by fine things and appearances, and Chapter 5 reveals to us that they are all part of a hierarchy that they are all aware of. Each man has his place within society, and are careful to remain within their boundaries. We also see the factory girls presented as uncivilized and rough. It is interesting that Carrie makes so much fuss about their inappropriate behavior around the men in the factory, yet she is the one that crosses all the boundaries that are in place for a respectable young girl. Just like Mary Barton, Carrie is obsessed with material objects that lead her down a path of impropriety. However, unlike Mary who wanted to help make a better life for her father, Carrie is motivated only by her materialism. The moment Carrie enters the city she seems to lose her morals, and is willing to sell herself out for a nice coat and new shoes. Mary is also the flanuer, and just as we have seen, she is at one point questioned as a woman of the night. It seems like almost everything we have read up to this point in all found in this novel. Even the streets, though not as crowed as London, still have that feeling of being difficult to navigate, and while Dreiser makes mention of the room that is found in the city of Chicago we are presented with the cramped workshops. When Carrie enters into the workshop that is filled with boxes, and is cramped and dark, I was taken back to the London cities and factories of novels past. I found myself wondering if I was meant to like Carrie and feel sorry for her, or if I am supposed to condemn her actions and see this as a cautionary tale. As I was reading I found my self basically yelling at her for falling for Drouet's promises, I have seen this too many times to know that this cannot end well in the timeframe it was written. Anyway, it is difficult to say much more without reading more of the novel, but I will state again that this novel seems to encompass everything that we have read about in the past 11 weeks and is a shame we did not have time enough for it!

Sister Carrie

"Out for a little stroll, are you, this evening?"
Carrie looked at him in amazement, and then summoned sufficient
thought to reply: "Why, I don't know you," backing away as she did so.
"Oh, that don't matter," said the other affably.
She bandied no more words with him, but hurried away, reaching her
own door quite out of breath. There was something in the man's look
which frightened her.

Look at that a woman out for a walk and a creepy man approaches her.

I always loved Sister Carrie because it mirrored America's growth in economy and change from agricultural stories to the city. This is one of the first country girl in the big apple kind of tales and I find it fascinating how promiscuous Carrie, or any women, in a novel of its time is portrayed.

Dreiser shows us a different type of woman, i mean she's pretty out there . Carrie always reminded me of Daisy Miller. This short story was a cautionary tale. Women were not supposed to promiscuous and if they were, hey they died. But here we have Carrie succeeding in the end...well monetarily. But hey that's a huge step up from dying from "roman fever."

Dickens Stuff

I found this interesting, in case anyone else is writing on Bleak House. One of the things that struck me about the dialog, and even some of the action in the novel, was how stagey (theatrical) it was. I guess Dickens was an actor and major theater buff. They say he even wished, on his deathbed, that he had focused on the stage, and he designed his works to be performed. There's an interesting anecdote in there from one of his daughters, as well. She remembers being allowed to sit in his writing room once and says he would pace for hours, then rush over to a mirror and act out some dialog, then rush back to his writing desk. Good stuff.

I Said 3,000 Words Minus Quotes!

I found Walkowitz’s piece most interesting in regards to its style, or should I say frustrating. Either way, works like this are helpful to me because they make me conscious of some of the things I’ve been (rightly)criticized for in my writing.PARAGRAPH The first thing that popped out at me reading this was the abuse of quotes. What I’ve been taught is that 1) quotes must be introduced for context to the original work, 2)quotes must be explicated for context in the work at hand, and 3)that quotes must not be made to do the work of the writing assignment for me. So right away Walkowitz gives up the ghost of Henry James in phrases supposedly in his own voice. Are they from an interview (in which case this would be a more acceptable use, but even then lacking the context of the interview itself could still be misleading)? Are they from his fiction? This kind of close, first-person introspection is common enough there, but if that’s the case then this is wholly inappropriate. It’s not to say that James didn’t fit into this perfectly embodied image of the privileged bourgeois male flaneur- Yeah, I speak some French- but, even provided that is the case, this only detracts from the argument. James’ anthology of fiction is certainly long enough to show this disposition instead of pulling his phrases out of the air as if he were writing the essay himself. Besides, it’s irksome. It feels like talking to one of those people who snarkily throw up little air-quotes with their fingers when they’re talking to you.PARAGRAPH The other style issue I found with Walkowitz’s essay was the superfluous emphasis on gender relevance in an essay that never really gets to any salient point regarding gender. I’m not saying that the privileged gaze wasn’t emblematic of a sexist paradigm that underestimated and stereotyped women. In fact, I just said it- in one sentence. Unless she wants to go the extra mile like Wilson does and actually show this idea in action, however, it’s all “just a lot of words.” Now it’s my turn with the quotes. Christopher Isherwood said that in reference to the language of the afterlife on the tongues of the living, and now he’s talking about feminism in the 19th-century. See how easy that is. Point is: Walkowitz is writing about specific men that helped to map out the imaginative social and geographic city spaces of the time. Tell me why it matters that they were men. That’s interesting. That they were men, we already know.PARAGRAPH OK, there was one more thing. It’s something professor Garett’s cautioned us about, and something I’m really trying to work out of my own writing: the abuse of jargon. I noticed as I started to sense that some of Walkowitz’s gender points were falling through why this is so dangerous, and it’s something I’ve been guilty of. Jargon, unless it economizes the argument (says the thing more directly and specifically), can become a crutch for points that aren’t there. Strange analogy coming, but: I was once talking to a racist about crime in communities, and as soon as his flawed ideas ran into my common sense he all-of-the-sudden became a sociologist, a geneticist, an evolutionary biologist- He gave himself quite the promotion.PARAGRAPH Of course, I’m not calling this author a racist, or a sexist. I’m just looking at things like quote abuse, strained themes, and jargon for how they tend to operate mechanically.

Let's Get it Together, Ladies

Reading Walkowitz’s essay “City of Dreadful Delight,” which paired quite nicely with last week’s Wilson reading, brought to mind the Lacanian theory of the “other” and its connection to the eroticizing of low culture. Walkowitz quotes critics Stallybrass and White, who offer a culturally symbolic explanation for the “low-other” fetish:

“The top attempts to reject and eliminate the bottom for reasons of prestige and status, only to discover not only that it is in some way frequently dependent on the low-other, but also that the top includes that low symbolically as a primary eroticized constituent of its own fantasy life. The result is a mobile, conflictual fusion of power, fear and desire in the construction of subjectivity.”

This image of subject, feared and desired, is so relevant, as it applies to any sort of prejudice that we as observers connect to the unfamiliar. In more conspicuous instances, the thought of race and race relations applies. America has had a history (and some may argue that is still exists today) of eroticizing the non-white subject, particularly women of African, Asian, or Hispanic descent, and fetishizing them only for their physical unfamiliarity. They not only pose a potential political threat, but they also become symbols of sexualized idolatry. Walkowitz applies this theory to the Victorian prostitute, noting the binary between “domesticated feminine virtue” and the “public symbol of female vice,” a culturally reinforced separation.

The fact that bourgeois men and women became so invested in the investigation of prostitution implies its fetish, the feverish need to know and consume the subjects in question. Certainly this implication also highlights the Victorian habit of sexual repression, and it seems to subjugate all working women as degenerate, lowly others, threats to moral society. Of course, with fluctuations and fragmentations of the “readable” city comes the changing of idealized thinking (a throwback to Wilson’s “Invisible Flaneur”), and multitudes of marginalized personalities begin to inhabit the space between the morally good and despicably bad. Despite the changing politics though, women still get the short end of the stick.

Female identity remains a generalized idea. Even though we’ve moved centuries away from being compared to societal plagues, that underlying notion of subjectivity continues to permeate cultural thinking. It’s a shame too, because it even exists within female circles – we shame each other for sexual expression, body image, etc., yet we simultaneously disapprove of those going against idealistic forms of female beauty and self-expression. This is a huge roadblock for society in general. I ask, why have we moved forward in so many ways for equal rights, when we continue to adhere to archaic forms of Lacanian thinking? Can we ever get over ourselves, girls?

Reflections on the Campus City Space and the Language of the Stage

I have to say that I did not expect to enjoy this story as much as I did—especially considering how much I loathed the main characters. By that I mean they were believably loath-able, not that they were poorly written characters (obviously). I had the privilege of running into Rosanna on campus today and we launched into a fairly interesting conversation about the novel; I figured I would reflect on our conversation as a kind of recognition of the University as a microcosm of the city space (I hope Rosanna doesn’t mind my reflection). We were both struck by how much we enjoyed the story while simultaneously detesting Dorian Gray, as well as Lord Henry and his equally detestable views on women, gender roles, and marriage. We were also equally intrigued by the homoerotic undertones throughout the story, not that they were subtle by any means. We discussed the ubiquitous flaneur throughout the story. Elizabeth Wilson states “At first sight, the flaneur appears as the ultimate ironic, detached observer, skimming across the surface of the city and tasting all its pleasures with curiosity and interest” (97). In Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian is utterly consumed by pleasure and the desire to experience pleasure through observation; He is entranced by his own beauty captured in Basil’s painting, he is infatuated with Sibyl Vane, but only when she is on stage performing for him and the audience, he becomes completely preoccupied with material vanity and outward representations of value, he consistently expresses a desire to escape or forget himself etc. We ended our happenstance conversation by admitting the novel made us both think about notions of performance, observation, Benjamin’s arcades, art and representation, the flaneur (it goes on) but that we had no idea how to articulate what we were thinking, so we would have to reconvene after more reflection and caffeine.

 Anyway, what I find to be interesting is the motif of the play and the language of the stage that is used throughout the novel. When Dorian recounts the story of his love for Sibyl to Lord Henry, he tell him “It was curious my not wanting to know her, wasn’t it?’” and Henry replies “’No; I don’t think so” (48). While Dorian seems perplexed by his own actions, Lord Henry seems to know something about the play, or art and performance in a larger sense that is beyond Dorian’s understanding; Dorian loves what the play and Sibyl represent but he does not know Sibyl. When Henry asks him “’When is she Sibyl Vane?” Dorian replies “’Never’” (49). The moment when Sibyl is in fact Sibyl, is the moment she leaves the space of representation and her performance fails to represent and reveal. Sibyl, overcome with her love for Dorian off the stage, refuses to merely represent or perform love on stage, reserving her performance of love for her real interactions with Dorian (I hesitate to use the word “real” at all but I can’t think of anything more appropriate at the moment). Dorian is furious and despises Sibyl for her outright refusal to represent love through art and performance. While there is a clear and heavy-handed commentary on Victorian notions of morality and Art, I am more curious about the particular art form of the play in this novel. After the confrontation with Sibyl, the text continually employs language of the “stage,” or the “scene.” Perhaps this is the only medium through which Dorian can experience pleasure or experience in general; his experiences outside the realm of representation break down into chaos and fail to reveal meaning, he constantly searches for the Romantic version of his experiences, he is often pleased with himself when he is able to calmly perform in social settings. In particular, he is surprised at his ability to interact socially after having recently committed a heinous murder. He seems to invest himself fully in the meaning of representation and it seems that in the end, he destroys the representation of himself, ultimately destroying the representation and the subject of representation in the same act. I don’t entirely like this explanation—it’s a bit too simplistic, but this is the track I’m on at the moment.

Dorian

Since i'll be rambling about Walkowitz tomorrow, ill save you all the trouble now and talk about Wilde.

I surprisingly really enjoyed the story. Here we have the prime example of a Flaneur, in all his glory. Dorian Gray is an incredibly annoying and amazing character. The beauty of him, this goes both ways, is that he is the men and women we see today. I love connecting everything we read to whats happening now, so bear with me.
Our society is Dorian Gray and that bothers me a lot. We live in a world where youth and beauty is cherished. We, and i use we very loosely, we praise the celebrities and mock the ones that fall from grace. Plastic surgery, botox, and all those lovely fix ups enables our world to be constantly surrounded by YOUTH NOW.
I'm a 23 year old who enjoys celebrity gossip from time to time. sue me. So when i see all these Dorian's running around it drives me crazy. There are celebrities in their 20s who get work done, and why? so they can look better which leads to feeling better and having a better life. Dorian would not have been "happy" if he had lost his looks, it was all he really had. And here have Kim Kardashian, Megan Fox, Lindsay Lohan, and many others who use Basil paintings, aka plastic surgery, to hide behind who they really are. And because of social media and the "news" (gossip shows and online bs)
girls in my city strive for that small nose and full lips. Half the people in my city have had elective work done, I have run out of toes and fingers to count on.

I just realized i massively detoured. Yeah i guess society will always be this way. The possibilities are endless with new ways to become forever young. Some celebrities have even fallen into looking like Dorian's Portrait because of it. (Mickey Rourke, Joan RIvers, Michael Jackson...)

Let's get back on some literary track...
Wilde has always been the type of author to point out the faults of the rich right off the bat. He really didn't care what came out of that beautifully ingenious mouth of his. He's rather amazing.

The novel was so different from what we have read so far and I am absolutely infatuated with it. But isn't that what got Sybil into trouble in the first place.
Oh yes, another story about a woman who cannot control her feelings. And before we forget, more homoerotic male relationships to dive into. Yes, Wilde knew what he was doing.

Let me also chime in on some Walkowitz before i go...
It's totally generic to call a city or country her right? Cause I found that amazing that the disheveled, blackened city was a woman. oh so lovely. i guess only the hardened countries are named after men. whatever, no time for gender fights right now. my brain is fried.

Chapter XI- The Labyrinth

At the end of “The Invisible Flaneur,” Elizabeth Wilson describes the heroic act by which the flaneur and flaneuse survive the “disorienting space” space of the city through an act of creating meaning.  Dorian Gray attempts this early in the story in his relationship with Sybil Vane, but their engagement to her proves fatal to both Sybil and to any heroism in Dorian; their relationship becomes fatal the moment he actually gets to know her.  Sybil, the person whom Dorian imagines he understands better than anyone else, is far from the person that Dorian imagined her to be.  In revealing her personhood, she becomes a stranger, destroying the meaning that Dorian built up around her.  This causes Dorian to lose faith in his ability to find meaning in the city.  Beginning from this point, the story of Dorian Gray is one of self-destruction.

With the loss of Sybil Vane, Dorian must find different ways to cope with the city.  He falls into the trappings of the flaneur that Wilson describes.  She says that in the labyrinth-like obscurity of the city, the flaneur’s life loses meaning:

Life ceases to form itself into epic or narrative, becoming instead a short story, dreamlike, insubstantial or ambiguous [ . . . ] Meaning is obscure; committed emotion cedes to irony and detachment; Georg Simmel’s ‘blasé attitude’ is born.  The fragmentary and incomplete nature of urban experience generates its melancholy—we experience a sense of nostalgia, of loss for lives we have never known, of experiences we can only guess at (Wilson 107-08).

Dorian’s detachment from life as narrative is strongly emphasized through the book the Henry Wotton sends to him after the death of Sybil vane.  The book itself is very much like the dreamlike existence of the flaneur.  The book is “a novel without a plot, and with only one character, being, indeed, simply a psychological study of a certain young Parisian who spent his life trying to realize in the nineteenth century all the passions and modes of thought that belonged to every century except his own” (Wilde 106-07).  The focus on a Parisian obviously compares Dorian to the French flaneur, but more telling is the plotness nature of the novel.  Years pass in Chapter XI, which focuses on Dorian’s symbolic obsession with (descent into?) the book.  When we find him again in Chapter XII, Dorian is suddenly thirty-eight years old, but still looks as though he is in his early twenties.  His life has become one with Lord Henry’s book; time passes in the world, but no time passes for Dorian.  He is stuck in a single moment in time and the plot ceases to move forward.  The focus of Lord Henry’s book is also indicative of Wilson’s focus on nostalgia and experience.  Wilson’s flaneur is incapable of accessing the narratives of life; in the case of the Parisian in Wotton’s book, this leads to a life removed from his own life.  Such is Dorian’s fate; he seeks out new sensations and passions, but once he has “caught their colour and satisfied his intellectual curiosity, [he would] leave them with that curious indifference that is not incompatible with a real ardour of temperament” (112).  This sensational wandering leads him to indulge in Catholicism, the study of perfumes, the study of jewels, clothing, and more.  However, he has no real attachment to any of these things, and even the deeply spiritual is reduced to aesthetics.  Dorian becomes lost in the labyrinth of the city and, it seems, hardly bothers with finding his way out.

            The effect of this eleventh chapter is profound.  It is a chapter that draws us into Wotton’s book and, living up to the reputation of the book, it is a chapter in which nothing happens.  The experience of reading chapter XI is incredibly blasé.  I found myself as bored with life as Dorian Gray himself.  In fact, even though Dorian becomes far from heroic in his surrender to the labyrinth, Wilde’s writing in this chapter makes me feel a certain degree of sympathy for Dorian.  After inching my way through seventeen pages that stretch across what seems like a decade, I can say with certainty that Dorian’s fate is far worse than Sybil’s.  Leave it to Wilde to make an artwork of even the blasé experience.

Walkowitz and Wilde

I definitely enjoyed reading Walkowitz this week, especially after finishing The Picture of Dorian Gray. The introductory quote from Henry James about how the city has “gathered together so many of the darkest sides of life” and has become a “strangely mingled monster” resonates so much with Dorian Gray. Following him into the opium house on the “wrong” side of town, surrounded by drunks and prostitutes, we can see just how dark Dorian’s life has become. The final scene, where we’re left with an unrecognizable figure, emphasizes just how monstrous living the city life can be. Walkowitz later says of James’ representations of city life, which I think we can also see in Wilde: “activities of manufacture, trade, and exchange were overshadowed by rituals of consumption and display” (17). In the world of Dorian Gray, we see no production, no producers. We have Basil the artist, Victor the attendant, Sybil the performer, but even these characters are placed in the world of the wealthy. We are not made to see value in their individual work as much as to see their purpose in helping the wealthy (i.e. Dorian and Henry) go about their days. As for Dorian, Henry, and the many others in their world, we see that their world revolves around “consumption and display.” They buy art, go to the opera, dine out, etc. It was hard to gloss over the many moments in the novel where we’re given almost a catalog of luxurious items such as jewelry, clothing, furniture, etc. These many instances where commodities are catalogued on the page highlight the author’s choice to emphasize consumption over labor.

            Another connection I made between Walkowitz and Wilde was with the representation of women. Walkowitz, building off of Stallybrass and White, points out the paradox of the prostitute’s role in the urban setting. The prostitute, while being outcast in the “social periphery,” also constitutes a central place in the city. In the novel, the woman in the opium house represents that female figure on the outside of society. I can’t remember if it’s the same woman that soon after tells Sybil’s brother that that was indeed Dorian Gray/ Prince Charming. Either way, if we didn’t already think a lady hanging out in an opium house was part of that “darker side” of life, she soon tells us of her fall from grace (or from the center, from higher society), which Dorian Gray caused. One thing that I found interesting, though, was that other women in the novel, whom we wouldn’t expect to lack virtue and propriety, actually do. For example, Henry’s female cousin is very flirtatious with Dorian, even with her husband present. An idea I’m working out still is trying to reconcile the depictions of women in Dorian Gray with something Walkowitz says early on in his essay. He says that women “lacked autonomy” and were “bearers of meaning rather than makers of meaning” (21). In the homosocial world Wilde has created, we definitely see some issues with the portrayal of women.

            If I can end with one final comment on Walkowtiz, I’d like to end with the following: “They [late-Victorian novelists] expressed this unease [over their ability to read the city] by constructing a mental map of London marked by fragmentation, complexity, and introspection, all of which imperiled the flaneur’s ability to experience the city as a totalizing whole” (39). I think we can see this sort of unease in Dorian Gray, and maybe that can help us understand his inability to see the big picture or the error in his ways. 

Harry's Science Project

In Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Harry perceives Dorian as his creation. Basil’s creation is a work of art; however, Harry’s creation is evident through the influence he possesses over Dorian. He states, “There was something enthralling in the exercise of influence. No other activity was like it” (33). On page 51, Harry contemplates, “…through certain words of his, musical words said with musical utterance, that Dorian Gray’s soul had turned to this white girl and bowed in worship before her. To a large extent the lad was his own creation.”  Harry believes that “Talking to [Dorian} was like playing upon an exquisite violin.” (33). Dorian is not as close to Basil as he is to Harry because he feels that Basil is too invested in his art to appreciate humanity over art, or the abstract. Dorian is too ingenuous to understand that Harry seems him as a science project rather than as a friend.

            Dorian is vulnerable because he is young, rather than immature. He does understand that he lacks information to be successful in life, which is why he behaves like an apostle towards Harry. He worships Harry in similar ways to how he worships Sibyl Vane.

Harry’s desire to learn about human nature drives him to use Dorian as subject in an experiment.  He approaches Dorian’s relationship with Sibyl as an opportunity to learn more about human nature’s connection to love. He is not elated because Dorian has found a significant person in his life. Harry is excited because he will have the opportunity to witness the nature of Dorian and Sibyl’s love. He is observing them without their knowledge.

This reminds of me of Foucault’s notion that “power is not negotiable.” Harry’s experience gives him the ability to have influence over Dorian, which is a strong form of power. We see that Basil has the power to immortalize Dorian’s beauty through his art. In fact, Dorian is jealous of the painting because it always been younger than him. According to Harry, whom he worships, youth is the purest form of beauty. Thus, Harry and Dorian take part in a ceaseless exchange. To be observed, Dorian must not be aware that Harry constantly observes him.

Harry’s art lies in his ability to influence Dorian. Dorian is enthralled by Harry, but he does not possess the intellectual competence to understand the complexity of Harry’s art, which is the ability to possess a heavy influence over others that resembles a sort of hypnotism, to an extent. Dorian has the cultural competence to find meaning in Basil’s art, but that bores him. It is human nature to become bored with what one knows. In similar fashion, it is human nature to be curious about the unknown. Dorian sees Harry’s mystery, and that sparks a curiosity to attempt learning from him. This attracts Dorian to Harry. I suppose Dorian is searching for Harry’s art, but fails to see himself as the work of art because he is used to being worshipped over his good looks, rather than measured by his intellect.