“I spared somebody. It sounds vain, but you understand what I mean. She was quite beautiful, and wonderfully like Sibyl Vane. I think it was that which first attracted me to her. You remember Sibyl, don’t you? How long ago that seems! Well, Hetty was not one of our own class, of course. She was simply a girl in a village. But I really loved her. I am quite sure that I loved her” (Wilde 177).
In this quotation from Dorian, the boy’s ignorance and classicism separates him from Hetty, the woman he finds himself attracted to, in explaining: “Well, Hetty was not one of our own class, of course. She was simply a girl in a village.” Though immediately after, dismisses this, claiming “But I really loved her. I am quite sure I loved her.” Through this paradigm of classist thought have we seen Dorian carry out both his horrible wrongdoings, as well as his attempts to rid himself of them. Or in this case, rather than utilizing these social benefits towards predation (“killing” Sybil and really killing Basil), he now intends to save people, acknowledging his past mistakes. What’s interesting to me about the fact that Dorian claims to be in love with Hetty is that she reminds him of Sibyl, someone who’s death he dismissed so easily. He even acknowledges this to a degree by claiming, “She was quite beautiful, and wonderfully like Sibyl Vane. I think it was that which first attracted me to her.” Here there is an implication that he also loved Sibyl just loved Hetty, which doesn’t make the most sense given how that ended. Particularly in saying, “You remember Sibyl, don’t you? How long ago that seems”, it seems as though Lord Henry’s influence took shape in how Dorian would not think much of her going forward. As Dorian claims that he ‘spared’ her, maybe because Hetty reminds him of Sibyl, he wanted to kill her because he didn’t get the chance before?
This comparison between Sybil and Hetty seems to bring the novel full-circle, with Dorian referencing the event which first led him into his sinful life. I wonder if you considered also how Dorian’s “sparing” of Hetty mirrors what happened with Sybil. Although Dorian frames it as a good deed, he essentially does the same to Hetty which he did to Sybil: drop her completely out of the blue. However, there is an inversion of intention, I guess, since Dorian left Sybil because he thought she wasn’t good enough for him, and he left Hetty because he thought he was too evil for her. I think you could definitely explore this concept more and analyse how Dorian’s relationship with women changes and doesn’t change.
This was a super interesting blog post! I wonder if this means you believe Dorian is admitting guilt or partial confession to his involvement in Sibyl’s suicide. If Dorian is reminded of Sibyl with Hetty then why he would open his statement with, “I spared somebody,” and then go on to mention the similarities between Sibyl and Hetty (Wilde 177). How can Dorian acknowledge his previous mistakes while continuously dismissing the severity of the deaths?