Picture of Dorian Gray ch. 14-20 Discussion

Socratic Seminar Chap. 14-20 “There are moments, psychologists tell us, when the passion for sin or for what the world calls sin, so dominates a nature, that every fibre of the body, as every cell of the brain, seems to be instinct with fearful impulses. Men and women at such moments lose the freedom of their will. They move to their terrible end as automatons move. Choice is taken from them, and conscience is either killed, or, if it lives at all, lives but to give rebellion its fascination and disobediences its charm. For all sins, as theologians weary not of reminding us, are sins of disobediences. When that high spirit, that morning-star evil, fell from heaven, it was a rebel he fell” (Wilde 150). This shows how sin is somewhat of a human instinct. It is something that if one was not to listen to his moral code or if he were to turn off his own will power; he would gravitate to it immediately. This relates to Wilde’s purpose in the fact that he is warning people of the deadly truth and instinct of their own being. In Victorian times, as it becomes apparent throughout the novel, is a time in which people of the higher classes were pleasure seeking and morally disastrous. This message that Wilde is portraying in this excerpt is intending for people to be cautious of their natural human being. This can also pertain to modern day as well as Victorian times; people in modern day society are faced with many temptations to sin, and to make the right choice it is required to possess a strong moral code and have stronger will power. Wilde’s message, in this scenario, may have to be read between the lines a bit; but he does make it clear that when control factors are stripped away, choices most likely will lead to sin. “It was better not to think of the past. Nothing could alter that. It was of himself and of his own future that he had to think. James Vane was hidden in the nameless grave in Selby churchyard. Alan Campbell had shot himself one night in his