Giving Oscar a Second Chance

I despised Portrait of Dorian Grey at the time that I read it, mostly because I found it disgusting morally, but I think the moral complexities of Oscar's heart and actual life are less so. Thus, I've decided not to hold it against him; also because this quote is beautiful.

"When first I was put into prison some people advised me to try and forget who I was. It was ruinous advice. It is only by realising what I am that I have found comfort of any kind. Now I am advised by others to try on my release to forget that I have ever been in a prison at all. I know that would be equally fatal. It would mean that I would always be haunted by an intolerable sense of disgrace, and that those things that are meant for me as much as for anybody else - the beauty of the sun and moon, the pageant of the seasons, the music of daybreak and the silence of great nights, the rain falling through the leaves, or the dew creeping over the grass and making it silver - would all be tainted for me, and lose their healing power, and their power of communicating joy. To regret one's own experiences is to arrest one's own development. To deny one's own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one's own life. It is no less than a denial of the soul."

De Profundis

Oscar Wilde

 

I'm loving my experience here. I've been upset I haven't had time to blog, but we have crazy amounts of work and I'm trying to make the most of my time. I plan to go on a blogging spree on the plane home.