Had Set Himself to the Serious Study of the Great Aristocratic Art of Doing Absolutely Nothingã¢ââ
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CHAPTER 3
Summary
It is 12:30 in the afternoon and Lord Henry Wotton is walking to his uncle�s house. Lord Fermor had in his youth been secretarial assistant to his father, an ambassador to Madrid. When his father didn�t go the ambassadorship of Paris, he quit in a huff and Lord Fermor quit with him. From them on Lord Fermor had spent his life devoted "to the serious study of the great aristocratic art of doing absolutely cipher." He pays some attending to the coal mines in the Midland counties, "excusing himself from the taint of industry on the footing that the one advantage of having coal was that I enabled a gentleman to afford the decency of burning wood on his own hearth."
Lord Henry is visiting him to find out what he knows virtually Dorian Gray�s parents. He doesn�t belong to the Bluebooks (the lists of English nobles), but he is Kelso�south grandson and his mother was Lady Margaret Devereux, an extraordinary beauty of her day. She married a penniless human being and upset anybody in the procedure. Her husband died presently after, killed in a duel fix upwardly by her male parent. She was pregnant. In childbirth, she died, leaving Dorian to grow up with his ruthless grandfather.
Lord Henry leaves from his uncle�s and goes to his aunt�s house for lunch. He becomes engrossed in his thoughts about Dorian Greyness�s background. He decides he will dominate Dorian just equally Dorian dominates Basil Hallward. When he gets to his aunt�southward he is happy to see Dorian is at the table. He begins to regale his aunt�s guests with his hedonistic philosophy of life. He scorns the motives of philanthropy, which his aunt and most of her guests espouse, and carries on near the joys of the pursuit of pleasure for its own sake. He is pleased to see that Dorian is fascinated past his speech. All of his aunt�due south guests are, in fact, and he receives several invitations.
When dejeuner is over, he says he volition go to the park for a stroll. Dorian asks to come along and begs him to keep talking. Lord Henry says he is finished talking and now he just wants to be and enjoy. Dorian wants to come anyhow. Lord Henry reminds him he has an appointment with Basil Hallward. Dorian doesn�t listen breaking it.
Notes
The third element of the triangular relationship amidst Basil Hallward, Dorian Gray, and Lord Henry is in this chapter fully established. Lord Henry decides to boss Dorian Grey as Dorian Grayness dominates Basil Hallward. The chapter is framed by this realization. It opens with Lord Henry walking to his aunt Agatha�due south firm for dejeuner at which he knows he will run into Dorian Gray. On that walk he decides he will work his strong influence on Dorian. At the luncheon, Lord Henry charms everyone present with his Hedonistic philosophy, even those who are staunch supporters of philanthropy. He works his influence on them all with a view toward influencing Dorian Gray. The plan works. At the end of lunch, Dorian asks to back-trail him on his walk through the park. He will stand up up Basil Hallward, with whom he has an date.
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The reader might exist puzzled at the scorn that is heaped on charitable work in this chapter. It�southward useful to look at the history of the nineteenth century to meet what Oscar Wilde is responding to in this attack on philanthropy. For many years, England had dominated the world, invading countries like India, Africa, and People's republic of china (non to mention America and Ireland) and taking over, establishing colonial regimes and enslaving the people of those lands or making subordinates of them. The terminate of the nineteenth century saw the turn down of the British Empire. Colonized people began successfully to revolt and England began pulling out of these other lands.
Colonization had e'er been done in the pursuit of raw materials, cheap labor, and land, only the outright theft of other lands and peoples went against England�due south sense of itself as a Christian nation. Therefore, it needed a moral justification for colonizing other lands. That justification came in the class of a sense of moral superiority. The English were doing these colonized people a favor by brining them the low-cal of a superior civilization, including a superior faith.
At the aforementioned time that justification was being built up, people were starving in the streets in England itself. The colonizers realized it was important to help those at dwelling house as well equally "help" those abroad. Hence, the philanthropic societies of the belatedly nineteenth century. Oscar Wilde was well aware that of the hypocrisy at the heart of much of the philanthropy of his time: workers were ruthlessly exploited, making possible the gourmet dinners of the philanthropic dinners put on for their benefit. The poor remained poor and the rich didn�t feel quite every bit guilty.
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