To Dorian Gray, Sibyl Vane is his whole life at that time。 Indeed, Sibyl Vane loves Gray from her heart and she was engaged to be married to him。 However, Dorian Gray finds that who he loves is not Sibyl Vane, but the person out of poetry or in Shakespeare’s plays。 So the image of rose changes into a pale rose instead。 To some extent, it foreshadows the ending of their non-existent love。 The reasons why Dorian Gray loved Sibyl Gray are that she was marvelous and had genius and intellect, as well as she realized the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the shadows of art。 

As a result, when he realized he never loves her in real life, he decidedly refused Sibyl Vane when she urged him to stay。 Unfortunately, Sibyl Vane committed suicide because of sadness and hopelessness。文献综述

1。3 Poppy Expressing the Death of Virtue

People love poppy because it has the beautiful flowers; people are afraid of it because its fruit is a kind of a deadly poison。 We can resist poison temptation, but can’t bury its beauty of flirtatious and fanatical flowers。 The poppies were sown in autumn and put forth their blossoms in spring with beautiful flowers。 Poppy has no poison, but its white succus in low capsule is toxic。 That’s the source of the white powder become evil。 Beautiful flowers contain disastrous damages to human beings, so foreign people call it flowers of evil。

In The Picture of Dorian Gray, the image poppy has just appeared only once。 When Sibyl Vane begged for Dorian Gray to leave behind, he refused her without the second thought in that he didn’t love Sibyl Vane any more because he found that she isn’t as perfect as herself when she is on stage。 Unfortunately, Sibyl Vane committed suicide with sadness and pains。 Then the next day, Dorian Gray found the actual painting has changed a lot, in fact, the whole expression had altered horribly for the first time。 He feared for a long time and didn’t have any ideas, even he felt guilty of Sibyl Vane’s death。 However, he realized it doesn’t matter after Lord Henry exposed his fallacy to Dorian Gray, who even led Dorian Gray to regard death as the beauty of tragedy。 

As far as I am concerned, it has two meanings of this sentence: “life has always poppies in her hands。”(Wilde 69) On the one hand, Dorian just loves the surface of the beautiful things, such as who is Sibyl Vane when she was on stage; also he pursues the beauty of art, that’s why he was so frightened when facing the unexpected changes about his picture。 On the other hand, Dorian Gray didn’t realize that his heart was transformed into a dark one, which was like the inside part of poppy。 This image may also indicate that Dorian Gray was further intensified worse with Henry’s continuing influences and the ending of his virtue is clear to readers。

1。4 Flowers Expressing Despair

It is clear that the three flowers represent different meanings; however, the process shows a tendency of decline。 Daisy is the symbol of youth and energy, rose is the most suitable thing to modify romantic love as well as youth, and poppy is poisonous。 It indicates despair from the change of the status of flowers because of its poison。

Although daisy smells so good, Henry twiddles it into pieces in that he just wants to shape Gray according to his ideas and has the determination to manage it。 It is hopeless for Gray to get avoidance from Lord Henry。 Gray is changed subliminally into a person who cares only the appearance but ignores his psychological conditions。 Unfortunately, he becomes a devil who kills anyone without any consideration if he finds the secret of the painting。 So, from this aspect, it reveals the despair to Gray because he doesn’t have any conscience at that time。

The image of rose changes a lot as the time goes on, rose is the symbol of the handsome and young Gray, but it appears again when Dorian Gray refuses Sibyl without any consideration。 From this aspect, their love must be a tragedy even though how Sibyl loves Gray。 There is no possibility to the love between Sibyl and Gray, so the fact also reflects the love between the upper class and the working one is none, which is the despair to the social regulations in Victorian Period。来*自-优=尔,论:文+网www.youerw.com 奥斯卡·王尔德《道林·格雷的画像》死亡意象(4):http://www.youerw.com/yingyu/lunwen_82281.html