The Picture of Dorian Grey

How Dorian Gray looked in
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

I have recently started reading, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilder. How I came to the decision to start reading in is some what abnormal. One of my all time favorite movies is the league of extraordinary gentlemen. This movie was put together by taking famous 19th and 20th century book characters, including Tom Sawyer from the novel Tom Sawyer, Allan Quartermain King Solomon's mines, and from my book Dorian Gray.

The takes place in England, and starts out with Basil Hallward a painter and Lord Henry Wotton siting in Hallward's art studio. as they talk Basil is busy looking at a painting of what you later find out is the beautiful Dorian Grey. Wilder seems to be leading the reader to believe that Basil has fallen in love with Gray. As they talk Basil describes how he met Dorian at a party and has quickly become obsessed about him.

The author describes this when he speaks through Basil and says, ""He is all my art to me now," said the painter gravely..."What the invention of oil-painting was to the Venetians, the face of Antinous was to late Greek sculpture, and the face of Dorian Gray will some day be to me." This quote not only describes the story but starts to show Wilder's writing style.

The book is a very vibrant read with amazingly descriptive writing. Every sentence is a picture made of words (see what I did there). even in the unneeded transition sentences amazing descriptions are provided, "Lord Henry elevated his eyebrows and looked at him in amazement through the thin blue wreaths of smoke that curled up in such fanciful whorls from his heavy, opium-tainted cigarette." In this short quote there is so much description, and imagery.

This story will draw any reader in with its amazing use of words, like the deep blue eyes of Dorian Gray have drawn in Basil Hallward.

Dorian Gray is probably not quite as
beautiful as this pug

success or failure: The effects of dropping out of school

I've been thinking over the past couple of weeks about people i could interview about my possible high school drop out project. I had already planned to interview my grandmother about her father seeing as he is now deceased, but I wasn't sure who I would use for my second individual. I recently had a friend drop out and realized I could analyze dropping out in a life lived, and a life waiting to be lived perspective.

With this I will also be able to look at dropping out of school on a generation. I will hopefully be able to interview them here over the next couple days. I realize not all people drop out for the same reasons, and that dropping out doesn't mean that you can't do anything with your life; after all my great-grandfather was a multimillionaire despite never finishing the 8th grade.

There are many studies that different organizations and colleges have done on the affects of dropping out that will provide a lot of great information for my paper. I am personally interested in all of this information because these are the stories of some of the greatest fighters in our community. Despite what most people would view as all the odds stacked against them, many of them succeed. It is also important to recognize the reasons why people drop out and see if we can change the system to help those kids.