The Carlton House. What exactly is this place? Well as far as the reader knows from what is given to us in the story, is that it is a place of many an orgy lead by Lord Beckenham. So was it just a small house that is filled with countless people having sex together? Well it may be but it has stronger significance in the story. In chapter eleven Dorian is doing a lot of looking back and thinking about things and events that have been playing out around him. He has been spending more time with the painting, seeing how it changes even though he does not. Watching it grow old and horrid as he stays clean. At some points, Dorian can’t even stand to look at his painting, other times he rejoices that it is the one growing old and ragged and he stays young and perfect.

So again what does the Carlton house have to do with Dorian or the story? It’s simple, the Carlton House wasn’t just some house. It was a palace. A palace in the north western part of London, which as we have learned is the most rich and wealthy parts of London. This is where royalty lived. On the Charles booth map you can’t really tell because for some reason it isn’t highlighted, but the picture next to it is the Carlton House. It is huge. It is a palace, hard pressed to have any blemishes. This plays a huge part in Dorian Gray. So while a reader may read over this mention of the Carlton House, a member of this class should not. We should be able to tell that this is Oscar Wilde making a direct shot at Dorian. Yes, Dorian is beautiful on the outside, not a blemish or mark to be found on him, but take a look on the inside and it is horrid and scandalous. According to this time periods rules I could only imagine how dishonorable and shunned orgies could be.

Oscar Wilde does an amazing job of throwing in subtle references to make points throughout The Picture of Dorian Gray. By adding in little snip bits of locations and references, he helps define and drive home just how terrible Dorian is. Along with that point though he proves just how powerful Dorian’s wish was in the beginning, being able to mask all of Dorian’s sins and flaws and only show them upon Basil’s painting of young Dorian. The Carlton House is just one of many likenesses to Dorian’s character. By again, it being such a wonderful highly thought of location that, behind closed doors, is filthy and riddled with guilt and sin.

Hoxton road happens to be a very important road in the story, The Picture of Dorian Gray. This is the area in which young Sibyl committed suicide. After looking at this road in both the old bailey and charles booth sites, I am very surprised that the two didn’t correspond more. Usually when an area has a low social standing the crime rate goes way up. But here we can see the Hoxton square is mainly a poor neighborhood, but yet there was only a few robberies when I searched the old Bailey. Though maybe it makes sense to the story. Why else would a local newspaper write about some poor actress killing herself unless there wasn’t much crime in the area to report?  In a way it is interesting also, that Sibyl kills herself when in the beginning of the story, Dorian claims that HE will kill himself if he grows old.

“”Your picture has taught me that. Lord Henry Wotton is perfectly right. Youth is the only thing worth having. When I find that I am growing old, I shall kill myself.”” -The Picture of Dorian Gray Chapter 2

It is funny that in a way Dorian said he would kill himself if, basically, he (though meaning a young pretty him) ever left him, he would kill himself. It’s interesting because that is exactly why Sibyl probably killed herself. Dorian told her he never wanted to see her again. It’s also funny that her art was effected by young Dorian just as Basil’s art is effected by him.

Basil’s picture of Dorian is forever changing throughout the story due to the wish that Dorian stated in the beginning. He wanted basically him and the picture to switch places, he gave his soul for this and he gained the pictures endless youth. But in this whenever something would happen to Dorian it wouldn’t age him, but the picture. The same goes for Sibyl’s art. She was an amazing actress but than when she fell in love with Dorian she lost focus and could not act properly, she even admits to it.

“Tonight, for the first time, I became conscious that the Romeo was hideous, and old, and painted, that the moonlight in the orchard was false, that the scenery was vulgar, and that the words I had to speak were unreal, were not my words, were not what I wanted to say. You had brought me something higher, something of which all art is but a reflection. You had made me understand what love really is.” -The Picture of Dorian Gray Chapter 7

So two works of art that Dorian has proper control over. In the end also ends up being the cause of both Basil’s and Sibyl’s death. Sibyl when she commits suicide and the eventual murder of Basil. It’s funny also how the original reason Basil doesn’t want to show the picture is that he claims too much of himself. It is funny because in the end it is showing all of Dorian quite literally. All the aging of Dorian goes to the photo.

Art is a powerful medium and this story helps to prove that. When Sibyl commits suicide on Hoxton road it shows how much art can have control over someones life. Her sudden lack in the ability to act led Dorian to realize he wasn’t in love with her and him telling her that lead her to killing herself.

This story is a tale of a group of “New Women”. New women were women who spoke out against the gender rules placed on them by society. So in this case it was four sisters who grouped together and began their own photography business. Women having a business was crazy in this time period. Let alone four women all running the same business. No men were involved, you go girls! These sisters were incredibly powerful, along with speaking up against societies rules they fought just after their father died. So mourning and fighting for their right to own a business and make money.

Baker Street station after doing some research doesn’t really seem to be to crazy. Like after looking at the Old Bailey site, it just seemed to be about ten crimes and all were like minor theft. Which kind of makes sense considering it was in the more well a do part of town. Also at no point in the story did it ever give off the vibe that they were in a crime infested part of town. The only “crime” occurring was the ones that the patriarchy was deciding was a crime. if anything they were stopping themselves from committing actual crimes such as prostitution.

This story is all about the new women and their fight. So the areas that the story mention I highly doubt, would be portrayed in a poor and crime infested part of town. If they are trying to push their cause, the new women are probably trying to show it off as glamorously as possible without having it be to glamorous because then the story would hook its male readers. Male readers would blow it off as some fairy tale that women were thinking up to try and break free of their control. So I believe the new women were incredibly smart and just played enough into the wonders of women’s rights without trying to grasp for too much. The Romance of a Shop is a great story to show off New Women literature.

So after looking at a couple of the sites it looks like Charing Cross is almost like the street that leads from the poor to the middle class border. Then a little bit farther up is the rich district. For some reason I thought that the districts would be very specific areas. That seems to not have been the case though. By using the Charles Booth site i saw how close some of the poor areas were to the middle and upper class. Which then leads to what I found in the old bailey! I looked up the street in the old bailey and every insert seemed to be about burglary and or theft. This, to me, makes sense due to the fact that the class areas were so close together. I mean if right out side my house was a much richer person, and I saw them everyday, I might try and steal a thing or two from them. A few other more prominent I guess you could say crimes were things such as murder and coining but not as much as burglary. Coining was the making of false money, again makes sense when classes were so close.

So I read though the pictures and read through the articles and it’s interesting to see how people lived. How street life and normal everyday life was in London. It was interesting to see how much was actually going on within the city, how everything was being constructed. How the poor districts really got hit and were effected the most by the industrial period.

I also messed around with the Victorian London online game that was posted on the syllabus. it was interesting I guess. Picking between the male and female intro character and then following the life of the party. I guess certain people weren’t invited to the party because some were abducted by weird futuristic robots? This was weird but I learned a little bit about the upper class and their fun life. Fun facts and interesting lame game.

Hey everyone! My name is Mike Falsetta! I’m a senior and I am an English major with a Film/Video studies minor. I know what am I gonna do with that. We’ll just see I guess. Anyway yes I am taking this class because it is a requirement for my major but also because it seemed really interesting and I enjoy the hybrid class so far so I figured why not try another one. Also who doesn’t love London, am I right? For what ever reason I always feel like people are infatuated with London (my reason is Doctor Who) so I figured why not figure out more about it. I really hope to have a fun and informative class!

So after reading the article, I learned some pretty interesting things about early London. First off northern London was filled with people who only cared about themselves. Apparently they let a river stop them from helping out southern London who was in serious need. Finally after expanding and connecting northern London set aid and trade over freshly made bridges halfway through 1700s. That was not enough though. They kept expanding going west and picking up on land they had from centuries past. But how did they learn to expand and move so fast? Well many inventions came about to help with speed and travel. The bridges were made to the south and railways started sprouting up all over London. There was good and bad that came with all this expansion. Many people gained jobs due to building new bridges and roads and railways. But on the flip side many families homes were destroyed to the expansion of all these travel options. As with most, I guess you could say “industrial revolutions” there is always upsides and downsides. Trade in quickness and more efficiency for some tragedies such as loss of homes and smog. Such is life.