The Picture of Dorian Gray (Wilde) practice questions and exam guide

At the moment of the stabbing, the household hears:

1. Only silence, thick and unnerving, from upstairs
2. A scream and a crash from upstairs
3. Faint singing drifting down from a servant
4. Heavy footsteps pacing across the floor above

Answer: B — A scream and a crash from upstairs

A/C/D) Wrong. B) Correct — the cry summons the servants who break in.

Dorian moves the portrait to the attic after:

1. Basil unexpectedly asks to have it returned
2. A servant complains about the locked room
3. Noticing its cruelly altered mouth
4. Attending Sibyl's quiet, poorly attended funeral

Answer: C — Noticing its cruelly altered mouth

A/B/D) Wrong. C) Correct — the move is a defensive concealment of the soul-image.

The 'double life' theme means:

1. The idea of literal twin brothers switching places in society
2. A form of time travel that swaps two different eras
3. Public respectability hiding private corruption, externalized in the portrait
4. A hidden story of wartime espionage and secret identities

Answer: C — Public respectability hiding private corruption, externalized in the portrait

A/B/D) Wrong. C) Correct — late-Victorian England is rich in such doubles.

Dramatic irony in the novel runs on:

1. A packet of letters lost in the post
2. A simple case of mistaken identity at a party
3. A single line of dialogue that is misheard
4. The reader's knowledge of the portrait's change against society's ignorant judgment of Dorian's face

Answer: D — The reader's knowledge of the portrait's change against society's ignorant judgment of Dorian's face

A/C/B) Wrong. D) Correct — the gap between portrait + public face is the engine of irony.

Why is the novel a perennial AP Lit anchor?

1. Its unusually long and demanding narrative structure
2. Its tight structure, aphoristic style, doppelgänger form, and questions about art's ethics
3. Its many sudden and dramatic plot twists
4. Its fast-paced sense of adventure and danger

Answer: B — Its tight structure, aphoristic style, doppelgänger form, and questions about art's ethics

A/C/D) Wrong. B) Correct — every dimension yields close-reading material; the novel pairs with Frankenstein + Jekyll/Hyde and rewards both formal + ethical analysis.

The novel's 1891 Preface itself was published earlier as:

1. A public speech delivered at the Royal Academy
2. A political pamphlet handed out near the courts
3. An open letter published in the Times newspaper
4. Printed aphorisms in The Fortnightly Review

Answer: D — Printed aphorisms in The Fortnightly Review

A/C/B) Wrong. D) Correct — Wilde first published the Preface as criticism, then folded it into the book.

Lord Henry's wife, Victoria, exits the novel by:

1. A sudden death from a lingering illness late in the novel
2. A quiet, private reform of character late in life
3. A final retreat into a convent far from society
4. Running off with another man, an event Henry treats lightly

Answer: D — Running off with another man, an event Henry treats lightly

A/C/B) Wrong. D) Correct — Wilde uses the throwaway as another satirical brushstroke on Henry's detachment.

Preface paraphrase: vice + virtue, for the artist, are:

1. Everyday lifestyle choices with no bearing on art
2. Fixed personal traits an artist either has or lacks
3. Moral sins that a virtuous artist must avoid
4. Materials for art — not moral lessons or confessions

Answer: D — Materials for art — not moral lessons or confessions

A/C/B) Wrong. D) Correct — Wilde treats moral content as raw material.

Lord Henry doesn't actually live by his own philosophy because:

1. He is simply a fraud who believes nothing he says
2. Wilde's irony: words shape listeners more than the speaker who utters them
3. He privately fears the legal consequences of scandal
4. He is too old to pursue youthful sensation himself

Answer: B — Wilde's irony: words shape listeners more than the speaker who utters them

A/C/D) Reductive. B) Correct — the imbalance is central to the novel's critique of influence + corruption.

In the opening scene, who is painting Dorian?

1. Lord Henry Wotton, idly sketching him in the garden
2. Basil Hallward, the artist painting Dorian's portrait
3. Sibyl Vane, sketching her admirer as a private keepsake
4. Alan Campbell, an old friend paying a visit that day

Answer: B — Basil Hallward, the artist painting Dorian's portrait

A) Visiting friend. B) Correct — Basil is the painter; the portrait is what he calls his masterpiece. C/D) Wrong.

Wilde's critique of bourgeois moralism in the novel is delivered through:

1. Henry's epigrams at dinner parties full of polite hypocrisy
2. A long, direct authorial lecture addressed straight at the reader's conscience
3. Newspaper articles quoted at length throughout several chapters
4. A formal courtroom trial scene late in the story

Answer: A — Henry's epigrams at dinner parties full of polite hypocrisy

B/C/D) Wrong. A) Correct — the satire moves through dialogue, not exposition.

After sparing Hetty, the portrait grows worse because:

1. Wilde reads the act as vanity, not real virtue
2. The original wish has simply run its course
3. Basil supposedly cursed the portrait before he died
4. It was merely an unexplained, random mistake

Answer: A — Wilde reads the act as vanity, not real virtue

B/C/D) Wrong. A) Correct — the moment exposes Dorian's continued aesthetic self-regard.

Why was the 1890 version scandalous?

Reviewers attacked it as immoral + decadent — especially for its homoerotic undercurrents. Wilde wrote the 1891 Preface partly in defense.

Who is James Vane?

Sibyl's sailor brother. Vows revenge on the 'Prince Charming' who ruins her. Years later hunts Dorian.

Why does Dorian break with Sibyl?

After agreeing to marry him, Sibyl loses her ability to act — she now feels real love + Shakespeare seems hollow. Dorian sees her bad performance + cruelly rejects her.

Famous adaptations?

1945 MGM film (Hurd Hatfield); BBC 1976; Stuart Townsend in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003); 2009 film (Ben Barnes); multiple stage versions + the 1891 text itself remains iconic.

The novel's most-quoted aphorisms?

'The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.' 'I can resist everything except temptation.' These are Lord Henry's lines + Wilde's signature mode.

Queer readings of the novel?

Modern criticism reads the intense male triangle (Basil's devotion to Dorian; Lord Henry's seduction-by-talk) + the novel's coded vocabulary as central, not incidental.