The early Rossetti painted beautiful, innocent-looking women Basil does the same thing, but concentrates on a young man instead. Basil Hallward, for instance, is meant at the beginning of the novel to evoke Dante Gabriel Rossetti as painter. Without exception, the characters in The Picture of Dorian Gray are meant to represent various art movements in the nineteenth century and before: it is not only Sibyl who is inseparable from art. What are we to make of all this? Is Wilde indulging in an uncharacteristic outburst of anti-Semitism, or is there a deeper reason for his surprisingly hostile and racially prejudiced portrayal of the Jewish manager? The answer, I think, lies in the nature of Wilde's novel. After Sibyl's death, we hear no more of "the old Jew" (p. Wilde describes Isaacs's uncouth reaction: "The Jew manager, who was standing at the back of the dress-circle, stamped and swore with rage" (p. A while later, as Sibyl acts very poorly, the audience loses interest and begins to talk loudly and to whistle. Lord Henry's liking for Isaacs is, of course, part of his paradoxical nature. At least he declared he did, and insisted on shaking him by the hand, and assuring him that he was proud to meet a man who had discovered a real genius and gone bankrupt over a poet. Lord Henry, upon the other hand, rather liked him. He felt as if he had come to look for Miranda and had been met by Caliban. He escorted them to their box with a sort of pompous humility, waving his fat jewelled hands, and talking at the top of his voice. At the opening of chapter 7 Wilde joins in, using his authorial voice:įor some reason or other, the house was crowded that night, and the fat Jew manager who met them at the door was beaming from ear to ear with an oily, tremulous smile. Nor is the attack on Isaacs, with its heavy anti-Semitism, placed completely in the mouths of Dorian and Sibyl.
The mother's praise of Isaacs, moreover, is simply meant to underline how unsympathetic a character she is: her main interest is in exploiting her daughter, not in helping and guiding her. The implication is that Isaacs has sexual designs on Sibyl. At the beginning of chapter 5, when her mother encourages her to be civil to him because he has lent them money, Sibyl replies: "He is not a gentleman, and I hate the way he talks to me" (p. He told me once, with an air of pride, that his five bankruptcies were entirely due to "The Bard," as he insisted on calling him. He was a most offensive brute, though he had an extraordinary passion for Shakespeare. On the first night I was at the theatre, the horrid old Jew came round to the box after the performance was over, and offered to take me behind the scenes and introduce me to her. A few pages later, for instance, he says: ĭorian's dislike of Isaacs is not simply personal: it has strong anti-Semitic overtones. There was something about him, Harry, that amused me. �Have a box, my Lord?' he said, when he saw me, and he took off his hat with an air of gorgeous servility. He had greasy ringlets, and an enormous diamond blazed in the centre of a soiled shirt.
We first meet Isaacs in chapter 4, when Dorian says to Lord Henry:Ī hideous Jew, in the most amazing waistcoat I ever beheld in my life, was standing at the entrance, smoking a vile cigar. 1 He is part of a tawdry naturalistic environment, but his Jewishness is stressed so much, and he is so unsympathetically presented, that the reader cannot help feeling a bit surprised and even startled. One OF THE minor characters in The Picture of Dorian Gray is the Jewish manager Isaacs, who runs the theatre that Sibyl Vane acts in.
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