"For there would be a real pleasure in watching it. He would be able to follow his mind into its secret places. This portrait would be to him the most magical of mirrors. As it had revealed to him his own body, so it would reveal to him his own soul ... What did it matter what happened to the coloured image on the canvas?"

In the first quarter of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray — covered in Part One of my review, the title character was barely a character at all.  His portrait showed more life, in fact, while Dorian appeared to be nothing but an empty vase, a hollow vessel waiting for someone to pour in an idea.  As I read, however, it was this very vapidity which became intriguing.  Much like Dorian listening to Lord Henry, the more I read, and the more I professed not to like either of them, the more interested I became.  Indeed, Dorian's vacancy in his own thoughts becomes so defined as to be interesting in and of itself.  

Between chapters three and four, a month has passed, and the change in Dorian is marked.  Chapter four begins with him parroting several of Harry's philosophies while talking to Harry's wife.  Finally she responds to Dorian, "Ah! that is one of Harry's views, isn't it, Mr. Gray? I always hear Harry's views from his friends."

Taken in a vacuum the discussion between them leaves Dorian looking rather erudite and well mannered, but it is undercut in the novel by the reader's knowledge that what he is saying is not his own.  Even when he's talking to Harry, Dorian points out when he's quoting.  For his part, Harry goes to pains to reinforce his philosophies, along with the fact that Dorian has and always will accept them.  More than once he says something to the effect of "Dorian will always love me" when Dorian is sitting across the table.  The use of third person further emphasizes his passivity by setting Dorian outside the action.  

The relationship puts me in mind of a lot of the political dialogue being thrown around this country, especially in the mass media.  Dorian saying, "that's one of your philosophies, Harry" sounds a lot like saying 'a source in the Clinton campaign.'  They both reference a sort of vague authority.  On the one hand, Wilde has yet to make it clear where exactly Harry gets his plethora of social wisdom.  Meanwhile, citing a "campaign" in a news story is about the same to me as citing the guy ahead of you in the Starbucks line.

Nevertheless, the reading public seems more than willing to accept this sort of shadowy documentation with a Dorian-esque credulity.  In the same vein is the fervor of some campaign workers (tis the season, after all) for their candidates.  Whether they appear as a talking head or as the more insistent pamphlet pushers on the street, I am always amazed at just how willing people are to pledge themselves to perfect strangers.  When pushed on the topic, I have heard them reply that they believe in what their candidate can do for the country, not just the candidate themselves.  In the end, though, they strike me as no more knowledgeable about their hero's thought processes than Dorian is about Lord Harry's manipulation.