Question 3 -

What role, if any, does innocence serve? (think of Sibyl Vane, Hetty Merton, and Dorian)

In the book, innocence serves as the opposing virtue to deeds done to harm others. I think I came to see and understand innocence and the countering guilt better than I did the actual human characters in the book.
In the end, innocence stood. For when Dorian Gray attempted to destroy the portrait, (innocence), he destroyed himself, (guilt), and the innocent, (the portrait) lived once more; young, beautiful and innocent.
belva

I felt that, while Dorian's innocence needed to be preserved, it also needed to be tempered with wisdom. Innocence without wisdom made him easy prey for corruption. I also think vanity played as big a part in this story as innocence, and it was Dorian's selfish vanity that caused his downfall.

On the other side of the vanity issue: It made me sad that both Basil and Lord Henry treated Dorian more like a collectable artifact than a whole person.

5> Absolutely! To Basil, he was an ideal to inspire him, a model to paint; to Lord Henry, he was someone to toy with, to play a form of mind game, to feel powerful by influencing him.

#4 I completely agree on the note of Dorian's vanity - he was extremely easy to corrupt. While I agree with you NST about the way that both Basil and Lord Henry treated Dorian, I also don't believe that Dorian was that innocent to begin with - he fell in to role extremely easily.

Sibyl Vane, on the other hand, had an innocence that I'm more inclined to believe in - she is a character manipulated by nearly everyone in her life and is an interesting contrast to Dorian.

I think that the injury to the innocent pointed more strongly to the lack of conscience and to the sin of Dorian.
--BJ