Dorian Gray's mother is Margaret Devereux, who used to be an "extraordinarily beautiful girl" (39). Despite her many suitors, who came from wealthy families, she chose to elope with a "penniless young fellow," to whom she bore Dorian (39). Perhaps Wilde was too much of a romantic to allow Dorian to be conceived in the same way that Narcissus was. While Dorian's conception came out of love, Narcissus' was the result of rape, as Ovid writes that "Cephisus in his sinuous flow / Embracing held and rasvished... read more
