THE CURIOUS CASE OF SYBIL VANE

THE SYBIL VANE PHENOMENON

“But Juliet! (Referring to the lady acting Juliet from the play ‘Romeo and Juliet) Harry, imagine a girl hardly seventeen years of age, with a little flower like face, a small Greek head with plaited curls of dark brown hair, eyes that were violet wells of passion, lips that were like the petals of a rose. She was the loveliest thing I had ever seen in my life… I tell you, Harry, I could hardly see this girl for the mist of tears that came across me… Why should I not love her? Harry, I do love her” … (extract from ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde)

What an exquisite introduction to our main character, Sybil Vane. For anyone to be showered with so much love and adulation at the lips of one they equally adore is just breath-taking and astounding. Anyone can be forgiven for calling this--- ‘relationship goal’ and wish to be held in the same esteem by their lover. One can even assuredly assume from this wonderful introduction to Sybil Vane, that the love our dear Dorian Gray has for Sybil Vane is one of perfection.

So, we go a little down the line to meet our love birds in a tete-a-tete of the heart and are drawn in by another passionate discourse from the young Dorian Gray.

“I wish she were ill, he re-joined. But she seems to be simply callous and cold. She has entirely altered” (Speaking to Lord Henry – also called Harry) …

“You have killed my love. You used to stir my imagination. Now you don’t even stir my curiosity. You simply produce no effect. I loved you because you were marvellous, because you had genius and intellect… You have thrown it all away. You are shallow and stupid. My God! How mad I was to love you! …

You don’t know what you were to me, once … Oh, I can’t bear to think of it! … You have spoiled the romance of my life…

I am going. I don’t wish to be unkind, but I can’t see you again.”

To be introduced in such a way as Dorian introduced Sybil Vane to us is the dream of every lover out there. To completely capture the essence of our lover is the ultimate goal of romance, else we are lost in a tide of tiresome romantic circle. We first met Sibyl Vane in a passionate discussion from Dorian Gray while engaging Lord Henry Wotton (Harry), and we also said goodbye to Sibyl Vane in another passionate discussion from Dorian Gray while first talking with his mentor, Lord Harry, and while talking to Sibyl Vane herself.

I don’t think anyone who met the Dorian at the introduction of Sibyl Vane can claim Dorian didn’t think he loved Sibyl with all his life, neither can they say Dorian wasn’t totally disgusted and appalled by who Sibyl Vane became once she got lost in the rapture of love and romance presented by our fair Dorian… a curse that ultimately destroyed them both.

We are then left wondering why the drastic change of heart from Dorian to a woman he initially described as the best thing since ‘fried plantain’? if we are being totally honest, the fate that befell Dorian Gray and Sibyl Vane isn’t strange to anyone who has been enticed by the nectar of love and romance. What will make one love another person so passionately one minute, then look at the same subject of one’s affectionate interest so disdainfully (a biblical example is the story of Ammon and Tamar) the next minute. Could it have been lust, love or infatuation that drove Dorian’s passion when Sibyl became an interest of his affections? Whatever it was that drove his passion, it stands to reason such hatred should not be felt for someone he once looked at affectionately. One thing we can conclusively say is, this feeling that took over their individuality, albeit for a short while, destroyed Dorian and Sibyl (also destroyed Ammon).

While much of the book, ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ focuses on the actions of Dorian, his questionable morals, and fight for redemption, not much was said of poor Sibyl Vane who became a victim of the double-edged sword of love. Sibyl Vane can be described as a young girl just approaching the dawn of her youth, who meets and falls in love with a very handsome man who is above her social class (nobles and commoners in old England). One can then understand how easy it is for her to get lost in this powerful romance brought upon her by Cupid (Roman god of love and romance). She finds the intoxicating passion of romance so appealing that she forgets who she truly is and seem to lose her creativity, intellect, and talent for acting - the very qualities that made her desirable to Dorian in the first place. This inevitably leads to Dorian losing her love for her and leaving her heartbroken and helpless. While the way Dorian might have walked away from her can be deemed callous, but one must also not forget the young Dorian was as inexperienced and naïve as Sibyl in the matters of the heart.

Truth is, Sibyl was dealt the cold hands of love, a hand many of us have been dealt in our sojourn in the journey of love. And like Sibyl, a lot of us have sacrificed ourselves, our talents, skills, intellect, creativity, our very essence, and individuality at the altar of love, lust, and infatuation. We often allow our romantic emotions dictate the direction our life takes, burying logic in our decision making and submerging our individuality in the desire to create a picture-perfect romantic dream. Amidst the beauty of romance, we let ourselves forget it was actually our intellect, creativity, awareness (logical mind), and all the little perks of our individuality that made us attractive and desirable to our romantic interests in the first case.

Sibyl learnt the hard way that the feeling of love and desire we all crave for, the romantic idyllic façade we hope to be enmeshed with isn’t what it pretends to be. It’s a double-edged sword that can cut so deep if handled poorly, that one might never recover from the cut to tell the tale. Sibyl Vane became a casualty of love’s double-edged cut because she never learnt to dissociate her skills, talents, and intellects from the affairs of the heart, a stark reality for a lot of people out there.

It is very easy to get swept off our feet and caught up in the euphoria of the heart and subject our personality and very existence to the thrills of romance that we forget we existed once as an individual before the advent of the sweet romance. This euphoria confuses us, and we sometimes forget what our personal values are and what our motivations to pull through each day were. Suddenly, we are only motivated by the thrills of romance, and like a drug addict, we are hooked on to the cheap thrill or highness of the romantic euphoria we get, and there isn’t a part of us we won’t sacrifice to have this feeling retained in our lives.

I must admit, it is quite easy to confuse our motivation, drive and goals when the passion of romance mixes with the passion of our intellect, work, and creativity. This is a phenomenon I have dubbed ‘The Sibyl Vane Effect’. And this phenomenon doesn’t only play out in our romantic lives, it occurs in every area of our life where passion for one area of our life can conflict with another. When this occurs, we are usually more engrossed with the passion that rewards us with more daily thrills which usually conflicts with our long-term goals and objectives. Thus, it won’t be so strange to see an individual easily sacrifice their youth, creativity and passion on a dead-end salaried job that offers no fulfilment, or on a fool’s errand to search for the alchemist gold.

We must all endeavor never to get lost in the passion of romance nor its apparitions, and lose our individuality. We will only end up hurting ourselves and everyone close to us, just like Dorian and Sibyl eventually became a curse to all who cared about them.