The long, penultimate paragraph of "The Picture of Mr. Wh" neatly interrupts the dialogue that has just revealed the true nature of the death of Erskine, a friend of the narrator. The narrator learns the shocking news that Erskine died naturally of consumption and not by suicide, as a letter from Erskine himself had previously led the narrator to believe. Then, considering the strange circumstances surrounding his friend's recent disappearance, the narrator wonders why Erskine, in his tragic flight, "turned around to tell [him] what was not true" (100). The paragraph continues with the narrator pondering the meaning of his friend's dying lie, ultimately in an attempt to convince himself of its "uselessness" (100) by reconverting him to the theory of Willie Hughes. However, the latent capacity of the language he uses to reject and devalue Erskine's letter hides precisely this capacity for reconversion that the narrator explicitly denies. He almost desperately convinces himself that he has lost confidence in the theory. He wants to believe that at the very moment his faith left him, he experienced a fundamental change in his character and sensibility that prevented him from being affected by Erskine's martyr pose. He assures himself that Erskine's act was futile and he is firm in his disbelief, but in assuring himself, his very deliberate language, full of ambiguity, deception and misrepresentation, seems to suggest that the Erskine's pose slowly instills in the narrator a nervously revived belief. .Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayThe narrator, walking away from the doctor who has just informed him of the suicidal nature of Erskine's death, immediately poses a litany of questions, pondering the motive for his friend's lie. Characteristic of Wildian narration, he paraphrases and diverts a literary source. He alludes to a passage of indirect speech from Les Miserables, generalizing it and attributing it to Hugo himself. By first asking the question “Was Hugo right?” the narrator asserts a rhetorical mode and, given Hugo's respected and well-known place in literary history, a preemptive level of external authority is lent to the question: "Is affectation the only thing that accompanies a man on the steps of the scaffold? » (100)? By posing his quote from Hugo as a question, the narrator wants to be taken at his word that it is an accurate and unburdened representation of Hugo's own thinking. It diverts attention from the problem of the truth of the attributed paraphrase and redirects attention to the truth of the question posed. However, on closer inspection, it appears to be a paraphrase of a convenient misremembering or, more likely, a calculated misrepresentation. In Hugo's novel, a bishop climbs the scaffold with a condemned man. The narrator of Les Mis, who is probably closest to Hugo, actually describes the act as “sublime” and misunderstood (326). These are just some of the “town people who said it was just affectation” (326). Wilde's narrator reorganizes the passage, eliminates the sublime, attributes the townspeople's incomprehension to Hugo himself, and ultimately presents a misleading paraphrase to characterize Erskine's action. As a result, he reveals his actively depreciative and deceptive tendencies which set the tone for his later reflections. Nonetheless, he does so in the form of questions that demonstrate his palpable doubts and indecision about the thoughts running through his mind. He adds to this uncertainty the subliminal connotations of the true and contradictory passage from Hugo which isinevitably linked to paraphrase. Thus, while ostensibly questioning the vain affectation of Erskine's dying act, he implicitly suggests the sublime and incompatible aspect of the act that was committed by Erskine.Hugo's true assertion. Wilde's narrator continues in the same direction with a further question: "Did Erskine simply want to produce a dramatic effect" (100)? No, the narrator admits, confident in his ability to categorize his friend, “that wasn't like him” (100). In fact, according to the narrator, attempting to produce such an effect seemed more like “something I could have done” (100). What is first striking about this sentence is the vagueness inherent in constructing a sentence around a comparison with the decidedly vague word. “something” descriptor. Yet it is also remarkable that the narrator chooses to make this confession in the past perfect potential associated with “power.” The use of this tense demonstrates the careful and deliberate break he makes with himself, the narrator at the beginning of the story, since he could just as easily have constructed the sentence in the present tense. His use of the verb “could” draws even more attention to his phrasing and, in doing so, makes his statement seem somewhat suspicious. “Power” creates an even greater distance by insinuating that even if he were as he was, there is still only the possibility that he would produce something like such a dramatic effect. He could have used the conditional "will" instead of "can" and created less of a gap between himself, both past and present, and the hypothetical production of such a dramatic effect. The narrator "had grown wiser", however, than he was at the beginning of the text and that is why only his past, naive self could possibly do something similar to what Erskine did. Given his enthusiastic praise and passionate emulation of Cyril Graham for the majority of the text, before claiming to have lost faith in Willie Hughes' theory, he must admit the possibility that his former self desired to create such an effect. However, it is perhaps the fear that Erskine's dramatic pose during a self-realized departure will affect his disbelief in the theory that leads the narrator to consciously distance himself. However, the narrator states that he does not think that mere dramatic effect was the aim of his friend's letter. He asserts that Erskine “was simply driven by the desire to reconvert him to the theory of Cyril Graham” (100). Essentially, the narrator puts forward two possible motives for his friend's letter: to create dramatic effect or to convert it back to theory. He rejects the first in favor of the second. But curiously, he uses synonymous adverbs in both cases. “Simply” and “simply” both provide a simple, uncluttered, almost diminutive description of the two possible motives. This is another conscious move to downplay the significance and influence of Erskine's letter. However, by juxtaposing the two potential motivations as separately simple and rejectable, either as false or ineffective, does this not leave room for the effectiveness of their amalgamation? This confusion does not enter into the narrator's thoughts and it is understandable, because it would undoubtedly force him to admit the effect that Erskine's letter had on him, despite his protests. Because the production of a dramatic effect, in this case, is it not inextricable from the manifestation by Erskine of a desire to reconvert the narrator? Especially given the narrator's aesthetic sensibilities and his friend's intimate understanding of his predilections and personality? As the pace continues to quicken in the narrator's thoughts, it becomes?