"But first let me take a selfie"

In The Picture of Dorian Gray, Basil paints a beautiful picture of Dorian in his youth. Dorian "sells his soul" to stay young forever while the portrait ages. Some readers see the miraculatiy of the painting as a figment of Dorian's imagination and others take it literally. Dorian stares at his painting and as time goes on the man in the picture ages and looks unhappy and mean. In our society, people obsess over selfies. Whether it's #SelfieSunday or just any other random day that they feel like taking or posting a picture of themselves, people take multiple pictures then chose the one they like the most to post. After they take the picture and people start liking it, they begin to pick out their flaws. "My smile is awkward," "My eyes aren't the same size," etc. The flaws that people find in their selfies are physical. They try to hide them with different types of editing software. The flaws in Dorian's "selfie" were more related to his personality and his mistakes. All of his experience, wisdom, and bad choices were appearing in his painting for the preservation of his youthfulness. He hid the painting like people attempt to hide their imperfections. It's not going to work. No one is perfect. Beauty is subjective. I wouldn't sell my soul to stay young and beautiful. Paging is a part of life and we all make mistakes and can learn from them. Obsessing over beauty isn't going to make life easier for you. People don't want to hang out with them and be their friend just because they're pretty. Personality matters. The people who only care about appearances are the ones who will end up alone or hated in the end. 

Male vs. Female

Males and females, though they are considered equal in today's society, still have different views on certain subjects and are held to different standards depending on the situation. For example, men are still expected to pay for a woman on a date. They hold the door open for her which is supposed to be a nice gesture but some woman today feel it is unnecessary and suggests that they can't open a door for themselves. Mothers are often viewed as more important in the lives of their children than a father. At be because he should be the one making the money while the mother cares for the children. I was watching a television show called Parenthood a few weeks ago and the show contains a family with a single mother in which the son is struggling because he doesn't have a dad to help him with sports or girls. It also a family in which the mother is a lawyer and is at work all the time while the father is a stay at home dad who is very involved in his daughter's school and runs a play group for the children in her class. The father is in fact just as important as the mother. In The Awakening by Kate Chopin, Edna becomes sick of staying at home with her children all day and entertaining guests in the house while her husband works. She leaves to live her a house by herself and be free to do whatever she wants. The first Socratic Seminar for this book says to "discuss the influence of one's gender upon reading this novel." If a man reads this, he will most likely think that Edna was ungrateful for all of the things he had done for her. She doesn't have to work because her husband makes enough money to support the family. They may also think that she has it easier than the man does because the children even have a nanny. It would seem rude and selfish of her to leave her children and a "life of leisure" behind because she wasn't as happy as she used to be. For a woman, Edna's actions seem triumphant and inspiring. She took a stand to break the mold of society to make herself happy and accomplish what she wishes for herself. One's gender may have an impact on how they feel about the action of this novel.