Quote 25
"I have no terror of death. It is the coming of death that terrifies me. Its monstrous wings seem to wheel in the leaden air around me. Good heavens! don't you see a man moving behind the trees there, watching me, waiting for me?" (18.15)
The moment of Dorian's death turns out to be what frightens him most – why might this be? Could it possibly be the fear of judgment?
Quote 26
With a stifled sob the lad leaped from the couch, and, rushing over to Hallward, tore the knife out of his hand, and flung it to the end of the studio. "Don't, Basil, don't!" he cried. "It would be murder!" (2.32)
Dorian's view of art is an interestingly personal one – he sees the painting as part of himself, rather than as a purely aesthetic object.
Quote 27
"Harry," cried Dorian Gray, coming over and sitting down beside him, "why is it that I cannot feel this tragedy as much as I want to? I don't think I am heartless. Do you?"
"You have done too many foolish things during the last fortnight to be entitled to give yourself that name, Dorian," answered Lord Henry with his sweet melancholy smile.
The lad frowned. "I don't like that explanation, Harry," he rejoined, "but I am glad you don't think I am heartless. I am nothing of the kind. I know I am not. And yet I must admit that this thing that has happened does not affect me as it should. It seems to me to be simply like a wonderful ending to a wonderful play. It has all the terrible beauty of a Greek tragedy, a tragedy in which I took a great part, but by which I have not been wounded." (8.17)
Dorian continues to view life as Sibyl used to, as a kind of theatrical spectacle – he feels no emotional connection to the work of art, merely an interest and appreciation for it.