"He glanced at his own white taper fingers" (167-168) Taper- diminish gradually
“that crouches in the porphyry-room"(169) Porphyry- a very hard rock, anciently quarried in Egypt, having a dark, purplish-red groundmass containing small crystals of feldspar
“I will have absolutely nothing to do with it. I don’t care what shame comes on you. You deserve it all. I should not be sorry to see you disgraced, publicly disgraced. How dare you ask me, of all men in the world, to mix myself up in this horror? I should have thought you knew more about people’s characters. Your friend Lord Henry Wotton can’t have taught you much about psychology, whatever else he has taught you. Nothing will induce me to stir a step to help you” (173).
There are many different ideas that can be inferred from this quote. Obviously Alan does not want to help Dorian for a specific reason. Dorian must have wronged him in such a way that Alan feels no more connection to him. It was said that they used to be inseparable, but now it is quite the opposite. Alan said he would never have even entered Dorian’s house if it wasn’t a matter of life or death. One can only imagine what Dorian could have done to Alan. It must have been something awful just like how Dorian negatively affected the lives of so many others. There seems to be another underlying tone in this quote. Alan speaks of Lord Henry in a sort of negative tone, and most likely Lord Henry is seen as a bad person by Alan too. Alan would not have helped Dorian if it wasn’t for the blackmail that Dorian has over Alan. It will be very interesting how their relationship will unfold.
“Whatever my life is, he had more to do with the making or the marring of it than poor Harry has had. He may not have intended it, the result was the same” (173).
Dorian defends Harry in this quote. I don’t understand how Dorian can be this naive about Harry’s influence over him. He has changed over time and it is obvious to him through the ever-changing portrait. He must realize that Harry is the reason for this change, but he doesn’t. Instead he blames others, like Basil, for his actions. He says that Basil changed him more than Harry did. That is absurd! Harry was the worst influence over Dorian. He was the one who put the thoughts of everlasting beauty in Dorian’s head. All Basil did was paint the portrait of Dorian. Dorian is really distraught and far from the truth. I don’t know how or if he will ever see the truth. It will be interesting to see if he does, and how he comes about it.
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