DG Ch. 14

"'You are mad, Dorian.' 'Ah! I was waiting for you to call me Dorian'"(172)

Dorian has become so consumed with himself that he does not matter in what context his name is spoken, but only that his name is spoken. In this quote his name is clearly being tarnished, but Dorian does not recognize what is happening. Because of his change in character, Dorian seeks the attention of others no matter if the attention is good or bad. As we have continually seen throughout the text, it is Dorian's selfish conduct that has drawn most of the attention towards him, and because of his selfish personality, Dorian only cares that he is spoken about which does not help his character at all.

“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 simply cannot admit his flaws. Instead of accepting that he has changed for the worse and deciding to do something about it, Dorian blames his negative influence on Basil, the one person who attempted to help him through his struggle. After all the struggle Dorian went through, Basil was the one person who truly cared about him and saw his true beauty. Dorian was blind to the feelings Basil had for him, and continued his free-fall to the bottom of the social ladder. Because of these facts, I believe that Dorian himself is most at fault for the changes that affected his life. Of course Henry had a large influence on his beliefs, but Dorian still could make choices on his own. He chose to listen to Henry and ignore Basil's warnings. He chose to continue his lifestyle and not admit his problems. Dorian is definitely most to blame for how his life turned out because he let things get out of control when he could have stopped it.